BrandBuilders

Jonathan Russell is Vice President of Sales and Administration at Sterling Marketing. He joined Sterling in 2025 after more than a decade in education, Scouting, fundraising, and nonprofit development. His career included leadership roles with the Mecklenburg County Council of the Boy Scouts of America, United Way of Central Carolinas, and Freedom School Partners. Across those roles, he learned ho...

Michael Knotts is President of Knotts Builders, a family-run homebuilder serving the greater Charlotte region. A second-generation builder and graduate of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, Michael began his career with Ryan Homes before joining the family business, where he has worked in project management and leadership for nearly two decades. Knotts Builders intentionally limits the number of...

Lauren Ulrey is co-founder of The Queen’s Mahjery, Charlotte’s first dedicated mahjong studio. Lauren and her co-founders, Jennifer Ross and Patti Roth, met through their daughters’ gymnastics team and deepened their friendship playing mahjong in Lauren’s home. After Jennifer visited a mahjong studio in Dallas, the three saw an opportunity to create something Charlotte didn’t yet have. The result...

Fewer people have shaped modern Charlotte — or modern North Carolina — more than our next guest. Pat McCrory was elected to the Charlotte City Council in 1989, and then spent a record fourteen years as the city’s mayor. Along the way he chaired the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Environmental Committee for six terms, founded the North Carolina Metropolitan Coalition, and served on the U.S....

Our next guest has spent more than two decades guiding families through one of the hardest passages any of us will face. Jennifer Torpey Szakaly (pronounced “sockeye”) is the founder and CEO of Caregiving Corner, the Charlotte-based firm she launched in 2005 to help families navigate aging, caregiving and long-term care. What started as a solo vision has grown into a team serving more than t...

Our next guest is proof that you don’t have to wait for permission — or a diploma — to start building something that matters. Justin Kornblum is a student at Tulane University and a co-founder of The Second Half Network, a career development platform built exclusively for collegiate student-athletes.  The idea behind Second Half is simple and, frankly, overdue. Ninety-nine percent of college...

Terri L. White is President and CEO of the Charlotte Museum of History, home to the Rock House, the oldest surviving structure in Mecklenburg County, built in 1774. She’s the first African-American to lead the museum in its history. Terri came to Charlotte in 2019 after an operations role at Lowe’s, following years of development and operations work at the Heinz History Center, the Car...

Thomas Girdwood is Senior Estimator and Project Manager at Kingdom Demolition, a Charlotte-based demolition company founded in 2016 that specializes in commercial and residential demolition, selective and total demolition, and concrete cutting services across the Carolinas. Thomas has been with the company since 2017, starting as Director of Operations before moving into estimating and project man...

Brent Schepel is co-founder of Replay Sports Cards, a full-service sports card retailer offering buying, selling, trading, and grading. Brent’s expertise in card grading is what launched the whole venture — he and his partner opened their first shop in Charlotte in 2021 under the name One Stop Sports. In 2024, the brand rebranded to Replay Sports Cards and shortly after opened the franchise...

Lynsea is a Charlotte-based singer, songwriter, and performer whose music blends acoustic folk, indie pop, and alternative rock. Raised in Texas, she began writing songs as a kid, studied at Berklee College of Music, and later worked as Record Label Manager for Elevation Worship Records before committing full-time to her own music.  In 2024, QC Nerve named her Charlotte’s Best Pop Artist. La...

Jason Watson is a for-real serial entrepreneur. His career reads like a highlight reel of reinvention: He started in business development at American Woodmark and Bridgeway Media before founding Dublin Dog in 2006. He eventually sold that to Remington Outdoor Company in 2012. There, he launched RK9, a division building specialized canine products for law enforcement and defense.  In 2018, he found...

Trent Bailey is the co-founder of ParWalker, a Charlotte-based startup that makes premium accessories designed specifically for walking golfers. Trent spent years in the marketing world — at NASCAR, at Ingersoll Rand, at Club Car, and most recently as Digital Marketing Director at Training The Street. He knows brands. He knows products. And apparently, he also knows what it’s like to be out...

Skip Norris is the President of The Building Center, one of the largest privately held lumber and building products companies in the United States. The company was founded in Charlotte in 1977 by his father, Ed Norris. And what started as a single building supply operation has grown into a vertically integrated powerhouse with lumberyards, truss plants, custom millwork operations, and door shops a...

Andrea Swope is a founding force behind Blueprint Financial Advisors — a Charlotte-based registered investment advisor that launched in 2021 with a single advisor and a little over $20 million in assets. Fast forward to the end of 2025, and Blueprint is managing $1.4 billion. That’s not a typo. But what makes Andrea’s story compelling isn’t just the growth. It’s the how . B...

There’s a new generation of wine professionals out there, replacing intimidation with invitation, and gatekeeping with genuine hospitality. Shay Gilchrist is one of those people. She’s the founder of Wine & Vibes, a wine consulting and experiential brand built on four pillars: food, wine, hosting, and vibes. She holds a WSET Level 2 with Merit certification and works as a wine cons...

There are two kinds of resilience stories. One is the kind where someone overcomes something hard and comes out the other side stronger, more polished. Like in the movies. The other kind is messier. It’s told from inside; or what our next guest calls “the long middle.” It’s nowhere close to a straight line, and it’s a whole lot more complicated. Like real life. On June 12, 2024, Eleanor Shel...

Next time you’re on your computer, look at the last five brand websites you visited. How many of them looked exactly like each other? Same stock photography, same font, same promise to “transform your business.” Marketing has a sameness problem, and most people in the industry have just accepted it. Laurie “Nez” Donato is not one of those people.  After earning a BFA in Vis...

Charlotte is practically famous for its trees. They line the parking lots of office parks, anchor the corners of apartment complexes, shade the walking paths of neighborhoods we love. We trim them back when they get inconvenient, and sometimes — only when they fall — do we finally reckon with how much they were holding together. Trees are living infrastructure. Long-term investments that can outla...

There’s a question that lives in the back of the mind of nearly every parent raising a child with special needs. It doesn’t announce itself — it just sits there, quiet and heavy. What happens to my child when I am no longer here? For a long time, that question had no good answer. Families navigated a maze of government benefits, legal documents, and financial systems — often alone, gui...

In 2009, Charlotte had the distinction of being the largest city in the United States without a single brewery. Most people would look at that and see opportunity. Ryan Self did, and built his entire career from that moment forward. He spent thirteen years at Olde Mecklenburg Brewery — from self-distributing kegs to Charlotte bars to statewide distribution across North Carolina. Building something...

Every business runs on data. Every data breach costs money, erodes trust, and — in some cases — ends companies. The question isn’t whether cybersecurity matters. It’s who you trust to protect you when the stakes are that high. Today’s guest built his career on that question. Matt Donato spent nearly two decades in professional services — starting in staffing and executive search,...

What does it look like when someone builds their entire life around a question — not “what can I get?” but “what can I give?” Today’s guest has been quietly answering that for over a decade, and the results speak for themselves: hundreds of young lives redirected, a nonprofit that has become a genuine force in Charlotte, and a reputation so consistent that his colleag...

The right lighting can transform a space—from how it feels to how it functions—and behind every smart system is someone who understands both the technical side and the relationship side of the business. Our guest today is Kenny Barnes , General Manager of FRM Lighting & Controls, based right here in Charlotte. FRM has been a leader in the electrical industry since 1969, and in 2024 they launch...

When you think “golf carts,” you might picture country clubs and fairways—but in Charlotte, golf carts are becoming a lifestyle, a way to move, connect, and have fun. At the center of that movement is Charlotte Golf Carts , led by entrepreneur and owner Fred Griffith . Fred’s journey hasn’t been a straight line. He’ll tell you he’s “had it all, lost it all, and never gave up,” and that imagination...

Charlotte is growing fast, and a lot of that growth is being shaped by people who don’t just build projects, they build communities. One of those leaders is Todd Collins , CEO and founder of Red Hill Ventures, a Charlotte-based real estate firm and investment platform focused on innovative, community-centered development. Under Todd’s leadership, Red Hill Ventures has invested in and revitalized k...