Scott Simon, Betterhire
Birmingham’s Certified Know-I.T.-All I once made the mistake of ignoring Scott Simon’s advice. My all-time greatest Account Executive (Erin Whaley) had decided that, after six years in marketing communications, it was time to try something new. Almost immediately, I found an unbelievable candidate for the position. She had big-time agency experience. She was sharp, she […]
VIDEO SERIES: Zane Tarence, Founders Advisors
Building Enterprise Value Zane Tarence loves helping entrepreneurs build value. Which has been a very good thing for a lot of entrepreneurs. Zane founded his first company at the age of 32 — Virtual Learning Technologies, which sold for $15 Million in May, 2000 to Boston’s Houghton Mifflin. Since then, he’s led and completed 85 […]
Josh Gates, Saturday Down South
Fourth and long. No timeouts. Go for it. Josh Gates enlisted in the Army in 2000 at the age of 18. He earned a place in the elite 75th Ranger Regiment. He led Post-911 combat missions across the Middle East. But the hardest thing he’s ever done was save Saturday Down South — the website […]
David Wu, Motus Nova
Go with the flow. Or make your own flow. Entering his final semester as an Emory undergrad, David Wu’s future as a doctor was all-but a given. He had the grades, he’d scored well on his MCATs, and was in the Essay phase of applying to med schools when he met Andy Butler. And everything […]
Tom McDougal, AlternaVisit
Routine healthcare that’s anything but routine Tom McDougal is wearing a long sleeve Nike t-shirt, Mountain Khaki pants, Dockers shoes and Nike socks. Not just the day he and I met for lunch. Right now. Assuming “right now,” as you’re reading this article, is a weekday. Weekends, Tom dresses down a bit. Call him predictable. He’ll […]
Joe Wortmann, QuiNovas
A Take-The-Hill Guy. Assuming You Need The Hill. It’s about 9:30 in the morning local time on a Monday in March, 2006. After 20+ hours in the air, Joe Wortmann lands at the Hamburg Airport — where he takes a cab straight to the I.T. offices for Awarix’s first European customer, and starts work on a […]
Tanveer Patel, ConcertCare
Glass Ceiling? What Glass Ceiling? At the age of 19, Tanveer Patel met her husband, Maqbool, 10 days before their wedding. Two weeks later, the native of Bangalore (a coastal city in the tropical region of India) found herself in Philadelphia — where, according to Weather Underground’s archives, the temperature was 34°, and it was […]
John Peinhardt, DirectorPoint
Entrepreneur by nature or nurture? Both. John Peinhardt isn’t the kind of guy who lives to impress people — as evidenced by this childhood memory: “I was the only kid at Career Day in second grade who wrote that I wanted to grow up and be a management consultant.” And where does a kid get […]
Gary York, Help Lightning
“Focus on your mission, not just ‘the business’.” Gary York still vividly remembers that moment when the foundation was laid for his future as a successful entrepreneur. It was 1997. He’d joined a startup founded by a charismatic man with a great idea for healthcare software, and his boss had just returned from a meeting […]
Jay Newman, Ugo
“The people you surround yourself with determine who you are.” Picture this: You’re a Junior at the University Of Alabama, roughly 1000 miles from your Northern New Jersey home. You’re living in the fraternity house, studying for a test and it’s after midnight. Within the space of five minutes, you get a desperate request for […]
