The Inspired Stories Podcast

Greg Mahoney is Associate Director of Management Consulting at Skytale Group, a Dallas-based firm helping dental support organizations and multi-site healthcare platforms grow profitably, prepare for M&A, and exit with positive outcomes. He came to that work through a decade of building his father's single-location dental practice from $1 million to $7.5 million in revenue, discovering alo...

Meir Spiegel is a CPA and partner at B2B CFO, the nation's largest CFO consulting firm, working with privately held businesses in New Jersey and beyond. He spent over a decade as CFO and controller at VIP Wireless, where he built financial systems from the ground up, implemented NetSuite, and developed automated processes that enabled the company to scale through multiple acquisitions before t...

Pat Voltapetti is the co-founder and managing partner of Pinnacle One Capital, a private equity and advisory firm focused on multifamily and commercial real estate in high-growth markets across the Southeast and Sun Belt. A third-generation investor who spent nearly four years managing investor relations at Cardone Capital, Pat left to build something built entirely on his own terms, grounded in t...

Lloyd Lewis: Building a Social Enterprise Around the People Most Workplaces Overlook Lloyd Lewis, President and CEO of Arc Thrift Stores, shares how his son Kennedy’s birth with Down syndrome launched a mission that transformed a struggling thrift chain into one of Colorado’s largest social enterprises — with 34 retail locations, nearly 1,900 employees, $120 million in annual revenue, and 600 empl...

Nathan Anderson is the co-founder and head of operations at Nimbl Tech, a fractional IT firm in Lehi, Utah serving small remote accounting and financial services companies with device management, cybersecurity, and compliance. He built it from scratch inside Nimbl, the parent company where he serves as head of tech, after being turned down from a master's program and redirected by a CEO who of...

From Venezuela's First McDonald's to Miami Nightlife CEO: Luis Ginestra's Hospitality Journey Luis Ginestra, CEO of the Rabbit Group, built one of Miami's most innovative hospitality portfolios through a career spanning Venezuela, San Francisco, and South Florida. From cleaning grills at McDonald's at 16 to managing a 300-seat Thai restaurant at 21 to leading a multi-concept gr...

Drew Allen is the President and CEO of Grace Technologies, an electrical safety and predictive maintenance manufacturer based in Davenport, Iowa whose products are used in factories and facilities across more than 60 countries. He made his first trip to China at 13, spent years selling car care products across Asia for Meguiar's and 3M after college, and then returned to run strategy and produ...

Shaun McDonald is the Director of Customer Success at Harri, a New York-based technology company founded in 2012 that helps restaurants, hotels, and hospitality businesses hire, schedule, and engage frontline employees. Harri serves millions of workers across tens of thousands of locations worldwide and counts McDonald's, Subway, Burger King, Raising Cane's, and Shake Shack among its clien...

From GE Finance to M&A Advisor: Matt Coyne's 25 Years on the Front Lines of Business Exits Matt Coyne, founder of Brandywine Mergers and Acquisitions and Formation LLC, spent a decade inside Fortune 100 companies before stepping away to help privately held business owners navigate the most important financial transaction of their lives. A deacon, author, and recovering alcoholic with a dis...

From Family Room Startup to 200-Person Firm: Lenny Grant on Persistence, Karma, and Building a Culture That Lasts Lenny Grant, principal and housing market leader at RRM Design Group, shares his journey from landing his first architecture job through a college job board, to building a thriving firm out of his family room, through the 2008 financial crisis that wiped out his net worth and nearly co...

🎧 From Fuzhou to Fairfax: How Kashawn and Ke Yu Chen Built Chin Chin Cafe Into a 27-Year Community Institution Brothers Kashawn and Ke Yu Chen immigrated from Fuzhou, China in 1995 with no English and no roadmap. Kashawn started washing dishes at 13 to buy a bicycle he never ended up buying. At 19, the brothers pooled their savings, borrowed from their parents, and purchased a run-down Asian rest...

🎧 From the Air Force to Ritz Carlton to Chick-fil-A: Ryan Magnon’s Uncommon Path to Building Ithaka Hospitality Partners Ryan Magnon, COO and partner at Ithaka Hospitality Partners, spent four years as an Air Force quality officer, helped Horst Schultz launch the Capella ultra luxury hotel brand, then spent 15 years at Chick-fil-A helping transform their drive-through operations. The thread conne...

🎧 From Charter Jets to Coaching Entrepreneurs: Ral West’s Journey Building Hawaiian Vacations and Livin' the Dream Ral West grew up watching her father Chuck West build Alaska’s tourism industry from scratch. She eventually launched her own company, Hawaiian Vacations, by leasing a Boeing jet and selling direct charter flights between Alaska and Hawaii. What followed was 40 years of building,...

🎧 Cash Flow, Risk, and 2,000 Engagements: Greg Light’s Journey in Business Valuation Greg Light, managing director and co-founder of Bodmer Price and Light, has spent 21 years helping business owners understand what their companies are actually worth — and why the gap between what owners think and what the market says is almost always about two things: cash flow and risk. His boutique firm, launc...

🎧 From Emancipated Minor to Exit Advisor: Kyle McCord’s Journey to Max Value Advisors Kyle McCord, founder and managing director of Max Value Advisors, spent over 15 years inside commercial banking watching business owners get outmatched by private equity at the closing table. That pattern became his obsession — and eventually his company. Today he works with lower middle market businesses doing...

From Corporate Finance to Fractional CFO: Ramona Cedeno’s Journey Building FiBrick Ramona Cedeno, CPA, CFP®, and founder and CEO of FiBrick, shares her path from immigrant daughter to fractional C-suite partner for growth-stage startups. She opens up about leaving corporate stability, building a firm from a single email, and the personal crisis that reshaped her resilience and leadership philosoph...

🎧 From Cold Press Kitchen to $300 Million Exit: Jeff Church’s Entrepreneurial Journey Jeff Church, co-founder of Suja Juice and founder of CPG Founders Group and Dream Makers, scaled a cold press juice concept from a San Diego kitchen to $300 million in five years — then kept building. Across eight companies, more than $275 million raised, and nearly $700 million returned to investors, Jeff’s car...

Peter Holton: From Blue Collar Roots to M&A Advisor in the Facility Services Industry Peter Holton, Managing Director at Caber Hill Advisors, shares how a childhood in a family construction business, a decade at one of the world’s largest paving companies, and a near-fatal aneurysm at 42 shaped a different kind of investment banker — one who speaks the language of the owners he serves and tell...

🎧 Lean, Strategy, and the Upward Spiral: Patricia Malone’s Journey Building Strategic Capacity Patricia Malone, managing director of Enhance C-suite, has spent 35 years turning financial chaos into clarity — from manufacturing plant floors to defense contractors to PE-backed growth companies. She developed the theory of strategic capacity in her doctoral dissertation, helped triple the size of a...

🎧 From $13 Billion Fintech Exit to Fractional CFO: Michael Stier’s Journey to Focus CFO Michael Stier, area president for the Carolinas at Focus CFO, spent 18 years building Adhesion Wealth from a dot-com pivot to a $13 billion managed assets platform before completing a strategic sale in 2018. What came next taught him something most business owners learn too late: the financial discipline he wi...

Jim Bates: From Division I Tennis to Boutique M&A Firm Builder Jim Bates, partner at Jackim Woods & Company and co-founder of Sports Club Advisors, shares how a Division I tennis career, a gutsy career pivot at 28, and a series of recession-forced reinventions led to co-founding the Exit Planning Institute, writing the book on exit planning, and building a boutique M&A firm that serves...

Emily Stubbs: From Corporate Law to Deal Advisor at Visibility CFO Emily Egbert Stubbs, deal advisor and attorney at Visibility CFO and Deal Advisors, shares how two painful equity partnership failures, the experience of buying and selling a commercial cleaning company, and a career shift from corporate law to M&A advisory shaped a firm built to defend seller value in deals under $40 million....

From the Navy to Walmart to Boutique COO: Tina Dao's Mission for Privately Owned Business Tina Dao, founder and CEO of Liberated Leaders, spent her career scaling organizations from startup to global enterprise, including Fitbit, GetAround, and a 2,800-person platform at Walmart, before building a fractional COO firm dedicated to the privately owned businesses she cares about most. Rooted in h...

🎙️ From $120K and a Pizza Oven to Three Sonoma County Restaurants: Brad Barmore’s Story at Kin Restaurant Group Brad Barmore, co-founder of Kin Restaurant Group, started with $120,000 scraped from friends, a personal loan, and two silent partners, signed a lease April 1st, and opened Kin Windsor by June 22nd of 2011. Fourteen years later, he runs three concepts across Sonoma County and owns two of...

🎙️ From Nuclear Reactors to Acquisition Arbitrage: Patrick Rogers’ Path to Elkridge Advisors Patrick Rogers, managing partner of Elkridge Advisors, ran nuclear reactors in the Navy, spent 13 years in chemical sales management, built a property management company from a real estate crash, coached CEOs for 17 years, and then watched his M&A mentor reveal a complete absence of character at exactl...