What CEOs Talk About

Jodi-Tatiana Charles is the founder and “Brandographer™” of LCG Brands, a unique brand and marketing consulting firm dedicated to educating entrepreneurs, small/medium businesses (SMB/SMEs), and international professionals on the importance of growing their personal and corporate brands.

She brings 30+ years of executive leadership in marketing, branding and communication successes with high profile organizations, including the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, MassChallenge Inc., Massachusetts Governor’s Office, Massachusetts Conference for Women, NBC Universal/Comcast TV, and Clear Channel Communications/iHeart Radio. 

When not absorbed with all things marketing, Jodi-Tatiana dedicates her time to children, elderly and cancer causes, through road races, mentoring and volunteering.

In this episode….

Jodi-Tatiana Charles is a Marketing Strategist, Global Speaker, Podcast Host, and Author. She founded LCG Brands and is passionate about educating entrepreneurs and business owners about growing their brands and thinking about their legacies, both personal and professional. Born in Haiti to Haitian parents, she is immensely proud of both her Haitian heritage and the endless sense of curiosity she was born with that matched the devotion to seeking knowledge and learning instilled in her by her parents.

When Jodi-Tatiana was a child and wanted new clothes, her tailor father brought home sewing machines. He maintained that every day you wake up and learn something. This thirst for knowledge and profound sense of needing to learn and share what she’s learned has driven her from a young age. She has earned nine degrees and pushed for success not just for her own career but so she can pass on what she knows to share her growing legacy with others. This is the message she stresses, as well: to learn and share what you know.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, Martin Hunter and Jodi-Tatiana Charles talk about what a legacy truly means, how to expand your legacy by sharing what you know based on what your passions are, and how to design your own path on your own terms. Jodi-Tatiana encourages the pursuit of personal legacy and Martin relates how every inspiring thing she says can be applied directly to your business as a CEO.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

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Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Didi Dayton is a partner at Wing Venture Capital responsible for Customer Network and Business Development. Prior to Wing, Didi spent 20 years in the Cyber Security field specializing in building Go-To-Market and routes to market for hyper-growth organizations such as Websense, FireEye, Tanium and Cylance.

She successfully led sales and channel teams at various Companies like Symantec, Arrow and Cylance (now Blackberry) through 12 M&A and integration activities. Her focus and execution on Alliances and Managed Service Providers directly assisted FireEye with a successful IPO. She has been awarded the prestigious Channel Chief award 4 years running, the 50 most Influential Channel Chiefs and in 2019 Didi made it to the Power 100 Women of the Channel. More recently, Didi has acted as advisor to the board of JASK and 1011 Ventures.

In this episode….

Didi Dayton grew up in Europe and after schooling in France, worked her way through sales to leadership. She has always been fascinated with “human behavior, psychology, and what motivates people” which she says is what led her to sales. Her specialty is operationalizing a business: keeping things moving forward and in understanding the psychology of that business. She is currently a partner at Wing Venture Capital where she says she runs community for the firm, in effect matchmaking between IT buyers, advisors, and portfolio companies. 

Didi’s work in venture capital requires a gaze set to the future and she says Wing’s very name indicates that they operate as a co-pilot with their companies and, like her, are passionate about innovation. She understands the vast amount of data, research, and analysis required to be effective and uses this informational ability to assist people in solving problems. The ability to compute on the fly, catalog and analyze data, and defend a position are key skills in the job. Yet both Didi and Martin stress that attitude matters most.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Didi Dayton break down what venture capital actually is and what it does, why every successful executive or leader needs a “whisperer”, and the innate value in learning how to tell a good story. They discuss the prevalent concern of burnout within the industry and draw comparisons between the intricacies of teenage sports teamwork to early stage business dynamics.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

A successful entrepreneur in his twenties, Rob Follows sold his marketing and strategy business in 1992 for 27x EBITDA. He was thrilled with that — until he found out the buyer would have paid 300% more for it. That started his journey to create STS Capital Partners, a unique M&A advisor firm focused on making extraordinary exits possible.

As well as being CEO and Founder of STS Capital Partners, Rob is also the founding Chairman of Altruvest Charitable Services, a Canadian charity that provides training and tools to improve the performance of charitable organizations so they can give more to their causes. In 1998, Rob received the Top 40 Under 40 leadership award for the work he had done in creating 1,000 new jobs in Canada, as well as founding and growing Altruvest Charitable Services which has now contributed over $10 million since its establishment.

Shamil Hargovan is an entrepreneur, CEO, and brand leader who has built award-winning products and services, consumer devices, B2B platforms, and applications generating over $4B in direct revenues. As STS Managing Director, Shamil leads sell-side M&A deals, supporting business owners and founders on their journey to a strategic exit.

Prior to STS, Shamil co-founded Wiivv Wearables, and as CEO, grew the company 68x in three years to become the largest supplier of custom 3D printed footwear worldwide. He drove an award-winning e-commerce experience and led commercial partnerships with international governments and sports, athleisure, and wellness brands, including Dr. Scholl’s and Lululemon.

In this episode….

Rob Follows is Founder and Chairman of STS Capital. As a skilled young entrepreneur he sold his business for great profit in 1992 only to learn the buyer would have paid much more: Rob is now driven to help other entrepreneurs achieve full value for their business. Shamil Hargovan works at STS Capital as Managing Director, North America. Like Rob, Shamil is an entrepreneur who grew his business into great success and only recently exited, in 2020, to a private strategic capital group. He is inspired by Rob’s massively transformative purpose of creating billions of dollars of new philanthropic capital.

Rob and Shamil explain how STS Capital fills a need in the business world by employing entrepreneurs who have all sold businesses, who understand the entrepreneurial spirit and emotional needs of their clients and want to provide real valuable exit strategies for them. While Rob focuses a lot of energy on finding the best people for STS and developing those people, Shamil leads sell-side deals and works to ensure business owners are heard and advised soundly without focusing solely on the financial end of things.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, Martin Hunter talks with Rob Follows and Shamil Hargovan about the many things entrepreneurs should consider while on the journey towards selling their business. Rob explains how they are really “sell-side advisors” more than M&A, Shamil details how collaborative the process is between STS and both buyer and seller, and both have a desire for business owners to be able to trust the process with STS.

Isabelle Mercier-Turcotte, CO-Founder LeapZone Strategies, is a brand builder, business performance catalyst, and one of the best-selling authors of the business and marketing book titled, The Next Big Thing: Top Trends From Today's Leading Experts to Help You Dominate the New Economy. She has a relentless passion for helping entrepreneurs and small business owners raise the bar and expand their comfort zone to create outstanding brand experiences.

Margarita Romano, CO-Founder LeapZone Strategies, is an Equine-Guided Strategist. She is Isabelle’s partner not only in business but in life. A “super greek” processor helping passionate entrepreneurs connect the dots to lead fulfilling lives driven by heart and soul. She partners with horses to help CEOs and business leaders to overcome obstacles in the way of success. She is also the author of Sitting On The Fence - How To Love Without Limits available on Amazon.

In this episode….

Isabelle Mercier-Turcotte and Margarita Romano met at Concordia University in Montreal. After watching French-speaking Isabelle struggle with an English conversation on the first day of school Margarita stepped in as a bilingual speaker to assist. They founded their business together in their teens and have been business and life partners for 30 years.

Isabelle and Margarita talk about energy and connecting the heart and mind. Using their own story and experiences to articulate the journey to success and happiness, they go into detail about how emotions play a very large part in business and the customer experience. They talk about how we can take our business and connect the heart and mind of the customer. Also how we need to understand what type of experience we want to give and be able to communicate it through our efforts.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, Martin Hunter welcomes back Isabelle Mercier-Turcotte this time with her partner in business and in life Margarita Romano (Maggie). The three discuss the importance of the journey from your head to your heart in life, business, and with customers. Isabelle and Margarita founded LeapZone Strategies, dedicated to helping people build extraordinary businesses and brands.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Dominic Rubino is a successful entrepreneur, business coach, and podcaster. With his companies, Profit Tool Belt and Cabinet Makers Profit System, Dominic helps business owners and contractors who want more—more time, more money, more team, and more strategy. He has built, grown, and sold a number of businesses over the past 20 years, and now he wants to help other entrepreneurs do the same. 

Dominic is also an active speaker and the author of the book, Construction Millionaire Secrets.

In this episode….

(NSFW) Dominic Rubino, author of Construction Millionaire Secrets and Martin Hunter’s very first podcast guest, returns to visit with Martin and discuss family, career, and podcast successes. According to Dominic, this is the year of “more”: more family, fishing, faith, and whatever you need more of in your life.

Dominic reflects on past jobs he’s had and what he learned from them, and he and Martin discuss the business challenges he’s faced. They share stories from their long friendship and from their leisure times spent together as well as focusing on how CEOs should look for balance in their lives and not simply get swept up in working non-stop.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Dominic Rubino, Martin’s first-ever podcast guest, address business and personal challenges, work/life balance, share stories from their friendship, and delve into what matters. They share concern for the environment and highlight companies doing good work in ecological solutions. And they explore their individual podcast successes: the hard word that pays off and the interesting people they get to meet.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Damien Eftekhar is an experienced and versatile Executive Chef. He has a proven history of revenue-generating product development, R&D, Quality Assurance and customer relations in the food production industry. Damien got into the industry because he truly enjoys it and is skilled in a wide array of aspects therein from Product Development and Project Management through to Menu Engineering and cooking. He is a strong, customer-focused professional with a Bachelor of Science focused in Business/Management from University of Phoenix and an Associates Degree in Culinary Arts from Kendall College, Chicago, Illinois.

In this episode….

Damien Eftekhar grew up with a multi-cultural background courtesy of a grandfather who was ambassador to the Shah of Iran. His grandfather took Damien’s father with him to places like Baghdad, Madrid, Rome, and Paris so when his father met and married his mother, a Michigan farm girl, he infused the family with a love of culture, food, and learning. Damien studied liberal arts in college but found he didn’t love it so he took a few years off then started working in restaurants as server and bartender before moving on to work in “busy nasty brutal kitchen” where he discovered he loved every minute of it. So he went to Culinary School and, quote, “I’ve found my calling”.

Damien doesn’t work in the food industry for money or even a love of food, though he does love food: instead his primary drive is making people happy and he believes that food can make the most people happy. He has actively sought out any and all kitchen experiences he could have, from French and Italian to seafood restaurants, and all manner of fine dining kitchens. It was when he married and became a stepfather that he moved from restaurants to a corporate chef career so he could have more time to spend with his family.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and chef Damien Eftekhar discuss how much he enjoyed learning in difficult kitchen environments and relate many of his stressful chef experiences and fifteen hour days to the same highs and lows of entrepreneurship. They dive into why Damien believes restaurants will bounce back after COVID, how there’s beauty even in fast food, and Damien’s hope that hospitality industry workers will get both more respect and better pay going forward.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Tim and Su-Mari Hill are Co-CEOs of iLola Teas. Together they started their CEO journey with the opening of Nineteen02 Stores and Teahouse and now operate Pure+ Kombucha and the newly opened iLola. Tim and Su-Mari believe that tea is used as a starting point between two friends. A safe place found in the tradition of the convergence of moments.

Tim and Su-Mari work as a family, together in their business. They have survived the sleepless nights, raising twins and overcoming close losses. Staying healthy and becoming stronger, together, is at the foundation of all of their choices. Tim is also the Co-Founder and ‘Out of the Box’ thinker who brought the Tea Disc Humidor to life and loves bold ideas and innovation. Su-Mari is the Co-Founder and Chief Disrupter who invented Tea Discs and is actively involved in product innovation.

In this episode….

Tim and Su-Mari Hill have worked together as business partners for over ten years now in addition to being marriage partners and raising five children together. They credit their success in togetherness partly to long-distance dating early on which taught them the value of talking things out and knowing when to let things go and move on. They don’t stay mad for long and have learned through evaluating what is truly of consequence to have a lot of grace.

Kombucha and tea weren’t always on their radar, however. In fact Tim started out as an accountant until one day Su-Mari came to him and said they should open up a shop. Six weeks later they did. From a tea shop on the Sunshine Coast through Pure+ Kombucha, Pick Me, and now iLOLA, Tim and Su-Mari do not regard anything tried and stopped as a failure but merely part of an overall learning curve. Everything is part of the greater journey.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter talks with Tim and Su-Mari about their close partnerships both in life and business and how they actively disregard failure in favor of viewing things as being prepared to learn on a daily basis. They share how they pass this lesson on to their children as well. Su-Mari explains the importance of knowing your why in business and Tim talks about innovation and creativity, all factors that led them to iLOLA and their current success.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Neil Krauter Sr. currently works as part of the Executive Committee at Risk Strategies, the 11th largest insurance broker in operation. Earlier in his career he worked as Vice Chairman of Aon Risk Services in New York and Global Practice Leader of AMAG, the Aon Merger & Acquisition Group. After a short retirement at age 40, Neil Krauter re-entered the brokerage world with The Krauter Group in 2004.

Neil Krauter Sr. graduated from Franklin & Marshall College where he earned a BA in economics.

In this episode….

Neil Krauter Sr. grew up in Rumson, New Jersey and was the first male Krauter to graduate from college. He was always a competitive person and even in his youth was determined to succeed. During his time in Cub Scouts he won the peanut brittle fundraising sales contest in his first year with a sales total nobody in the country had ever reached. The second year he sold ten times as much. His secret was to sell the brittle two towns away where there were no Cub Scouts.
This sense of ambition and of doing things his own way served him well throughout his career. As Neil tells Martin, he found that adopting a strategy of doing the opposite of what was expected was the best way to compete. He explains how he structured his company so he wouldn’t have to manage people. He prefers to work with no org chart so there are no assigned titles or hierarchy.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Neil Krauter Sr. discuss Neil’s lengthy career and how he leveraged his experience in launching his own brokerage. Neil shares his thoughts on HR, on creating a forum for conversation within an organization, and how success requires both planning and full commitment. Neil gives examples of how he achieved innovative breakthroughs in business by doing the opposite of what might be expected.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Jason Mercer is a part of Cleveland Avenue’s Finance Team, focusing on financial diligence for investment opportunities. Jason has over ten years of work experience in strategy, finance and mergers and acquisitions-related roles within large, multi-national organizations in the Food & Beverage sector. Most recently, Jason was the Business Manager Consumer for Fonterra USA, where he was responsible for growing volume, profitability and brand awareness.

Earlier in his career Jason was a Senior Financial Analyst for Warner Music Group and an Investment Banking Analyst at Lehman Brothers. Jason earned his Bachelor of Arts in Finance from Morehouse College and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

In this episode….
Jason Mercer is proud to have been born and raised in Metro Detroit. His family worked hard to send his mother to college and she graduated from the University of Michigan. When it came time for Jason to choose post-secondary education, he decided on Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Upon graduating, he worked on Wall Street at Lehman Brothers, then in the finance division of Warner Music Group before ending up at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business where he earned his MBA and got to see what he calls “the venture capital vibe”.

Jason is currently in venture capital with Cleveland Avenue, leading due diligence for a fund that supports investments, especially for Black and women entrepreneurs with a further focus on the Chicago area. He is passionate about promoting and supporting Black and Brown communities and growing leadership for representation. The title of his episode refers in part to asking the question “if you want to be an agent of change, how are you going to be intentional about doing that?”

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Jason Mercer discuss racial inequality and being a proactive agent of change. Jason explains how leaders must set intentional goals, driving for change in set plans, and make their intentions public to leadership and the organization. They talk about Jason’s experiences as a Black man in his career and what must be done to get a talent pool that’s diverse. As Jason says, “small decisions played out thousands of times creates change.”

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Kathleen Steffey is the Founder of Naviga Recruiting & Executive Search. She has a career background in corporate recruiting and corporate recruiting leadership that she brings to Naviga. She’s a talent finder who directs a team that lives and breathes recruiting talented people for Naviga’s clientele. The team starts with asking insightful questions to uncover client requirements and don’t rest until the job is done. 

Kathleen also provides expertise for guest podcast interviews, PR thought leadership articles for local and major publications, and round table and panel events. She lives in the Greater Tampa Bay area with her husband and three daughters.

In this episode:

Kathleen Steffey started out believing she would be a legal secretary, back when they were still called “secretaries”. However she diverted into HR and then into recruiting and never looked back. Her corporate recruitment career took her overseas to Amsterdam where she lived and worked until 9/11 forced a shutdown and her return to America. But she recalls her time in Europe with fondness and has retained a love of the European lifestyle with a focus on enjoying self and career.

She gradually started consulting, helping executives she’d met through the years, and it ultimately led to founding Naviga. She has had triumphant highlights and educational failures but one thing she’s never lost with Naviga is her love of the work. She truly enjoys recruiting and keenly understands how the fundamentals and a grounding in basics can greatly assist clients when it comes time to bring new talent onboard.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Kathleen Steffey discuss how the pandemic has altered current recruiting styles and why fundamentals are now so vital to successful talent acquisition. Kathleen shares insights on tactics all employers should have in their playbooks as well as time-and-money wasting ideas to avoid. She and Martin explore gender disparity in pay and how to combat it as well as how to successfully navigate salary demands.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact