Desi Wenzel is a self-care consultant and coach who is passionate about decreasing the onset of burnout, manage stress, and helping individuals work quickly through times of fear and self-doubt. She promotes the emotional well being of high achieving leaders throughout the United States both personally and virtually. And like us all, she has an interesting story to share in relation to money.

Today’s guest is someone I personally met on LinkedIn. He is the former Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at Synthetic Genomics where he was responsible for defining, evolving and implementing SGI’s strategy across all of its franchises with a focus on value creation. In that context, he was involved in managing a portfolio of internal initiatives, strategic partnerships, and transactions along with leading investor and media relations.

He had a nine-year tenure on Wall Street, most recently with J.P. Morgan’s healthcare investment banking group where he advised clients on mergers and acquisitions as well as debt and equity financings. In his career on Wall Street, he executed over $20 billion in transactions.

He has an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business and my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. He is also a Founder/Director of the 32/21 Foundation, a college scholarship charity founded in his brother’s honor.

Ms. Soares is the COO and Tax Partner at Vanst Law. This modern law firm allows attorneys to practice where they want, when they want, and earn more money doing it. Vanst operates virtually, which means clients are served more efficiently, at less cost, and with more flexibility. Vanst's approach drastically cuts down the overhead costs normally spent on office space, paper files, and administration: cost savings that can be passed on to the client through lower billable rates.

As a tax attorney, Ms. Soares resolves personal, small business, and corporate tax problems with the IRS and California state tax authorities. She has represented hundreds of clients before the Internal Revenue Services (IRS), Franchise Tax Board (FTB), Employment Development Department (EDD), and California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA). Mѕ. Sоаrеѕ іѕ also аn adjunct рrоfеѕѕоr аt Sаn Diego Stаtе Unіvеrѕіtу. She tеасhes a соurѕе оn tаx prосеdurеѕ, prасtісе аnd ethics in the Chаrlеѕ W. Lаmdеn School оf Accountancy. Shе wаѕ nаmеd Bеѕt оf the Bаr by thе San Diego Buѕіnеѕѕ Journal in 2015, 2016 and 2017. She was also named a Top Lawyer by the San Diego Magazine for 2018 and 2019, as well as a 2018 Martindale Hubbell AV Preeminent: Highest Excellence in Legal Ability and Ethical Practice.

In addition to tax law, Vanst currently has attorneys in San Diego and Orange County practicing in the areas of business and corporate, land use, real estate, civil litigation and life science law. This modern law firm plans to expand its offerings and its transformative approach to law practice throughout California and across the United States. Vanst Law believes the best way to practice law is with happy attorneys. Attorneys that are happy in their career tend to be more creative, productive and focused

Sten Wie is the COO of a recently formed company called EQUA Start. Sten joined the EQUA Start team with the goal of combining his passion for problem solving with technology in order to revolutionize the way agreements are managed. His hope is that by simplifying the creation, and execution of agreements that businesses will achieve greater levels of success by spending more time on their product.

Shawn Owen is the CEO of EQUA Start. As a serial entrepreneur Shawn has learned many lessons on how and why businesses succeed and fail. His conclusion is that organizations fail when agreements between owners, employees, vendors and customers are flawed. As a result, Shawn created EQUA Start, with the goal of empowering business owners with tools to reduce friction and maximize consent between parties.  

Christian Johnson is the co-founder of MultiPass & MultiPass Ventures. He turned his passions for entrepreneurship & urban innovation into a thriving company that operates and partners with innovation hubs, venture capital firms, accelerators to help companies start, grow and scale.

 Johnson is a US Army veteran, former St. Louis police officer, and community leader. Prior to MultiPass he founded Serving with the Badge, a non-profit dedicated to building relationships between police and the community. In 2016, St. Louis Business Journal selected Johnson for the 30 Under 30 Award.

Araceli Collazo is an international, independent singer, songwriter, music producer, performer and cultural promoter of Mexican-American decent.

For the past 13 years, she has been Leader, Voice and Founding Member of Paloma Negra, a world music project founded in Sacramento, California (USA) in 2006. She is a Founding Member and Associate of Semilla Creativa Coop, a one-of-a-kind Coop formally and legally established back in 2014 in Monterrey, Mexico. Additionally she is a Certified Holistic Energy Practitioner and Trainer in The Balance Procedure and other healing modalities.

Chronologically, she is the 10th child and survivor of a family of 14, (12 children and two parents). She grew up, was raised and went to school in California in the USA and has lived some seasons between the USA and México. She is married to Visual Artist, Saul Escobedo, and is the mother of two boys in West Los Angeles.

At the height of a successful career in the computer industry, Michael Cobb left to pursue more pioneering opportunities in the emerging real estate markets of Latin America. In 1996, he and his business partner formed a company, Exotic Caye International, to provide loans to North Americans purchasing properties in Belize, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Argentina, and throughout the region.

ECI is now a multi-country developer with projects in 5 countries of Latin America, and communities are planned in Ecuador and Chile as well. The model pursued is based on the Del Webb Resort communities in the U.S. with a focus on serving these consumers in multiple countries and geographies in the region.

In his spare time, he speaks at dozens of international conferences annually about offshore real estate finance, development, and ownership.

Joel Ciccolo is the founder of BitAML, a financial crypto compliance firm. Joe spent over a decade in high-impact roles with leading institutions. He was a founding member and architect of a Bank Security Act and Anti-Money Laundering program for a top 100 U.S. online financial institution and also worked as a project manager for a top 20 international bank, where he managed regulatory and AML audit remediation projects.

Joel Valenzuela, Director of Public Outreach for Dash and the Editor of Dashpay News. Joel is a sound money advocate who made the decision a few years ago to live entirely off of cryptocurrency, starting with Bitcoin and now with Dash. He is one of few Americans who have made the decision to shutter their bank account and live completely free of the banking system.

Chuck Williams is a programmer, cryptocurrency enthusiast and radio show host. Listed as inventor of 2 patents (Shutterfly's Photobook Application, and Level3's Dynamic Prompt System). He also has a long history with visual design and User Experience (UX) oriented strategies and implementations. Relevant to our show, he is a true student of money along with new advancements taking place in the world of cryptocurrency.