Making Waves at C-Level: Business Tips for Executives, Leaders, and Entrepreneurs

This episode is co-produced with the Austin Technology Council. ATC is a 30 year old association focused on promoting and facilitating growth of technology companies in Central Texas. Over the past three decades the business ecosystem in Austin has changed, and ATC is actively changing, too.  Learn more at https://AustinTechnologyCouncil.org.

This is a great conversation with Sarah Jones Simmer about resilience and the courage to show up. Sarah has a wonderful story that lead her from majoring in music to the CEO of a leading digital health company innovating in the weight space. You must hear this interview!  

Sarah Jones Simmer will be the featured Keynote Speaker at the Austin Technology Council's CEO Summit on October 17, 2022. If you are a C-Suite executive, you will want to be sure to be present for this event in Austin, Texas. 

About Sarah Jones Simmer

Sarah Jones Simmer is an executive, investor, board member and C-level operator. In September 2021, she joined Found as CEO, with a mission to make evidence-based, sustainable weight care accessible for all. Found is quickly emerging as a leader with its innovative approach to weight loss by leveraging the best of modern medicine with personalized support.

Prior to Found, Sarah was an executive at Bumble, the women-first social networking app for four years. From 2017-2020, she was the Chief Operating Officer of the Bumble app, where she was responsible for core strategy, international growth, marketing initiatives, and business operations, as well as the expansion of Bumble’s rapidly growing team. Sarah also led the investment strategy for the Bumble Fund, Bumble's early-stage investing vehicle launched in 2018, focused on the next generation of women-led businesses.

Sarah has spoken at Dreamforce, SXSW, Techcrunch Disrupt, Traction, the Global Partnership for Education, and UN special sessions on topics ranging from venture investing to girls’ and women’s rights to the future of ethical business, and the challenges and opportunities of scaling rapid growth businesses. She has a Masters’ in Public Policy from Northwestern University. She used to run marathons and has completed an Ironman, but now spends her time outside of work raising two young daughters.

About Found: 

Found is an evidence-based weight care solution that combines the best of modern medicine with personalized coaching and community. Centered around clinical care and lasting behavior change, Found provides its members with a comprehensive weight loss program that delivers long term, sustainable results. Found designs personalized treatments around every factor that makes people unique — from biology, medical history, mental health, existent lifestyle, goals, and more. Found’s members are supported by the best of consumer technology, and a team that includes doctors to prescribe safe medication, and coaches to guide them on nutrition, movement, sleep, and emotional health. For more information, visit www.joinfound.com.

https://thomsinger.com/podcast/sarah-jones-simmer

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In this episode Thom Singer talks to Carlos Martin from macami.ai. They talk about the future of AI and RPA as well as why Austin, Texas is a great place for business. 

This episode is co-produced with the Austin Technology Council. ATC is a 30 year old association focused on promoting and facilitating growth of technology companies in Central Texas. Over the past three decades the business ecosystem in Austin has changed, and ATC is actively changing, too.  Learn more at https://AustinTechnology Council.org.

About Carlos Martin:

Carlos Martin is the CEO of macami.ai, a company focused in bringing efficiency to the enterprise by leveraging Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and AI. Formerly Director of Strategic Alliances for Brazil for the company Blue Prism, which pioneered the RPA market, and where he worked for 5+ years. Carlos has a degree in Computer Science and a Master’s in Technology Commercialization from UT Austin. He has more than 20 years in IT with a solid experience in technology, systems, problem solving, research and business strategy.

Carlos is the author of the upcoming book “The Efficient Enterprise”, which will discuss topics on how to leverage these technologies for bring exponential benefits to business.

About macami.ai:

macami.ai is an AI consultancy headquartered in Cedar Park, Texas that demystifies the use of artificial intelligence and robotic process automation to make businesses more efficient and allow them to scale effectively. The founders have trained and mentored the top consulting firms on best case use of AI and practices of automation. macami.ai analyzes companies’ financials and the cost of business processes with a top down approach to recommend and execute simple financial and software methodologies that incorporate AI and RPA technology. The company will also be providing free trainings online and within local communities on spotting financial scams.

https://thomsinger.com/podcast/macami-ai

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In this episode of the "Making Waves at C-Level" podcast, we discuss working with your spouse or significant other. In this entrepreneur focused world, many people start businesses with people together. But what happens when that person is the love of your life? Terry Brock and Gina Carr sit down with Thom Singer to talk about how they manage business and life.

About Gina Carr

Gina Carr works with business leaders to leverage Web3 technologies for more impact, influence, and income.

Web3 tech includes blockchains, the Metaverse (virtual reality), cryptocurrencies, NFTs, artificial intelligence, and other powerful tools. 

Gina is on a mission to help business leaders use these tools to grow their businesses in a way that significantly benefits all stakeholders. Known as “The Tribe Builder,” Gina helps passionate people build powerful tribes of raving fans.

A serial entrepreneur, Gina has created several businesses including Video Rock Starz, an award-winning real estate company, and a chain of community magazines.

Gina is an MBA graduate of the Harvard Business School and an industrial and systems engineering graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Gina was the CEO of TEDxDupreePark. 

A native Atlantan, she now lives in Orlando with her fiance, Terry Brock. Gina is a passionate advocate for animals, freedom, and plant-based living!

About Terry Brock

Today, more than ever, you need to know about what is happening with technology and business and how to benefit from the changes.

Terry Brock is ideally suited to help you understand what is happening and how to take advantage of the opportunities. He is a professional speaker who works with clients showing them how to use tech to get the results they want.

He’s a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame, has earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation, and has received the highest award available from the National Speakers Association, the Cavett. He recently was asked by Ace Hardware to be their Chief Retail Advisor training their retailers around the world in video. His clients include sole proprietors to Fortune 10 companies.

Most recently he is regularly asked to speak about Bitcoin, Web3, and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

https://thomsinger.com/podcast/working-with-spouse

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This episode was produced in partnership with the Austin Technology Council. ATC is a 30 year old association focused on promoting and facilitating growth of technology companies in Central Texas. Over the past three decades the business ecosystem in Austin has changed, and ATC is actively changing, too. Learn more at https://AustinTechnology Council.org.

Today's guest is Carolyn Jenkins, the co-founder and CEO of We Are Here. In this interview she shares her ideas around resilience and how individuals and bosses can better understand the need for resilience in the workplace (and life). She has a long history working in tech companies, and has held many roles from HR, COO, Chief Product Officer, and CEO.  

Carolyn also shares her points of view on the city of Austin: past, present, and future....and why the city continues to grow and thrive.  

About Carolyn Trevino Jenkins

Carolyn Jenkins is an award-winning technology executive and entrepreneur who has an extensive and diverse background. Teams she’s led have won international recognition for outstanding customer success and national awards for cutting edge work in HR. Several of her companies have won growth awards.

Ms. Jenkins believes a culture of strategy, execution, and accountability can be achieved with servant and compassionate leadership. While CEO of Khorus software, Carolyn was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has first-hand experience in how challenging it is to balance a cancer journey with the demands of family and work. She began advocating for early detection and helping those with fewer resources while on that journey. Here is a mission driven endeavor for Carolyn. In her spare time, she mentors emerging leaders, advises startups, and volunteers with several local non-profits.

Https://thomsinger.com/podcast/carolyn-jenkins

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In this episode of "Making Waves at C-Level", Thom talks to James Howard, the founder of the Black Inventors Hall of Fame. They talk about his new documentary, "Black Inventors Got Game", race, and success.  

About James Howard

James Howard is a, lecturer, design historian, industrial designer/inventor of some 300 products with 18 patents. He is currently the owner/operator of Entrepreneurial U, a specialty private career school of Design Thinking. One of his courses, “Bridge” Exploring New Career Pathways, takes students through the problem solving processes: problem/necessity, solution, and execution and leads them to new career pathways and job opportunities.

While teaching for more twenty years at The County College of Morris in New Jersey, Professor Howard was an owner/operator of the award-winning firm Howard Design., an industrial design practices whose clients included Coca-Cola, Colgate Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Nabisco, Pfizer and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The New Jersey based company was one of the longest running and most profitable minority owned design firms in the country

James Howard serves as Executive Director of THE BLACK INVENTORS HALL OF FAME, (www.BIHOF.org) a virtual museum), devoted to immortalizing African Americans whose noteworthy inventions have improved lives yet gone unnoticed. James also serves on the Board of Directors for the Unites States Intellectual Property Alliance, and he is presently assisting the National Inventors Hall of Fame curate their very first Black Inventors exhibit, to be open to the public in the fall of 2021. For four years James has served as a Subject matter expert on Design thinking for the Keller Innovation Center at Princeton University. He is also a visiting lecturer for the University of Texas Center for Integrated Design, James earned a Master and Bachelor of Fine Arts -Industrial Design at University of Illinois, Urbana, IL. James was recently awarded Honorary member of the National Academy Of Inventors.

Contact James at [email protected]

https://bihof.org

https://thomsinger.com/podcast/black-inventors-got-game

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This episode is co-produced with the Austin Technology Council. ATC is a 30 year old association focused on promoting and facilitating growth of technology companies in Central Texas. Over the past three decades the business ecosystem in Austin has changed, and ATC is actively changing, too.  Learn more at https://AustinTechnology Council.org.

About Kurt Wilkin

Kurt Wilkin is a trusted advisor for high-growth, middle-market companies as founder and managing partner of Bee Cave Capital and Co-Founder of HireBetter. With a passion for growth and a hard-earned, proven set of tools in his toolbox, Wilkin works with other entrepreneurs and CEOs to help them escape the start-up mindset and achieve next-level success.

His debut book, Who’s Your Mike?, reveals how entrepreneurs can transform their companies by minimizing hiring mistakes, investing in high potentials and making the difficult decisions to drop dead weight from their team. Wilkin draws on his extensive experience launching and growing businesses to help leaders navigate people challenges and tap into the power of making better hires. By putting the right talent in the right places—and pinpointing who is holding the company back—entrepreneurs can unlock meaningful change that will enable their organization to grow, scale and thrive.

Over more than 20 years, Wilkin has built long-lasting partnerships and helped hundreds of business leaders achieve their goals. He began his career in accounting, serving at Ernst & Young before joining an online retailer and discovering his aptitude for entrepreneurship. Wilkin founded The Controller Group (TCG) in 2001 and successfully sold it to Tatum in 2006. During those five years he rapidly grew the firm’s revenue, growing it into a $20 million company with more than 100 employees. During his time at TCG, he also co-founded Bee Cave Capital, a Texas-based early-stage venture group where he serves as managing partner.

Wilkin is an alumnus of the University of Arkansas, a graduate of Stagen Leadership Academy, a certified public accountant and an officer of Young Presidents’ Organization. Passionate about entrepreneurship, he is an active angel investor and serves on the boards of more organizations than he’d care to count. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three sons. Visit www.kurtwilkin.com for more information.

About "Who's Your Mike?" Book

In Who’s Your Mike?, Wilkin aims to help readers put into practice techniques he’s spent decades fine-tuning. His no-BS guide isn’t the traditional business book: every chapter guides the reader through a different people challenge, so readers can quickly identify how to solve troubling scenarios. In fact, he encourages readers not to read the whole thing. It’s written a la “choose your own adventure,” so entrepreneurs can pick and choose the sections that will be most helpful to them.

Who’s Your Mike? tells the stories of both Wilkin’s own experience building a community of growth-minded leaders and people pitfalls he’s witnessed first-hand from other business leaders. In Who’s Your Mike?, readers will learn:

● That there’s no secret formula to hiring smart – we all make hiring mistakes

● If they’ve outgrown their current team, and what to do next

● How to handle the people they’re sure to meet on their entrepreneurial journey

Kurt has called Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas home his entire life and proudly claims to have “Redneck, Cajun, and Hillbilly rolled into one beautiful package.” That might explain his natural BS detector. He is the father of three active boys who don’t let him take life too seriously, and he resides in Austin with his wife, Carrie, who didn’t think he could focus long enough to get the grocery list right, much less write an entire book!

https://thomsinger.com/podcast/kurt-wilkin

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This episode was produced in partnership with the Austin Technology Council. ATC is a 30 year old association focused on promoting and facilitating growth of technology companies in Central Texas. Over the past three decades the business ecosystem in Austin has changed, and ATC is actively changing, too.  Learn more at https://AustinTechnology Council.org.

Today's guest is Brain Beck, the co-founder and managing partner at Sabio Tech Partners. In this interview he shares his experience from the past five years in working with private equity firms, and companies, in reviewing and improving their tech to ensure better growth and valuations.

About Brian Beck

Brian Beck is the Managing Partner and co-founder of Sabio Tech Partners, an

Austin-based technology advisory firm focused on helping middle market private

equity firms achieve greater investment valuation with reduced risk. In today’s

world, every company uses technology to both run the business and to produce

its products and services. Brian’s core belief is that all firms considering

significant investments must factor technology into their diligence process,

because “what you don’t know will hurt you.” Leveraging the expertise and

knowledge gained over a long career in the technology and financial services

industries, Sabio has developed an innovative approach and toolset, called

“Quality of Technology” (Q·of·T), specifically designed to enable private equity

firms to conduct robust and rapid technology diligence of their potential

acquisitions.

Though Brian has worked and traveled extensively in Canada, Europe, India and

Asia Pacific, he has called Austin home for the past 20 years and is passionate

about the Austin food scene, its new professional soccer club (Austin FC), and

grilling on his back porch.

https://thomsinger.com/podcast/sabio-tech-partners 

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For episode 726 of "Making Waves at C-Level", host Thom Singer sits down with a strategy professor from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Ron Adner has written two unbelievably great books and loves everything about strategy. His newest book, "Winning the Right Game: How to disrupt, defend, and deliver in a changing world" is a MUST READ for everyone in leadership.

In this conversation they talk about changes from classic disruption and ecosystem disruption. How leaders can navigate these changes. They also touch on how this new world impacts companies and industries. 

About Ron Adner

Ron Adner is The Nathaniel D’1906 and Martha E. Leverone Memorial Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Prior to joining Tuck, he was the Akzo-Nobel Fellow of Strategic Management at INSEAD, where he served on the faculty for ten years.

Dr. Adner’s award winning research introduces a new perspective on value creation and competition when industry boundaries break down in the wake of ecosystem disruption. His two books, The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See that Others Miss (2012) and Winning the Right Game: How to Disrupt, Defend, and Deliver in a Changing World (October 2021) have been heralded as landmark contributions to the strategy literature. Clayton Christensen (Innovator’s Dilemma) described his work as “Path-breaking” and Jim Collins (Good to Great) has called him “One of our most important strategic thinkers for the 21st century.”

Dr. Adner has held editorial and board positions in the leading peer-reviewed academic journals of his field, including the Academy of Management Review, Management Science, the Strategic Management Journal, and Strategy Science. His managerial articles have been published in outlets including the Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Forbes, Wired, The Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal .

Dr. Adner’s work is a rare convergence of rigorous academic research, profound managerial insights, and practical, powerful frameworks. Applied, tested, and validated in some of the world’s leading companies, his approach to seeing the bigger strategy picture has been transformative in driving effective innovation in both the corporate and social sectors.

Dr. Adner is founder of the Strategy Insight Group, whose mission is to help clients eliminate strategy blind spots and build robust go-to-market strategies in complex ecosystems, internal and external. He is a keynote speaker, consultant, and advisor to companies around the world. His engagements have transformed strategy at Fortune 500 firms as well as at entrepreneurial startups. He is an accomplished teacher and a seven-time winner of the annual, student-voted, Award for Teaching Excellence at both Tuck and INSEAD (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2011, 2019).

Dr. Adner holds a PhD and an MA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

https://thomsinger.com/podcast/ron-adner

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How can apps make you more productive? Don't know the answer? Then you need to know Beth Z. She is "Your Nerdy Best Friend" and she had dedicated her life to knowing all the apps you can have on your phone that will help you get more done (and maybe have some fun, too).

About Beth Z

Speaker, Author, Nerd...

(Not necessarily in that order)

To find the right technology that makes your life easier, you could...

Beth Z cuts through the noise to bring you tech tips, tools and tricks for productive productivity, sexy social media, tolerable to-do lists and truly collaborative collaborations. Beth takes the fear out of technology and helps you get right to the point with effective apps and tools that you can integrate into your everyday work and life.

About Nerd365: A Year of APP-ortunities to Upgrade Your Life

​Want to save time, money and hassle with today’s latest technology?

Stop wasting time resetting lost passwords, deleting unwanted emails and attending boring online meetings.

Beth Z, aka Your Nerdy Best Friend, has done the tech homework for you with more than 400 tested tech tools, tips and apps that make your life easier.

Nerd365 divides the tips into bite-sized insights so you can digest the new tech all year long and find the right app for the right occasion. Whether you need to track your packages and deliveries on National Package Tracking Day or keep your web searches private on Ask a Stupid Question Day, we have the app for you. And if you want to transform your complicated data into helpful infographics for Information Overload Day, we can help with that, too.

http://thomsinger.com/podcast/beth-ziesenis-2

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What is the biggest weakness of leadership, and what can leaders do for their organizations? Dr. Rick Goodman shares how his clients work on culture and transformational leadership.  

Dr. Rick Goodman has been a team physician for a professional sports team who worked on both brains and body. He is a serial entrepreneur who works with organizational teams who want to lead and grow their business.

In this episode Thom and Rick chat about business success and how to develop leaders.  

About Dr. Rick Goodman

Since 1988, Dr. Rick Goodman has been keynote speaking, facilitating and working with small companies with only a few people all the way up to big behemoths that dominate their industries.

Rick’s presentations are based on real-life experiences with one focus – for audiences and attendees to achieve transformational results in their lives!

In 2008, Dr Rick Goodman wrote a widely acclaimed book – “Living a Championship Life: A Game Plan for Success,” based on my experiences while serving as a medical staff member of the St. Louis Rams (NFL) and the St. Louis Ambush (ISL).

Dr Rick’s keynotes are high-energy and jam-packed full of content that anyone can immediately implement into their life

https://thomsinger.com/podcast/rick-goodman

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