Parallel Entrepreneur with Mark Cleveland

What if running multiple businesses isn't a failure to focus, but a different way of operating altogether? Dr. Tobias Kutzewski has spent years studying entrepreneurs who build and manage multiple ventures simultaneously. His research followed 21 entrepreneurs over time, examining how they allocate resources, respond to uncertainty, recognize opportunities, build teams, and decide when to explore...

What if running multiple businesses isn't a failure to focus, but a different way of operating altogether? Dr. Tobias Kutzewski has spent years studying entrepreneurs who build and manage multiple ventures simultaneously. His research followed 21 entrepreneurs over time, examining how they allocate resources, respond to uncertainty, recognize opportunities, build teams, and decide when to explore...

Annie Cyr saw a gap in the textile industry, wrote the book she couldn't find, and years later built the technology she wished existed. In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur, Annie joins Mark Cleveland to share the journey from writing The Guide to Textile Fibers to co-founding Tengiva, and what she's learned trying to modernize a complex global industry from the inside. The conversation go...

There are very few people who have led transformation at the scale Steven Bandrowczak has. After leading global technology businesses including DHL, Lenovo, HP and ultimately serving as CEO of Xerox, Steven joins Mark Cleveland to share the leadership lessons he's learned from decades of navigating disruption, reinvention and technological change. One of the most surprising moments in this convers...

Joe De Sena has built one of the world's most recognised endurance brands. As the founder and CEO of Spartan, he's spent decades proving that resilience isn't something you're born with. It's something you build. In this conversation with Mark Cleveland, Joe shares the business philosophy behind Spartan, why comfort quietly destroys ambition, how surrounding yourself with the right people changes...

What do engineering, world championship sport, product innovation, television production, and the Olympic movement all have in common? In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur, Mark Cleveland sits down with Ian Adamson , Chair of the World Pentathlon Multisport Obstacle Commission, to explore a career built on curiosity, continuous learning, and saying yes to opportunities most people would ne...

What happens when a musician, software engineer, educator, and entrepreneur all show up in the same person? In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur , Mark Cleveland sits down with Spencer Handley , Founder and CEO of Sonora, to explore a career built on curiosity, learning, and challenging conventional thinking. Spencer shares the story behind Sonora's growth from a guitar education company i...

What happens when an entrepreneur spends decades helping founders transition, scale, and protect the businesses they've built? In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur , Mark Cleveland sits down with Douglas Song , founder and CEO of Protos Capital, for a wide-ranging conversation on independent sponsors, lower middle market acquisitions, leadership, succession planning, AI, uncertainty, and w...

There's a new kind of builder emerging. Not slower. Not more careful. Just… faster, sharper, and a little harder to categorize. In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Innovaté , product designer, creative entrepreneur, and one of the most naturally adaptive builders you'll come across. Daniel doesn't just talk about ideas. He turns them into real, working products, sometimes in minutes. We explo...

Most people think they're building a business. But every now and then, you meet someone who's building something deeper, something rooted in people, place, and community. In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur , Mark sits down with Andy Marshall , Founder & CEO of A. Marshall Hospitality and the driving force behind Puckett's. From his early days in the grocery business to transforming a...

There's a moment in every founder's journey where the question shifts. Not "What am I building?" But "Who am I becoming?" In this conversation, Mark sits down with Eve Peeterson , an Estonian strategy and transformation leader who has led across private industry, government innovation, and national startup ecosystems. From working her way up in hospitality… To leading Estonia's startup strategy… T...

In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur – Innovation Series, Mark Cleveland and Johnny Anderson sit down with Dakota Simpson, Chief Program Officer at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Dakota is focused on a simple idea: founders don't succeed in isolation. They succeed when the right systems, support, and structure are in place around them. At the NEC, he leads the strategy and execution be...

In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur – Innovation Series, Mark Cleveland and Johnny Anderson sit down with Stephanie Johnson, a fractional CEO and COO who specializes in helping companies eliminate what she calls operational debt. Most leaders recognize technical debt in software. Fewer realize the same concept exists inside organizations. Misaligned teams. Unclear processes. Decisions tha...

In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur , Innovation Series, Mark Cleveland and Johnny Anderson sit down with Amy Henderson, Director of Infrastructure at HCA Healthcare Physician Services. Amy operates at the intersection of technical viability and business outcomes, aligning talent, technology, and data to drive enterprise growth inside one of the largest healthcare systems in the country....

In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur – Innovation Series, Mark Cleveland and Johnny Anderson sit down with Meg Chamblee, Executive Vice President for Tennessee at UDig. Meg launched UDig's Nashville office in 2020 and has grown it more than 10x, building not just a market presence, but a reputation rooted in trust, partnership, and long-term relationships. But this conversation goes far be...

Great experiences don't happen by accident. They're designed. In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur – Innovation Series, Mark Cleveland and Johnny Anderson sit down with Suzi Earhart, CCXP, a Customer Experience and Organizational Change executive who believes better experiences begin with intentional design, empathy, and mutual understanding — and end in measurable business results. Suzi s...

The leadership playbooks that built today's successful organizations were designed for a different world. In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur – Innovation Series, hosts Mark Cleveland and Johnny Anderson sit down with Amalia Goodwin, Global Managing Director of Adaptive Organizations at Slalom, to confront a reality most executives quietly avoid: Incremental change is no longer safe. It's...

In this Innovation Series episode of Parallel Entrepreneur , hosts Mark Cleveland and Johnny Anderson sit down with Dr. Jeremy Qualls , Executive Director of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center (EIC) and College, Career & Technical Education at Williamson County Schools. Jeremy leads one of the most compelling early-stage entrepreneurship models in the region—where students don't just...

Why do AI initiatives often stall? What does it take to build AI strategies that scale inside real businesses? What does responsible, human-centered AI look like in practice? In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur – Innovation Series, Mark Cleveland sits down with Jon Hilton, Shareholder-in-Charge of the LBMC AI Practice, to address these questions. Jon brings a rare mix of experience, enter...

In this special Innovation Series episode of Parallel Entrepreneur , hosts Mark Cleveland and Johnny Anderson sit down with Shauna Sprague , an AI strategist, architect, and TEDx speaker with 20+ years of experience helping Fortune 500 organizations navigate technology transformation. Shauna is known for helping leaders move beyond the AI hype and into confident execution—building clear roadmaps,...

In this special Innovation Series episode of Parallel Entrepreneur , hosts Mark Cleveland and Johnny Anderson sit down with Rod McDaniel, CEO of S3 Recycling Solutions and Board Chair of the Greater Nashville Technology Council. Rod's journey, from growing up in public housing in Nashville to leading a nationally recognized, mission-driven tech recycling company, is a powerful example of what comm...

What happens when a city stops waiting for permission and starts acting like the technology hub it already is? You get Nashville's tech moment, and leaders willing to build it together. Mark Blaze is the kind of leader communities grow around. As President & CEO of the Greater Nashville Technology Council, he's less interested in headlines and more focused on connection, collaboration, and lon...

What happens when a cybersecurity veteran automates the work his competitors still struggle to deliver? He builds the future—and lets them use it. Michael Peters is a rare kind of founder: one who leads both with technical depth and creative clarity. In this episode, we dive into the frameworks behind his companies Lazarus Alliance and Continuum GRC, the origin of the HORSE Project, and how he bal...

In this episode of The Parallel Entrepreneur, Mark Cleveland welcomes Carla Bailo—an industry visionary who’s helped shape the future of mobility, from General Motors and Nissan to leading the Center for Automotive Research and winning the USDOT Smart City Challenge for Columbus, Ohio. Carla shares stories of innovation, mentorship, boardroom leadership, and the importance of building systems that...

Welcome back to The Parallel Entrepreneur for part 2 with British-American polymath Matthew Joynes. In this fast-paced sequel we dive into: • How Matthew rescued a bankrupt currency-trading firm and scaled it to $1 B+ in volume. • Why he calls Bitcoin “a collectible—like Beanie Babies” and predicts its slide back to reality. • Dollar dominance, tariffs as modern-day tribute, and the hidden mechani...