The Quiet Work

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richerich/ https://richerich.com/ Richard Richardson runs five businesses at once. Brand strategy, logistics, 3PL, distribution, and hospitality. He's been doing it for over 20 years and the nickname that stuck — Mr. Strategic — wasn't something he invented. His clients gave it to him. We talk about how he learned to sell by fitting into his customer's plan instead of p...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-chamberlin-the-bilingual-lantern/ https://www.thebilinguallantern.com/en Jennifer Chamberlin went to France at 14 for a 10-day homestay. The family gave her a ring when she arrived. She's still friends with them today — and the host mom is turning 80 this year. That one family changed the trajectory of her life. She moved back at 16 to become fluent, then again...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-smith-725508b/ https://www.vonco.com/ Keith Smith grew up doing paper routes and cleaning strip mall shops before eventually finding his way into flexible packaging at 18. Thirty years later he's the president, CEO, and owner of Vonco Products — a medical device contract manufacturer he acquired in 2013 from a 75-year-old founder who had no exit plan. The roofs le...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-j-miles/ https://www.milestone-leadership.com/blog Mike Miles spent 20 years at Microsoft. Led teams of 700 people across 11 countries. Helped launch Bing in 75 markets. Held two patents. And nearly burned out trying to take a company public before 9/11 ended that dream. What he walked away with wasn't the stock options. It was a question: is that really the leader...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/candicevandertholen/ https://heal.me/candice Candice Van Dertholen spent years building other people's businesses — launching a YogaSix studio from four walls and a concept to 400 members, managing Anytime Fitness to 1,500 members, creating communities where people felt at home. Then she burned out. And when she started her own business, she realized she'd carried the e...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomkirkham/ https://www.kirkhamirontech.com/ Tom Kirkham has been in cybersecurity for 26 years. He's seen everything from bragging rights hackers in the late 90s to an industrial-scale trillion-dollar criminal industry. But nothing changed his perspective quite like the day an FBI agent showed up at his office and told him he was on an ISIS kill list — because a compan...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcsnyderman/ https://npoint.ventures/ At 17, Marc Snyderman and his brother rented a bay at his dad's dealership, made business cards that said "Exotic Care," and started picking up people's cars door-to-door to detail them. He says it would have been a nine-figure exit if he'd kept going. Instead he went to law school, interned at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, ran...

Connect with Casey: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-purington-537103ab/ Website: https://www.usecalltex.com/ Casey Purington has spent 15 years obsessing over one thing: what happens when a customer calls a home service company. Most of the time — especially after hours — nothing good happens. The phone rings. No one answers. The customer calls the next company on the list. And the HVA...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-kennedy/ https://businessclubcotedazur.com/ Joshua Kennedy started his first business at 18. By his thirties, he'd helped a client grow a data center from a €100M dream to a €167M exit in two years. Then he packed up, moved to the French Riviera, and started over. Today Josh runs Business Club Côte d'Azur — a highly vetted founder community in the south of France...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-florio-51397765/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderflorio/ https://www.swobapp.com/ Stephanie and Alex Florio weren't engineers. They were marketers — both working at agencies, both quietly dreaming of building something of their own. The idea hit Alex while using Tinder. What if hiring worked like that? Swipe left or right on candidates. Simple, fast, huma...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-reich05/ https://www.abundantempowerment.com/ Nick Reich built a state championship basketball team at a school that had never played a home game. Then he walked away from coaching forever. What he took with him was a question that's driven the last 15 years of his career: what actually makes a team great — and why do most leaders never figure it out? Today Nick is...

https://chordify.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenmorris/ Ken Morris left India, landed in Silicon Valley in 2000, and has spent the last 12 years building Chordify — a software engineering firm that helps startups and funded companies build products without burning through their runway. But what I found most interesting wasn't the technical side. It was how Ken thinks about trust, relationship...

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jd-dillon/ Website: https://www.tigoenergy.com/ In Q2 of 2023, Tigo Energy hit almost $70 million in revenue. By Q4, it was under $9 million. JD Dillon, their Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer, was in the room for all of it — the IPO, the collapse, and eight straight quarters of growth since. We talk about what actually caused the crash, how they...

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevecraig20/ Website: https://solmetex.com/ Most people walk into a dental office and never think twice about the water being used on them. Steve Craig says that's exactly the problem. As VP of Sales at Solmetex, Steve has spent decades in the dental industry, and his message is simple: water is the number one instrument in dentistry, and about 70% of practic...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/grzybowskij/ https://penji.co/ Jonathan Grzybowski didn't start with investors, a big team, or a fancy office. He started with a problem he couldn't solve — getting quality design done fast. So he built Penji. From charging $79/month to serving clients in 80+ countries with 500+ team members and 24-hour delivery, Jonathan breaks down exactly how they did it — and what a...

Connect with Joy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyvanichkul/ https://www.wellnessofjoy.com/ In this episode, I sit down with Joy Wanichkul, founder of Wellness of Joy and creator of the Intelligent Beauty Method. Joy went from being a top supermodel in Thailand to building multiple wellness businesses and now helping people integrate inner peace with outer confidence. We talk about: The difference...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dean-fougere/ https://www.d-2.com/ In this episode, I sit down with Dean Fougere from D2 Incorporated, a defense contractor building critical technology used by the US military, NATO forces, and global energy companies. We break down: - The sensor technology used on US submarines and aircraft - How fuel systems can explode, and how they’re prevented - Why conductivity i...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-butler-43medicaldevice/ In this episode, I sit down with Michael Butler, a serial entrepreneur and medical device operator with 30+ years of experience across pharma, devices, and healthcare innovation. We break down how the industry actually works behind the scenes. Not the polished version. We cover: The real difference between pharma and medical devices Why r...

https://coalfire.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherkresge1/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefflmil/ In this episode of The Quiet Work Podcast, I sit down with Chris Kresge and Jeff Miller from Coalfire to talk about the high-stakes world of cybersecurity and how Global 2000 companies should evaluate risk, resilience, and strategy. We discuss: • Why startups should take cybersecurity seriou...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-bearden-736821/ https://www.alterecofoods.com/ In this episode of The Quiet Work Podcast, I sit down with Keith Bearden — CEO of Alter Eco, private equity operating partner, and executive coach. We discuss: • Turnarounds and value creation • Climate conviction vs. performative sustainability • Leading high-performance teams • Private equity discipline inside purpo...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jnbrooksiv/ http://wowtrailers.com In this episode of The Quiet Work Podcast, I sit down with Jonathan Brooks, CEO of Warehouse on Wheels. We talk about: • The invisible pressure inside the supply chain • Why most companies don’t plan for storage chaos • Acquiring mom-and-pop businesses at scale • Risk-taking as a recovering CFO • The mindset behind 100 locations and 10...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanalexandersle/ Website: https://www.straightlineentrepreneur .... In this episode of The Quiet Work Podcast, I sit down with Jordan Alexander, entrepreneur, transformation coach, and founder of Straight Line Entrepreneur. We talk about why successful men feel empty after hitting their money goals, the internal work that drives real growth, fatherhood, identity, and...

Connect with David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-wagner-536717241/ In this episode of The Quiet Work Podcast, I sit down with David Wagner — entrepreneur, systems thinker, and VP of Technology inside a private equity-backed manufacturing organization. We talk about leadership, systems, scale, AI, mergers & acquisitions, and what separates fragile companies from anti-fragile ones. If you’r...

Virtual Workshop: https://metaexperts.com/free-leadership-alignment-workshop/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/roncrabtree/ http://metaops.com In this episode of The Quiet Work Podcast, I sit down with Ron Crabtree, Founder and CEO of MetaOps. Ron has spent over four decades inside operations, supply chain, and digital transformation. From paper-and-pencil planning in the 1970s to today’s AI-driven wor...

https://braincx.ai/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/tariqalinur/ In this episode of The Quiet Work Podcast, I sit down with Tariq Alinur, CEO of BrainCX, to unpack what most companies get wrong about AI-driven customer experience. This is not a conversation about hype or replacing people. It’s about how voice AI can replicate the best human conversations at scale, especially in high-trust environments...