Gratitude Through Hard Times

Zvi Band founded Contactually back in 2011. An engineer and a CEO, he has taken Contactually from idea to a fast-moving startup that now powers over 208million relationships. The company has over 60 employees, millions in revenue, 12M+ in venture backing, numerous awards, and thousands of customers. As of Monday, February 25, 2019, Contactually entered into an agreement to be acquired by Compass.

Beyond Contactually, Zvi has served as a proponent of entrepreneurship in the DC region, founding DC Tech Meetup and ProudlyMadeInDC and serving as a mentor and advisor to numerous early-stage startups. Prior to launching Contactually, Zvi was the CTO of Workstreamer, acquired in 2009, and founded skeevisArts, a web development and design agency. Recently named to the 2019 Swanapoel Power 200, Zvi is three times named a Washingtonian Tech Titan and member of MindShare, the DC community’s exclusive forum for CEOs of emerging tech companies. Zvi is an active public speaker, participating in thought leadership panels at TechCocktail, WordPressDC, DC PHP, and DC RUG events, to name a few. He has been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Washington City Paper. His first book, Success is in Your Sphere was released on May 21, 2019. He received his B.S. in Computer Sciences and Economics from the University of Maryland, and lives in DC with his wife and daughter.

Check out what Zvi is up to at: https://www.contactually.com/
Check out and buy his book at: http://www.successisinyoursphere.com/

Ben Wright is Founder and CEO of Velocity Global, the leading provider of global business expansion solutions. The company is the first in the industry to provide end-to-end services that help companies expand globally using just one partner. Today, Velocity Global has over 120 employees with 10 international offices and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. In 2018, Wright was named Entrepreneur of the Year for the Mountain Desert Region by EY and his company ranked number 4 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America.

Check out what Ben is up to at: https://velocityglobal.com/

As CEO and President of SADA Systems, Tony Safoian firmly believes that technology can empower people to transform their world. To this end, he places innovation at the core of the business model, coupled with exceptional customer support and managed services. Under Safoian’s guidance, SADA has differentiated itself by proactively addressing a rapidly evolving market across Enterprise, SMB, Government and Education sectors, while anticipating the needs of its customers—often even before they do.

Safoian has transformed SADA into one of the world’s top business and technology consultancy and cloud services brokerage firms. As a Google Cloud launch partner and an award-winning Google Cloud Premier Partner, SADA enhanced its suite of product offerings, solutions and services providing consultative, cloud migration, deployment, change management and cloud managed services. Safoian’s continuous drive for innovation and growth has led SADA to develop cutting-edge applications and award-winning solutions for global brands.

Named a Finalist for Ernst and Young 2015 Entrepreneur of the Year award, Safoian has established himself as a visionary entrepreneur addressing the needs of the business, partners and customers.

Check out what Tony is up to at: https://sadasystems.com/
Here is the link to his Professor: https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2806

Nis Frome is the co-founder of Alpha, the product management platform that powers thousands of experiments for the world’s leading brands. He is the editor of Product Management Insider and the co-producer of This is Product Management, a podcast with 1M+ downloads. His articles have been published in Forbes, The Next Web, and UX Magazine.

In this conversation, we take a look back to his high school job in a pizza shop. While the position was under appreciated by many, the lessons learned in this pivotal time have affected his leadership style to this day.

Check out what is Nis is up to at: nisfro.me and alphahq.com

Henry Schuck is the CEO and Co-Founder of DiscoverOrg and CEO of ZoomInfo. Under Henry’s leadership, DiscoverOrg has delivered unprecedented growth and innovation – landing on the Inc. 5000 list over the past 8 years and earning multiple awards as the top sales and marketing intelligence tool in the industry. Leading a talented team, he is focused on constantly enhancing DiscoverOrg’s proven ability to accelerate pipeline and revenue growth for its customers.

Henry is a cum laude graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he was selected in 2013 as the Honors College Alumni of the Year. He also holds a juris doctorate degree cum laude from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and has studied comparative law at Oxford University.

Check out what Henry is up to at: https://discoverorg.com/ and https://www.zoominfo.com/

Pat Swisher founded Swisher Hygiene in 1983. In 1994, he went on to become Forbes Up and Coming Entrepreneur, as well as becoming a top Semi-Finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and given The Distinguished Alumni Award Appalachian State. In 1995 he was awarded Top Entrepreneur by Success Magazine. As the CEO of Swisher Hygiene, he was voted as one of the Top 100 Franchises in the world by Entrepreneur Magazine for 5 consecutive years. He is now the CEO and founder of Enviro-Master Services, which has acquired ownership of Swisher Hygiene. He graduated with a BS from Appalachian State.

Check Enviro-Master out at: https://www.enviro-master.info/

Ronn Torossian is the founder and CEO of 5W Public Relations, one of the 10 largest independently-owned PR firms in the United States. With over 20 years of experience crafting and executing powerful narratives, Torossian is one of America’s most prolific and well-respected Public Relations professionals.

Since founding 5WPR in 2003, he has overseen the company’s dynamic growth, expanding the company to more than 175 professionals in the company’s headquarters in the iconic Helmsley Building in Manhattan. With clients spanning the corporate, technology, and consumer sectors, in addition to a robust crisis, digital marketing and public affairs offerings, 5WPR is regularly recognized as an industry leader and has been named “PR Agency of the Year” by the American Business Awards on multiple occasions.

Throughout his career, Torossian has worked with some of the world’s most visible companies, brands and organizations. His roster of client experience includes work forL’Oréal, Unilever, Walgreens, SAP NS2, Sparkling Ice, KRUPS, Zeta Global, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Wendy Williams, and others. He also has represented top global brands including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Microsoft.

His strategic, resourceful approach has been recognized with numerous awards including being named the Stevie’s American Business Awards 2019 Entrepreneur of the Year, the ABA PR Executive of the Year and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalist. Torossian is known as one of the country’s foremost experts on crisis communications, and is called on to counsel blue chip companies, top business executives and entrepreneurs both in the United States and worldwide.

Torossian has lectured on crisis PR at Harvard Business School, has appeared on CNN & CNBC, was named to PR Week’s “40 under Forty” list, is a contributing columnist for Forbes and the New York Observer, and his book, “For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results With Game-Changing Public Relations” is an industry best-seller.

A NYC native, Torossian lives in Manhattan with his children. He is a member of Young Presidents Organization (YPO), and active in numerous charities.

Steven has a BS in Computer Science from Fordham University and a JD from the Pace University School of Law. As the Chief Operating Officer, he is the driving force behind day to day operations, strategic implementation, and execution at The Credit Pros. Also acting as an EOS Integrator, he ensures that solutions are reached for the tough issues through productive meetings, impactful off-sites, consistent vision, clear processes, and a healthy team. He holds Leadership accountable, and provides a steadying force for TCP staff in light of a fast-moving, complex, and interconnected business. Steven ensures clarity by over-communicating the strategic plan, mission, core values, and BHAG. He loves discussing the topic of leadership, is always interested in learning more, and believes, as Peter Drucker did, that “culture eats strategy for breakfast." To Steven, professional success can only really be measured by the development of a team and their ability to successfully overcome progressively greater challenges. He has been married for 10 years to the love of his life, Shirin, and has two phenomenal kids.



The Credit Pros isn’t only one of the nation’s best credit repair companies… it is also one of the best companies to work for. TCP has amassed awards for company culture, being a best place to work, and also for the rapid growth necessary to be on the Inc. 5,000 five years in a row.

As a 25-year veteran of the payments industry, Ralph, CEO and board member of BlueSnap, has led BlueSnap to be a payments leader in Global eCommerce. Ralph has spent his career creating products for retailers, processors and financial institutions, while growing both public and private companies.

BlueSnap is a global payments company that looks at eCommerce a little differently. They are payment experts, veteran developers, technologists, and business professionals who are globally minded, customer focused, and constantly driven to find a better way.

Check them out at: home.bluesnap.com

Working with Fortune 500 companies including Microsoft, Acer, Amazon, Cisco, McKinsey, HTC, Google, AT&T, Sony, and Symantec, Selina has served as the digital partner for several of the most illustrious brands in the world.

In 2009, after 15+ years in the industry working both the client and agency side, Selina founded Rational Interaction, a full-service integrated digital agency with a strategic mindset at its core. In founding Rational, Selina actualized a dream she had since childhood: to own and build an award-winning agency. Rational was built on two guiding principles: helping its clients’ businesses grow and doing so with strategic insight and creative excellence.

As founding principal and chief creative officer, Selina has helped transform Rational into one of the fastest-growing, most successful integrated marketing services companies in the Pacific Northwest. Since launching in 2009, Rational has grown from a two-person startup into a multi-discipline integrated agency with over 100 team members. The company has achieved unwavering year-over-year growth, including 10X top-line growth and a 9X increase in employees.

Today, Rational is the recipient of numerous awards, recently selected as one of Inc.’s Fastest-Growing Companies, The Puget Sound Business Journal’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies and Best Places to Work in Washington, and Seattle Business Magazine’s Best Companies to Work For.

When not spending time in the agency, Selina can be found walking her dogs around Queen Anne or eating and drinking at one of the many foodie spots in Seattle.