Disruptive CEO Nation

Latest Episodes:

Episode 184 Richard Newman, Founder of BodyTalk, London, England Feb 17, 2023

Show notes

Richard Newman is a world-renowned communication expert and the founder of Body Talk: the Science of Communication, and he has a new book coming out in 2023 called Lift Your Impact.

In this episode, we headed over to London to hear how a trip to Katmandu and Tibetan monks shaped Richard’s future and influenced his work.

Cool things we talked about with Richard:

- How body language and tone of voice can be used at a deeper, richer level than most people generally think about, to really convey and communicate and connect with other people.

- What leaders are looking for today in terms of training for themselves and their teams and how this ranges from public speaking to one-to-one interactions to becoming an effective storyteller and being able to do it in 30 seconds, just like a brilliant TV commercial.

- Engaging the survival mind, the emotional mind, and then the logical mind…and if you do not, people get cognitive fatigue.

- His book Lift Your Impact elevates the focus that we all need to think about intention towards others and the ability to lift up other people from a negative or a neutral state towards a more positive state by the time you leave the room

Body Talk is the global leader in evidence-based training on the psychology of communication. They have created one of the largest academic studies on communication and influence in the world and commissioned peer-reviewed research to create award-winning programs that shape the way the business world communicates. Over 22 years and across 45+ countries, they have partnered with the world’s biggest corporations to amplify the commercial power of every conversation, presentation, and event.

Connect with Richard:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/

Website: https://ukbodytalk.com/

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #businesspodcast #podcast

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Episode 183 Przemek Szleter, Co-Founder and CEO of DAC.digital, Poland Feb 08, 2023

Show notes

Przmek Szleter has built his business on the theme of ‘Changing ideas into digital products’. DAC.digital is a team of engineers & problem solvers who deliver value across areas of #IoT, hardware, embedded systems, #bigdata, #machinelearning, #blockchain, DevOps, and software engineering. Today, DAC.digital is one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Europe.

In our conversation we touch on:

- The differentiating factor of being a scientific-based tech company with Ph.D. thought leaders on staff to keep them on the leading edge.

- Some insights into current projects such as gaze estimation and eye tracking software on smartphones and the complexities of building IoT software and interfaces.

- The driving objectives for why he started the company and why he is passionate about showing the world that there are world-class tech professionals in Poland.

- Scaling lessons: paying others before yourself, “hiring smarter” than you, and when to bring in support at the top.

- The future vision of opening offices in Germany and the US.

- Not waiting for the world to show you what to do but being in the position to lead the world.

Przmek holds over 14 years of professional experience as a Business & IT Executive and has MSc-level degrees in tech and business gained at universities in the UK and Poland.

DAC.digital has delivered over 60 dedicated tech solutions for clients in a range of industries, including Fortune Global 500 companies in over 20 countries. They’ve worked with partners like Estee Lauder, Thales, and Infineon. They have received recognitions such as: Leading Service Provider 2020 by Clutch as one of the top IoT developers in Poland; PwC awarded the title “Polish Company – International Champion” in 2020; cited in the "Master of Innovative Transformation" competition organized by ICAN Institute; a special mention from the Editorial Board of MIT Sloan Management Review in "Technology and market" category; and more.

Connect with Przmek:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/szleter/

Website: https://dac.digital/

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #businesspodcast #podcast #fertility #femtech

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Episode 182 Jenny Saft, Co-founder and CEO of Apryl, Berlin, Germany Feb 01, 2023

Show notes

Jenny Saft is CEO and co-founder at Apryl: a Berlin-based fertility benefits platform helping companies across Europe offer staff access to inclusive fertility and family-forming services - everything from egg freezing through to adoption and IVF. According to the World Health Organization, 15% of all reproductive aged couples worldwide are affected by infertility and in many countries additional barriers exist for single women, same-sex couples, or even individuals who are deemed to live in the wrong postal code zone.

In this episode, we discussed the following:

- The motivation for founding Apryl and insights into her startup story.

- Why being on a mission to democratize fertility solutions is by lowering existing barriers is so important no matter the gender, sexual orientation, relationship status, or financial means.

- How Apryl partners with companies to offer fertility support services as an employee benefit.

- The benefit to companies and why supporting parenthood rights is the right thing to do.

Jenny was inspired to start Apryl when her own experience of freezing her eggs fell short. In addition to founding Apryl, Jenny is an Angel investor, investing in early-stage startups through the Atomico Angel Programme. Prior to starting Apryl, Jenny worked in project management and business development at several big companies, including Fyber in San Francisco and Dutch fintech Adyen.

Connect with Jenny:

Website: https://apryl.co/

LinkdIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennysaft/?locale=en_US

Instagram: @apryl_fertility

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #businesspodcast #podcast #fertility #femtech

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Episode 181 Matt Orlic, Founder of Inspire Digital Group, Sydney, Australia and Zagreb, Croatia Jan 25, 2023

Show notes

We caught up with Matt Orlic, founder of Inspired Digital Group as he was working out of his Croatia location and the energy you see in the digital world rings true when you meet him in-person.

Matt Orlic is the founder of Inspire Brands Group, which creates and develops brands worldwide by designing and manufacturing products in several industries, including consumer electronics, sports equipment, toys, sports apparel, and more. His brands are distributed globally through mass retailers. He is also engaged in licensing agreements with some of the world's biggest brands, including Angry Birds, Liverpool FC, Manchester United and UMBRO.

Inspired Brands was born out of learning the tough lessons of business vulnerability and the need for diversification and growing expertise at social selling. Matt has had a hand in growing over 25 businesses and brands over the last 15 years.

His firm has placed over 46 million on ad spend that has yielded 270 million in return.

In this episode, we discussed:

-The need for marketers to focus on a single product with a single avatar at a single market awareness level.

-Insider tips on the changing aspect of Facebook ad placements and thoughts on other social channels as well – but why he believes the best thing you can do is jump in and learn.

-Why Matt sees himself as a business designer and why he is so excited about his current endeavors centered around high performance and the sporting world.

-Leadership lessons learned through good and tough times.

Connect with Matt:

Website: https://inspiredigitalgroup.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattorlic/?hl=bg

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inspiredigitalgroup

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-orlic-1a927a29/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattOrlic

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #businesspodcast #podcast #martech #marketing #brand

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Episode 180 Ally Fekaiki, Founder and CEO, Juno - London, UK Jan 18, 2023

Show notes

It is a known fact in today’s marketplace that businesses worldwide struggle to meet employee expectations and create authentic engagement. Equally, employees have experienced higher stress and lack of balanced well-being.

Enter, Ally Fekaiki, a man on a mission to create positive change in #futureofwork with the founding of Juno.

Branded as Juno: the life company®️, the Juno platform lets staff choose perks that chime with their definition of well-being, using credits allocated by their employer each month. Employees can choose from hundreds of options (from fitness classes to healthy meals, to mental health support) or use their points to reimburse things like cleaning and childcare. Juno's user base grew tenfold last year as employers looked for new ways to support hybrid teams, improve work-life balance and retain staff.

In this episode, we discussed:

- The motivation behind Juno and why it is so personal to Ally that employee benefits are not treated as a ‘one size fits all’.

- The path from startup to scale-up to serving customers in 70+ countries with 400 global product solutions.

- The imperative for businesses to care about employee wellness and benefit options and how employee choice leads to employee satisfaction.

- What Juno points are and how they can be used to purchase a range of services and products for their wellbeing – from organic vegetable boxes to therapy sessions and language courses.

- How Ally is harnessing marketing to be a category leader and build a globally recognized brand.

Ally Fekaiki founded Juno at the start of 2019 to tackle what he believes to be a well-being crisis in the workplace. Ally is a Social Impact founder with a demonstrated history of growing early-stage businesses from Seed to Series A and beyond. Prior to Juno he held positions as head of growth and head of user engagement at Cleo, Yolt, and LOQBOX. Be sure to check out Ally’s links listed below. Enjoy the show!

Connect with Ally:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allyfekaiki/

Website: https://juno-7d66b1.webflow.io/

Instagram: @with__juno

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #businesspodcast #podcast

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Episode 179 Yochi Slonim, Co-founder & CEO of Anima Biotech, Bernardsville, New Jersey with offices in Israel, UK and UAE Jan 11, 2023

Show notes

With pandemics and global health concerns in the headlines, it is good to know there are companies like Anima Biotech leveraging advanced technology to accelerate pharma solutions. Under the leadership of Co-founder and CEO Yochi Slonim, the team at Anima Biotech is advancing mRNA Lightning, a novel platform for the discovery of small molecule mRNA drugs and their mechanisms of action. If you do not understand what this means, take a listen as we promise you will be fascinated and learn something new.

In this episode, we discussed:

- How Yochi made the leap to founding a company that is at the leading edge of the intersection of technology and medical discovery.

- How using AI and machine learning is a complete game changer in #medtech.

- Why mRNA Lightening is so critical to the swift discovery and treatability process for existing and evolving diseases.

- How their differentiated approach combines high-scale phenotypic screening that automates millions of experiments in live mRNA biology with MOAi technology using AI to elucidate the mechanism of action of active molecules.

- Why the best people and best solutions require a global team to make up Anima and so their eye is on expansion and partner networks.

Yochi Slonim is a serial entrepreneur in software and biotech who has built multiple companies through all phases of growth all the way to IPOs and large M&A exits. As a Co-founder and CEO of Anima Biotech, he is driving the company's vision and strategy, fundraising, and partnering.

Prior to Anima, Yochi was a co-founder of Mercury Interactive. As CTO and VP R&D from the company's early days, he created product vision and strategy and led a multi-product organization of 200 developers. After going public and reaching revenues of over $1B annually, Mercury was acquired by HP for $4.5B.

In 2000, Yochi was the founder and CEO of Identify. The company reached revenues of $50m in less than 5 years and was acquired by BMC in 2006 for $150m in cash.

Yochi founded ffwd.me, a unique startup acceleration program where he led a team that worked with over 25 startups in diverse areas and technologies, developing strategy, products and go-to-market operations while raising multiple rounds of financing from VCs and private investors.

Be sure to check out Yochi’s links listed below. Enjoy the show!

Connect with Yochi:

LinkedIn: https://www.animabiotech.com/

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yochislonim/?originalSubdomain=il

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #construction #businesspodcast #podcast

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Episode 178 Roger Krulak, Founder of FullStack Modular, Brooklyn, NY, USA Jan 04, 2023

Show notes

Roger Krulak has over 35 years of bringing innovation to the construction and development sides of the real estate business.

For twelve years, Roger served as SVP of Mixed Use and Residential Development at the Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC). During that time, he was responsible for entitling and planning over 1,000 residential apartment units integrated into many of FCRC’s retail projects.

In our conversation, we discussed:

- How Roger fell in love with modular construction and why he started his mission to be one of the global authorities on this form of urban development.

- Construction represents 13% of the global economy, but how we build needs to change

- How modular construction provides a high-quality product, delivers more predictability in the build time, is safer, uses less water, and reduces on-site time.

- The role Roger plays as a consultant to the world as others seek out his expertise and guidance.

- The future vision for FullStack Modular in opening locations, franchises and strategic alliances.

In 2016, Roger formed FullStack Modular after assembling an investment group to purchase FC Modular’s IP and facilities from FCRC. Since its founding, FullStack Modular has established itself as a first mover in using advanced technologies for building design and using high-rise modular construction. Their current pipeline includes hundreds of thousands of buildable square feet for hospitality, multifamily, and student housing. Notable wins include the Grant Ave Municipal Lot RFP by New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD)—an RFP specifically issued to support modular construction for the city’s affordable housing supply.

Be sure to check out Roger’s links listed below. Enjoy the show!

Connect with Matt:

Website: https://www.fullstackmodular.com/

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #tech #AI #businesspodcast #podcast

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Episode 177 Matt Fullbrook, Founder of Ground-Up Governance, Toronto, CA Dec 28, 2022

Show notes

Matt Fullbrook is a corporate governance speaker, researcher, advisor, and educator based in Toronto. For over 20 years, he led the Rotman School of Management’s governance research at the University of Toronto as the head of the David & Sharon Johnston Centre for Corporate Governance Innovation. Matt has worked in over 250 boardrooms in North America and Europe, supporting boards and executives to optimize their approaches to decision-making.

Matt has dedicated his professional life to becoming a governance expert. In this session we 'nerd out' over what governance means and touch on:

The definition of good governance - or as close as we can get.
Why entrepreneurs should think about governance early in the life of their company.
Observations made and lessons learned from years of working with boards.
Why a founder should consider options when determining if an investor should or should not be invited to be a voting board member.
Understanding aspects of power, authority, and accountability and why a founder needs to consider this for board members and staff leaders.

Matt is the creator of Ground-Up Governance, an online platform that is an equal parts encyclopedia, graphic novel, and meeting place for governance nerds. He is also the host of the One Minute Governance podcast, which offers provocative corporate governance perspectives and questions one minute at a time.

Matt is also a professional musician and is the bass player for KC Roberts & the Live Revolution, an original touring band whose seventh album, Grit, was released in June 2022.

Be sure to check out Matt’s links listed below. Enjoy the show!

Connect with Matt:

Website: https://groundupgovernance.substack.com/

Podcast: https://pods.to/omg

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #tech #AI #businesspodcast #podcast

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Episode 176 Jennifer Smith, CEO of Scribe, San Francisco, CA Dec 21, 2022

Show notes

If Jennifer Smith is right, the way anyone shares how-to knowledge is about to change forever. A former VC and McKinsey consultant turned accidental CEO, she interviewed more than 1,200 business leaders on a quest to understand everything there is to know about processes, best practices, and productivity. Now with her startup Scribe, she’s empowering people to own their processes by building the world’s first operating system for know-how.

In our conversation we touch on:

How Scribe has grown from inception in 2019 to be used by hundreds of thousands of organizations in nearly every country.
Why Scribe is so powerful. Research estimates that knowledge workers spend about 20% of their time just trying to figure out how to do their jobs. Scribe permits anyone to quickly make training materials and resource documents with little effort.
How the strategy of running painfully lean in the early years paid off until they were finally ready to run a $30M funding round - made more challenging as Jennifer was 8 months pregnant when the close of the round was announced.

Jennifer has a BA from Princeton in Economics and Finance and an MBA from Harvard.

Be sure to check out Jennifer’s links listed below. Enjoy the show!

Connect with Jennifer:

Try Scribe for free: https://scribe.how/tryfree
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferreneesmith/
Website: https://scribehow.com/
Twitter: @scribeceo

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/
Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com
Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #tech #AI #businesspodcast #podcast

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Episode 175 Russel Karim, Founder of Dhakai, Iowa, USA and Bangladesh Dec 14, 2022

Show notes

Russel Karim is a serial entrepreneur, programmer, and fashion supply chain, enthusiast. He launched Dhakai in 2021 and is building it to be the number-one platform for sustainable and ethical sourcing. Russel founded many companies while in college and beyond.

In 2018 Russel was recognized as 20 under 40 by the Courier newspaper for his leadership, community work, and business. He has received the 2019 Outstanding Immigrant Business Award from the National Immigrant Entrepreneurs Summit. He has received the GOLD and Bold award from the University of Northern Iowa.

In our conversation we touch on:

Russel's journey as a serial entrepreneur who has gone from building his first tech platforms out of his dorm room to two successful exits and now onto tackling the supply chain in the apparel industry - 1 2 trillion dollar marketplace.
Why Dhaka is first connecting the world to manufacturers in Bangladesh - did you know it's the second largest clothing manufacturer in the world with 4.5 million people sewing every day?
How Dhaka's end-to-end platform connects apparel brands directly with verified manufacturers making sustainable and ethical sourcing more accessible and affordable.
His thoughts on why a startup founder must focus on financial models, customer research, and measure opportunities to cost.

Growing up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Karim has seen the struggles of people who work in the fashion and apparel industry from the worker and manufacturing sides. Karim, launched dhakai.com in 2021 to transform the clothing supply chain. Currently, Dhakai employed over twenty employees in Des Moines, Iowa, and Dhakai, Bangladesh. Dhakai has transacted over $1.3 M in production through their platform.

They work with over 50 prominent clothing brands and 500 manufacturers around the world. Dhakai has raised seven hundred thousand in venture capital funds to grow its business from Techstars, Pax momentum, and other prominent investors.

Be sure to check out Russel’s links listed below. Enjoy the show!

Connect with Russel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russelkarim/

Website: www.dhakai.com

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: DisruptiveCEONation.com

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

#CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #founderstory #business #tech #AI #businesspodcast #podcast

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