Evolving Your Workplace

A former fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, Gal Oron is no stranger to a challenge. He has extensive experience as an entrepreneur and began his career as a QA engineer with Orsus where he moved up the ranks and became President until its acquisition by Nice Systems in 2009. After his successful experience with M&A, he went to Verint as an M&A specialist and then became a partner at T...

Real estate investment can be very complicated if you don't clearly know what you're doing. I'm sure you get spammed via email and LinkedIn from companies that want you to invest. But how do you know who's the real deal? There are many challenges that make it hard for even the most successful hotel companies. They have to staff, retain staff, market, provide great customer service, and more. Carol...

When it comes to flood risk, Brad Hubbard, Founder & President of National Flood Experts is the go-to guy. National Flood Experts looks at properties from an engineering standpoint as well as how national flood models rate the flood risk and can tell whether or not a building really is a flood risk and, if so, what the risk truly is. They have frequently been successful at moving buildings fro...

In this episode, host Carol Schultz speaks with Tim Kachuriak, Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity.  Tim had dedicated his life to non-profit work and is a fundraising thought leader and has realized that the t...

In this episode, host Carol Schultz speaks with Camille Grade, CMO at Bushel. Hear about their pivot from mobile custom software development, a services company, to building a technology company focused on agribusiness. When looking at the physical infrastructure built in the US hundreds of years ago, this gave the US a huge competitive advantage in selling commodities overseas. Bushel believes th...

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz talks to Brian Adams, Founder & President of Excelsior Capital, a real estate private equity firm primarily focusing on stabilized income and capital preservation. Brian began his career as an attorney in criminal law before moving into the real estate market and founding Excelsior in 2019. Hear about his journey, as a young entrepreneur, the mistakes h...

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz talks to Co-founder & CEO of HazardHub, Bob Frady, about being acquired by Guidewire Software. We spoke to Bob in the spring of 2021 and wanted to talk about the acquisition, why it made sense, and what HazardHub will look like moving forward. The common denominator with HazardHub, as with so many successful startups, is the customer-centric nature of t...

In this episode, Carol speaks with Daniel Freedman, Co-founder & Co-CEO of Burnalong, an online video and social motivation platform that helps people achieve their health goals and overcome health and wellness challenges. Daniel and his Co-founder Mike Kott are building something that is actually working in an industry where most people who start a fitness program rarely or never stay co...

In this episode, Carol speaks with David Insdursky, President of ENCON. Founded in 1968, ENCON is a commercial HVAC full-service self-performing contractor. David began interning with the company while in high school and learned how to best run the company by working his way up and learning the different parts of the organization and how to do many of them. He took the business over from his fathe...

In this episode, Carol speaks with Steven Hoffman, Founder & CEO of Founders Space, a global startup accelerator. Founded in San Francisco in 2010, Founders Space now has 50 partners worldwide who came to Steve to learn how to build incubators. Steve is a long-time entrepreneur who has founded four startups and found himself being a "go-to" guy for entrepreneurs who wanted to know how to build...

Carol Schultz speaks with Dave Milliken, Founder & CEO of Greetly, about the critical need and benefit of visitor management systems. Dave saw a need for this when he was a customer going into buildings for meetings and experienced the poor "reception" experience. As it happens with so many founders, it was how he came up with the idea for Greetly and figured out a much-needed solution to a pr...

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz talks with Brandon Weber, Co-founder & CEO of Nava, a benefits brokerage on a mission to disrupt and transform how healthcare is found and purchased by businesses. A great number of Americans receive healthcare insurance through their employers (about 168M people) and Nava is navigating how to bring the benefits that a F500 employer can provide its empl...

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz speaks with Gaurav Bhattacharya, Co-founder & CEO of involve.ai. involve.ai is solving the problem of customer churn while accelerating customer growth for their clients. It is 25 times cheaper to keep a customer than it is to acquire a new customer, so this platform is a big money saver to companies that are at scale. Gaurav founded the company in 2020...

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz speaks with Kevin Stein, co-founder & CEO of Delos Insurance. Delos is an Insurtech startup focused on providing insurance for low-risk homes in wildfire areas. This is a critical and complex segment of the insurance market. As wildfires become more destructive and are damaging homes in geographies insurance companies were not expecting -referred to as...

“At 11, I got hooked on an Apple 2 and just thought it was the most amazing device I’d ever seen. And from there really I like to think that’s all I’ve done.” - Joe Kinsella Joe founded CloudHealth Technologies, a provider of multi-cloud services, which was eventually acquired by VMware. He walks us through his reasoning for making a rare decision among founders: to find a CEO rather than assuming...

“We don’t have to do it just the way it’s been done for the last 50 and 60 years. That we can tweak some stuff and try some new stuff and we might fail, but let’s fail forward. Let’s fail fast, let’s fail often, and then let’s learn from that and pivot.” -Jennifer Kenning Jennifer founded Align Impact, an impact investment advisory firm. It is women-owned and women also make up the majority of the...

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz talks to Orchid Black's Founder & Managing Partner, Jim Barnish Jr. about growth, impact, lessons, and more. Closing in on four years old, Orchid Black is a boutique advisory of former CEOs, CROs, CMOs, strategy execs, and board members. It is staffed with accomplished operators with an investor mindset and deep M&A experience. Jim believes, like an...

"Who are you leaving a legacy for?" Don Monistere asked 100 executives. Many women said for their families and many men said for everyone. In this episode, Don tells us why this question matters. He currently heads General Informatics, an Information Technology Managed Service Provider, aka a tech solutions company. Don studied management and then wanted to learn about a new technology at the time...

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz speaks with Axon's Jawad Ahsan about offering a tech suite to bolster public safety, having a customer base in law enforcement, how law enforcement footage is managed by Axon, trying to integrate culture, and more. Check out Axon at https://www.axon.com/ You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Ca...

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Steven Hartman of SynchronoSure. SynchronoSure is an Insurtech managing underwriter, underwriting on account of insurance companies and leveraging state of the art technology, data, and algorithms. To learn more, visit https://synchronosure.com/ You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @ca...

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Rob McKinney of Ravn Alaska, Alaska's largest regional carrier. Listen to Rob McKinney's incredible story about his work on various airlines before winning the bid for Ravn Alaska. To learn more, visit https://www.ravnalaska.com/ You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz .

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Patrick Rea of Canopy Boulder, a business accelerator in Boulder, Colorado. Canopy Boulder has already invested in one hundred and thirty small businesses within the cannabis industry. To learn more, visit https://www.canopyboulder.com/ You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschul...

In this episode, Carol Schultz talks with Joel Tealer, CHRO of Global Benefits Group that specializes in the international insurance market. Whether you need travel insurance, or you suffered an injury abroad, GBG can help. To learn more, visit https://www.gbg.com/ You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz .

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Steve Pockross of Verblio, a blog and content creation company for SEO and marketing. Login to the Verblio platform and work with their writers' products and talent. To learn more, visit https://www.verblio.com/ You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz .

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Ofer Yourvexel of Pepperi, a self-sustaining business where Ofer helps his clients with telesales, field sales, and B2B eCommerce. To learn more, visit https://www.pepperi.com/ You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz .