Listen Now!

Business Talk 24-7

Curated Collection Of The Best Interviews From Our Sandy Springs Studio





Ernie Garcia with Carvana, Louis Gump with LSN Mobile, Todd Semrau with Urban Eats Consulting Group and Sean Bodmer with CounterTack

ABR

Ernie Garcia/Carvana FacebookLinkedinTwitter

Ernie Garcia, Jr. is the President and Founder of Carvana, a disruptive new voice in the auto industry. As head of the first complete online auto retailer from search to finance to delivery, Garcia is focused on bringing a new energy to the antiquated dealership model. Leveraging relationships with Drivetime, Carvana is backed by more than $1 billion in revenue and over 20 years’ experience in the car buying and selling market.

After graduating from Stanford, Garcia held a position at Royal Bank of Scotland, which primed him to enter the finance arm of the family business. Equipped with knowledge of both the financial and automotive industry, the disconnect between dealer and customer benefit quickly became apparent to Garcia. Convinced that the antiquated car buying process could be transformed into a seamless, open and mutually beneficial process by leveraging technology, Garcia founded Carvana. Under his leadership, Carvana is seeking to disrupt the brick and mortar dealer model with direct-to-consumer sales and is pioneering the car sales model through technological advancements.

Garcia currently resides in Phoenix, Ariz. with his wife and young daughter. When he’s not on a plane visiting Carvana operations outside Atlanta, he enjoys spending time with his family, trying his hand as an amateur songwriter and practicing his comedy routine.

Louis Gump/LSN Mobile FacebookLinkedinTwitter

Louis Gump is a seasoned executive with deep experience in mobile media, technology, sales and business development. As CEO of LSN Mobile, he leads the overall strategic direction of the company, as well as day-to-day operations, product realization and team development. He is also a member of the board of directors.

Prior to joining LSN Mobile, Louis led industry-leading mobile teams at both CNN and The Weather Channel, setting benchmarks for excellence and market impact. Having also served in various industry associations, Louis is considered a driving force within the mobile media industry. He has received numerous awards including the 2011 Wireless Technology Forum’s Mobile Media Person of the Year, the 2010 MMA Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2009 “Top Ten mobiThinkers” award. Louis holds an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University.

Todd Semrau/Urban Eats Consulting Group LinkedinFacebookTwitter

Todd Semrau specializes in developing and managing food & beverage brands for restaurants, mixed use developers, hotels, resorts, food trucks and B2B retail food operations. His career in the hospitality industry started in 1995 when he opened his first restaurant; The Heaping Bowl in East Atlanta Village, (EAV).  The “Bowl” helped spur the revitalization of East Atlanta which today has become one of Atlanta’s popular in-town, indie hangouts.

10 years of operations and four additional restaurants gave Todd a bird’s eye view of the positive impact a community focused restaurant concept can have on the community it serves. Along the way, Todd realized he had a knack and the vision for developing compelling food and beverage concepts that could spark community, synergy and good growth in any setting.  Since creating his company Urban Eats Consulting Group, Todd has consulted with a wide range of clients including: new restaurateurs,  commercial developers, restaurant companies, hotel developers, food truck operators and neighborhood grocery/deli owners.

Sean Bodmer/CounterTack LinkedinTwitter

Sean M. Bodmer is Chief Researcher at CounterTack, Inc. focusing on analysis of observable traits and effects of crimeware and the tradecraft cybercrime operators and malware purveyors. Sean has worked Information Systems Security and cyber counterintelligence roles for various firms and customers over the past seventeen years across United States. Most notably, he has spent several years performing intrusion and intruder analysis/attribution for Fortune 100, Defense Department, and ‘other’ Federal Agencies.

At CounterTack, Sean is leading the development of next-generation detection techniques that focus on in-progress detection and countermeasures through the use of passive and active honeynet technologies. Sean is an avid contributor to the Security Industry and has shared many lessons-learned and findings surrounding the tradecraft of organized and persistent threats. In 2009, Sean co-authored with McGraw-Hill Professional Press, ‘Hacking Exposed: Malware and Rootkits 1st Edition’ and is currently working on the 2nd Edition due out in Q2 2014.

In 2012, Sean co-authored ‘Reverse Deception: Organized Cyber Threat Counter-Exploitation’ and is also co-authoring ‘Hacking Back: Offensive Cyber-counterintelligence’ that will focus on “precision hack-backs and takedowns” ranging from the tradecraft, lessons learned, and the legal and ethical issues surrounding hacking back and takedowns of live or active cybercriminal infrastructures and persistent threat campaigns.

 

 

 

LinkedIn

Special Edition: TiE Atlanta E2E Pillar

ABR

Arul Murugan/Enrich

Arul Murugan is the founder and CEO of Enrich which is the largest pure play Oracle EBS solution provider in Atlanta. He founded the company in 2003 and  since then the company has consistently grown and now doing business in 20+ states in US, UK and Asia. Enrich helps organizations squeeze value out of Oracle technology. Starting with Procurement, Enrich enables savings realization across Supply Chain and Financials, by leveraging flexible technology – deployed on premise or in the cloud – and coupled with expertise to help drive success.

 

 

 

 

Lee Twitter

 

Jim Brickmeier with Concurrent, Scott Soder with PayMetrix HR, Jeff Cohen with C5 Georgia and Elena Merino with The Meridian Group

ABR

Jim Brickmeier/Concurrent LinkedinTwitter

James Brickmeier is Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing for Concurrent.  He is responsible for Concurrent’s video strategy, business development, and product marketing organizations.  Mr. Brickmeier joined Concurrent in 2000 and has held a variety of roles at the company including Vice President and General Manager of Concurrent’s Video Solutions business unit.  Mr. Brickmeier has more than 18 years of experience in the software technology market and 13 years in the video industry.  He has played a key role in developing the company’s multiscreen video strategy and promoting Concurrent’s solutions around the globe.  He has been recognized by Multichannel News as one of the “40 under 40” influential people who are playing an important part in mapping the future of cable and telecommunications.  Mr. Brickmeier has been quoted in major industry publications, including Multichannel News, Light Reading Cable, Heavy Reading, and CED on topics including CDN, NDVR, and VOD technology.  Mr. Brickmeier holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.

Scott Soder/PayMetrix HR FacebookLinkedinTwitter

Scott is a Professional Consultant specializing in the Payroll and Human Resource Outsourcing industry. In his 17+ year career, Scott has garnered a reputation in the industry as an Expert in helping Employers manage all of the risk that comes with having employees. His specialties start with the recruitment of new employees and continue all the way through the employment life cycle.

As Co-Founder of PayMetrix HR, Inc. he enjoys working each day with clients and his employees. His strong passion for PayMetrix HR’s very own employees is clear to his clients and business partners, which is evident in the company’s 100% client retention rate. His background in Process development and management runs deep into the nucleus of the company which is one of a few keys to the success PayMetrix HR has when it engages with a new client.

Jeff Cohen/C5 Georgia FacebookLinkedin

Elena Merino/The Meridian Group and the Atlanta Association of Health Underwriters Linkedin

Elena Merino is founder and President of The Meridian Group. The Meridian Group has been providing employee benefit consulting, tax credit, technology and human resources services to employers in a broad range of industries. The Meridian proudly boasts of having had some clients for over 20 years.

Prior to forming The Meridian Group, Ms. Merino obtained an MBA in Finance from GSU College of Business and served as a Registered Investment Advisor and financial planner with The New England Financial Group and a Guardian Life Insurance agency where she specialized in qualified and non-qualified investment planning, employee benefits and estate planning for high net worth individuals.

Merino, who started her path as finance paralegal eventually manage a 50+ paralegal staff billing in excess of $1 million a year in three offices in the Atlanta and one in Washington, D.C. Merino was co-founder of the Center for Continuing Paralegal Education at Georgia State University.

Ms. Merino is an alumna of Leadership Atlanta and has held leadership positions in various professional associations and non-profit organizations including the Governor’s Hispanic Policy Advisory Council, the Georgia Association of Health Underwriters, United Way of Metro Atlanta, the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Project Interconnections and Chris Kids.

 

 

Lee Twitter

 

Kristalyn Mumaw and Bill Florence with KCA Services and Dave McMullen with redpepper

Kristalyn Mumaw/KCA Services FacebookLinkedinTwitter

Kristalyn Mumaw has over 15 years of multi-disciplined experience in Marketing, Communications, Sales, Government Relations, Brand Management and Emerging Markets / Technologies. Engaged as a Change-Management Leader since the late 1990’s in the booming technology industry, she has directed projects, departments and change management initiatives contributing to growth of brand extensions, new product introduction and venture capital placement. Subsequent experience in the healthcare and government sector has provided the opportunity to substantiate her success and refine her experience in both the public and private sectors.

Bill Florence/KCA Services

Bill Florence has 20+ years experience leading internal and external communications, branding, and public affairs initiatives on a national and local level. He has managed earned and paid-media initiatives, public relations, and media relations campaigns that strengthen business reputation, mitigate risks, communicate corporate value propositions and build competitive advantage. A lawyer, Bill has created and led government/regulatory relation, issues/reputation management, and crisis communication plans for corporate, public, and non-profit clients. He is an accomplished spokesperson with national/local media and with professional/trade organizations.

Dave McMullen/redpepper FacebookLinkedinTwitter

In addition to being CEO of FaceDeals, Dave McMullen is partner at redpepper, an advertising agency and “invention lab” with offices in Atlanta and Nashville. He is a writer and speaker with expertise in entrepreneurship, retail, advertising, and social media. Listed on Catalyst magazine’s ‘Top 25 Entrepreneurs’, Dave was recently named the Pinnacle Small Business Person of the Year and the American Marketing Association’s Atlanta Marketer of the Year. He is a graduate of the Entrepreneurial Masters Program at MIT and served as the President of the Atlanta Entrepreneur’s Organization. His company, redpepper, has been ranked on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest-growing private companies for the last 5 years and has been recognized within the advertising industry with several local, regional, and national ADDY Awards. Dave has been featured on 60 Minutes, NPR, CNN, Headline News, CNBC, FOX News, and numerous national publications. He lives in the Atlanta area with his wife and his two children.

 

 

Lee Twitter

Special Edition: TiE Atlanta

ABR

Don Turner/The Virtual CXO LinkedinTwitter

Don Turner has 20 years of experience guiding, building and managing world-class companies on a global basis. He has played key roles in advancing the commercialization of award-winning innovations that have transformed industries such as Financial Services, Investment Banking, Biotechnology, Telecommunications, and Defense Intelligence.

Don is considered an expert at developing and implementing business growth strategies, with an emphasis on building scalable business processes that can support exponential growth. He has served as an Advisory Board Member for Cisco Systems, Committee Chairman for Mass.Biotechnology Council, Guest Lecturer on Innovation Commercialization for Executive MBA students, Conference Speaker on Emerging Areas of Innovation, and Expert Panel Member on Corporate Innovation.

Anitha Vadavatha/Covello Linkedin

Anitha Vadavatha is Chief Strategist of Covello, a collaborative growth company with a mission to be the catalyst of both industry and community by leveraging tomorrow’s technologies and creative talents to generate economic equity through collaboration.

William Whipple/Amero Global Investors

William Whipple is Founder, President and CIO of Amero Global Investors, a boutique institutional real estate investment firm availing niche investment opportunities. William leads the firm, provides vision, and oversees client relations and new business initiatives. Through over 30 years of financial, investment, risk management, construction, institutional real estate investing, credit risk analysis, portfolio management, entrepreneurial and Fortune 100 management experience, William built a solid reputation on competence, performance and integrity, the founding principles of Amero Global Investors, LLC.

While serving in management positions with two Fortune 100 companies and as a successful entrepreneur, William developed industry leading models for fiduciary responsibility and risk control that will serve institutional investors well. His roles involved top investigative organizations including the FBI.  William worked the last 15 years investing in institutional real estate. Prior to founding Amero Global Investors, LLC, William was Director, Institutional Real Estate for TIAA-CREF Asset Management, responsible for development and marketing the organization’s global real estate equity and debt products for institutional investors.

 

 

 

Lee Twitter

Mike Jenkins with Build Your EMR, Andrew McCaskill with William Mills Agency, Tim Duff with Next Generation Lighting and Constance Dierickx with CD Consulting Group and OnBoard

ABR

Mike Jenkins/Build Your EMR Twitter

Mike Jenkins is an experienced professional that blends people, processes, and products to cook up delightful solutions for healthy P&Ls and project turnarounds. He uses his skills to expand www.BuildYourEMR.com, a healthcare solutions company that believes in using technology to make physician’s work easier and faster by simplifying complex tasks.

Mike’s greatest impact has been turning around broken projects, departments, and revenue with a methodical approach, repeatable strategies, and self-improving processes. He led the growth of a healthcare professional services practice from 4 to 50+ consultants that delivered the highest profits in the company’s history.

Andrew McCaskill, APR/William Mills Agency LinkedinTwitter

Andrew McCaskill has never met a communications challenge he did not like. He has spent more than 15 years moving from defining and establishing the reputations of dynamic start-ups to reinvigorating and advancing iconic industry brands. He has worked with colleagues to build PR and marketing campaigns that have taken clients from venture capital to IPO back to privatization—and successfully navigated all of the initiatives in between. From overseeing social media and influencer campaigns to leading hundreds of media training sessions for executives all over North America, Andrew is excited to execute great strategies that mutually benefit both clients and media.

As leader of William Mills Agency’s Crisis Communications Practice, Andrew is always ready to jump on a plane to help a client in need. He has worked with clients and their legal teams to help them solve communications problems during the most difficult times in their companies’ lifecycles. He is a popular crisis communications panelist and has been published in industry trades on the topic.

The proud Mississippi native holds a BA in English from Morehouse College and an MBA in Management Strategy from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. His communications experience spans broadcast and print journalism, public relations and brand marketing, including stints in the communications departments of global marketing and branding leaders, The Coca-Cola Company and Time Warner. He has also been a features writer and an on-air radio personality and newscaster. He is the immediate past president of the Black Public Relations Society of Atlanta and currently sits on the Public Relations Society of America’s MBA Initiative Committee.

Tim Duff/Next Generation Lighting Linkedin

Tim Duff has been in the lighting industry for over 25 years. 13 years were spent with Acuity Brands Lighting in sales management, product & market development and educational programming. He spent the last ten years in specification sales for the Acuity sales agency in Atlanta, Lighting Associates. Tim recently started a new lighting agency with Jay Andrews, Next Generation Lighting, representing Cree LED Lighting for the state of Georgia.

Constance Dierickx/CD Consulting Group and OnBoard

Constance Dierickx is a rarity among consultants–an expert in behavior with the pragmatism of an executive. Clients call her The Decision Doctor because they rely upon her advice to clarify strategy, avoid disasters, and dramatically increase profit. She has consulted with over 500 executives and more than 20 boards across industries in US, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

Her results fly in the face of the 80% failure rate of acquisitions and mergers. Clients have seen share prices double post-merger, record top-line growth, and cultural integrations described as “surgically precise.”

While most companies say they need highly talented people, they oftentimes have invisible fences up that keep some people out. In her day job with CD Consulting Group, Constance, The Decision Doctor™, helps executives with “bet the company” decisions and as President of OnBoard she advocates to get more women in executive roles and on corporate boards. At the heart of both is the interaction of organizational culture and decisions and their impact on each other. OnBoard has helped more than a dozen women land board seats by helping the women themselves and companies change their decision-making processes.

 

 

 

Lee Twitter

Jack Kolk with ACR2 Solutions, Christopher Kunney with Infinite Options, Tony Prince with The IPA Family, Ellen Dracos Lemming with Dracos~Lemming Consulting and Leroy Tanker with Legacy Wealth Advisors

Jack Kolk/ACR2 Solutions Linkedin

Jack Kolk is a founder and current President and CEO of Automated Compliance Reporting Solutions, Inc. (ACR2) of Lilburn GA. The creators of Risk Reporter™ family of cloud based solutions for companies regulated under the information security laws and currently focused on HIPAA. Jack is a CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) and CSSLP (Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional) and is a member of the FBI task force INFRAGARD and member of the GBI Internet Crimes against Children Task Force.

He is a regular speaker at health care associates and will be speaking at the GA-HIMSS Conference at the World Congress Center this coming September 26th.

Christopher Kunney/Infinite Options Linkedin

Christopher is a senior level healthcare information technology executive and strategist. He is called upon by his clients to provide guidance and thought leadership specific to emerging healthcare technology offerings, compliance related issues and technology adoption. His recent roles include serving as Director of Emerging Healthcare Technology for AT&T, Vice President & COO for HealthInovation and Vice President and CIO for Piedmont Healthcare. Christopher currently serves as managing partner of Infinite Options, LLC. and also maintains strategic alliances with various HIT consulting firms such as ACR2, Smartecute, The BAE Company and The Desir Group.

He has a track record of successfully implementing and providing strategic enterprise-wide solutions that address the current issues faced by health systems including; meaningful use, PPACA, HITECH Act, HIPAA, EMR Adoption, CMS quality measures, and HIEs. In addition, Christopher is an experienced IT leader with demonstrated ability to build peak-performing teams and achieve cross-functional business objectives that effectively integrate within the clinical setting. As a valued member of senior management teams, he’s contributed a seasoned, broad-based perspective with the maturity to lead IT transformation efforts in all areas of the healthcare business. His business philosophy is to create pragmatic IT strategies and implementation plans designed for maximum return.

Tony Prince/The IPA Family Linkedin

Tony Prince started his career in the late 1970s with General Motors as a trainer. He developed through his 25-year career to various senior executive marketing positions and owned his own franchise. Tony decided to use his marketing and consulting skills to concentrate on the growing field of individual health and life insurance. He is currently an Advisor and Field Trainer for The IPA Family which provides a full compliment of health and life insurance products for small business owners, self-employed professionals and their families.

Tony was born in NYC, attended St. John’s University where he played basketball, and attended graduate school at St. John’s. He also completed the executive graduate program at Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business.

Ellen Dracos Lemming/Dracos~Lemming Consulting LinkedinTwitter

Ellen Dracos Lemming is a business woman who has spent the last 28 years driving company growth through marketing programs. As a marketing officer at organizations such as The Home Depot, Emory University and Kaplan Educational Centers she learned how to elevate marketing to a strategic business function, not a tactical exercise. She transitioned from a corporate officer to entrepreneur in 2007 and has built a successful, women’s certified marketing firm focused on growth, brand and marketing solutions.

Leroy Tanker/Legacy Wealth Advisors FacebookLinkedinTwitter

Leroy Tanker is Managing Member of Legacy Wealth Advisors, LLC and President of Freedom Financial Services, Inc. Leroy is a Certified Public Accountant, Personal Financial Specialist and a Certified Financial Planner.

Legacy Wealth Advisors specializes in the designing of and consulting with respect to retirement plans for small to mid size businesses.

Leroy uses his 34 years of industry experience to help Companies avoid/correct ERISA and other problems commonly found in 401K and other retirement plans.

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or advice for investment, legal, or tax matters. Always consult with your qualified investment, legal, or tax professional before making important financial decisions. Securities and advisory services offered through Harbor Financial Services, LLC member FINRA/SIPC. Financial Planning offered through Legacy Wealth Advisors, LLC a registered investment advisor. Harbor Financial Services, LLC, Freedom Financial Services, and Legacy Wealth Advisors are not affiliated .

 

 

Lee Twitter