Beyond the Numbers

Ravi Teja Bommireddipalli spent three decades leading enterprise technology companies, most recently as Chairman and CEO of Robosoft Technologies, where he grew the business sevenfold, moved EBITDA from negative to the high 20s, and led a successful exit to a $1.5 billion Japanese company after roughly 25 buyers competed for the deal. Rather than take another corporate role, he walked away to boot...

Most people think building real wealth comes down to picking better investments. It doesn't. In this episode, Chris Everett of Everett Wealth Solutions explains why structure — not returns — is what actually determines whether wealth survives taxes, life events, and time. Two people can hold the exact same portfolio and end up in very different financial positions, because one built a structure ar...

Luís Alves Dias spent nearly a decade inside international law firms before deciding the way legal work gets done didn't have to stay the same. In 2021 — before the current AI wave hit — he and his co-founders bootstrapped Legau, a generative AI tool built to support the full legal drafting cycle from inside the software lawyers already use: Word, Outlook, iManage, and NetDocuments. In this conver...

Letting a statement sit unopened for a few extra days. Dreading tax season instead of planning around it. An unspoken agreement with a spouse not to talk about the credit card bill. In this solo episode, Chris Everett explains why financial avoidance isn't a character flaw — it's the brain treating uncertainty like a low-grade threat — and why willpower alone rarely fixes it. She walks through how...

Tim J. Smith spent his early career in a quantum mechanics lab — a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Chicago — before a year of unemployment pushed him toward an unexpected question: what if the same rigor that governs how atoms interact could explain how prices work? Two decades later, Tim is the founder of Wiglaf Pricing, where he's helped companies ranging from startups to Fortun...

Chris Everett has sat across the table from surgeons and seven-figure business owners who all say some version of the same thing: "I don't know why, but I still feel broke." In this solo episode, Chris explains why that feeling is almost never about how much money someone has — it's about how much clarity they have. He walks through the real difference between a money problem and a clarity problem...

Juan Soto, President of IT Impact and a 14-time Microsoft Access MVP, joins Beyond the Numbers to talk about what happens when a business's own software becomes the thing holding it back. Juan got his start as a plant manager at a Chicago ice cream ingredients company, building a custom database just to prove the dollar impact of his own process improvements — and it worked well enough to launch h...

Nick Loise built a career proving sales doesn't have to be aggressive to work. As founder and Chief Sales Officer of Sales Performance Team, LLC, he's helped organizations grow sales by as much as 225%, driven 118% year-over-year growth in online education, and pushed SaaS win rates from under 10% to 35% — while building an empathetic, inclusive sales culture. In this conversation with Chris Evere...

Drew Roberts has spent 15 years studying something most business owners feel but rarely name: the frustrating gap between knowing what you want and actually getting there. He calls it "the time in between," and it's the foundation of DB Impact, the consulting practice he built to help business owners fix the operational chaos that keeps them stuck. In this conversation with Chris Everett, Drew tal...

Tom Kosnik has spent more than three decades coaching staffing-industry executives, and in 1995 he founded the Presidents' RoundTable, a peer-to-peer leadership forum that brings C-suite executives together to solve their toughest business problems. In this conversation with Chris Everett, Tom tells the story of two $100 million staffing companies led by two very different CFOs — and what happened...

Bill Walsh spent three decades inside the nonprofit technology sector — including senior leadership roles at Blackbaud through the company's growth from a $10 million business to a billion-dollar market cap — before founding IBW Solutions, a vendor-neutral consulting practice for nonprofit leaders and the vendors that serve them. In this conversation with Chris Everett, Bill explains why organizat...

If you're planning to claim Social Security the moment you're eligible just to "get your money back," fiduciary financial planner Chris Everett wants you to slow down and run the real numbers first. Claiming at 62 instead of waiting until 70 can mean a 76% difference in your monthly benefit — and for a couple, the lifetime income gap can exceed $200,000. In this episode, Chris walks through a real...

Patrick Smith has spent 15 years building C2 Creative Studio, a Chicago branding and design agency built on a simple idea: get creatives working directly with clients, without layers of account managers in between. In this conversation, Patrick shares the financial lessons of growing a creative business from two people to a working studio — including the missed invoice that pushed him to invest in...

Most people think they're ready to retire once they've hit a savings number — but readiness isn't about how much you've saved, it's about whether that money can generate income that outlasts you. In this episode, fiduciary financial planner Chris Everett breaks down why retirement plans fail: underestimated healthcare costs (often exceeding $300,000 for a couple), ignored inflation, and longevity...

Susanna Mlot is an experienced business transformation executive, an aspiring author, and a longtime client of host Chris Everett's fiduciary practice. In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, she joins Chris for an unusually candid conversation about navigating a meaningful relationship later in life — including a partner whose adult children are still struggling to accept it — while building a fin...

The Long-Term Care Decision Most People in Their 50s & 60s Are Ignoring Most people in their fifties and sixties know long-term care exists. They just don't plan for it — because thinking about it is uncomfortable. So they put it off. And putting it off is itself a decision. Just not the one they'd make if they were thinking clearly. In this solo episode of Beyond the Numbers, fiduciary financ...

Donata Stroink-Skillrud is a licensed attorney, certified information privacy professional, and the president and co-founder of Termageddon — a privacy policy platform covering 120+ laws that has helped thousands of businesses from solo entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies stay compliant as privacy regulations continue to multiply. In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, she joins host Chris Ever...

Most people don't lose money from bad decisions. They lose money from no decision — waiting for clarity that never quite comes while the window quietly closes. In this solo episode of Beyond the Numbers, fiduciary financial planner Chris Everett walks through the three financial decisions that carry the highest cost of delay and why if you're between 58 and 67, right now is the most important fina...

In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, host Chris Everett sits down with renowned business strategist, author, and thought leader Rashad Tabakawala for a powerful conversation about leadership, technology, and what it means to stay human in an increasingly data-driven world.   After spending nearly four decades at the forefront of digital transformation, advising global organizations such as Googl...

What if prosthetic limbs could become a source of confidence instead of something people try to hide? In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, Chris Everett sits down with renowned industrial designer and entrepreneur Scott Summit — founder of Bespoke Innovations and Ethereal Matter — for a powerful conversation about empathy-driven design, entrepreneurship, and building technology that restores dig...

Sound Investments: The Intersection of Hearing and Financial Wellbeing | Beyond the Numbers Podcast What if one of the biggest risks to your financial future… had nothing to do with the stock market? In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, host Chris Everett sits down with hearing care expert Adam Dell to explore the powerful—and often overlooked—connection between hearing health and financial well...

What happens when you combine entrepreneurial instinct, emerging tech, and a deep understanding of how sales actually works? In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, host Chris Everett sits down with Paul Pacun, CEO and Founder of vablet, to explore how modern sales teams can operate smarter, stay compliant, and build real trust with clients. Paul shares the story behind the “light bulb moment” spar...

What does it really take to build an elite engineering team—and why is retention one of the most overlooked financial risks in business? In this episode of Beyond The Numbers, host Chris Everett sits down with John Szeder, a Fractional Chief Technology Officer and “zero-to-one” builder, to explore the intersection of engineering leadership, business performance, and long-term value creation. From...

Crypto Isn’t Anonymous: Inside the World of Blockchain Forensics with Ralph Dahm In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, host Chris Everett sits down with Ralph Dahm, a veteran in technology, financial investigations, and executive search, to explore the growing world of crypto fraud and blockchain forensics. Ralph began studying Bitcoin in 2013, when it was increasingly being used to bypass anti-m...

What does it take to lead under extreme pressure — and still build a life of purpose, fulfillment, and legacy? In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, fiduciary financial planner Chris Everett sits down with Sean Patton — former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) commander, Novus Global executive coach, keynote speaker, entrepreneur, and author of A Warrior’s Mindset: Six Keys to Greatness. Sea...