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The road to the middle market CEO corner office is paved with mile markers that guide in surprising, unpredictable, and some might even say “mysterious” ways! But how do you get such a widely coveted position? This is the question often heard during decades of ROI’s executive search interviews, conducted with top-level executives. ROI’s Into the Corner Office podcast is a new inspiration and answer platform which premieres visionary tales of adventure with great endings and highlights, from powerhouse CEOs driving the formidable success of the U.S. economy’s middle market sector. The CEOs behind this impressive growth reveal insights which equipped them to lead their organizations. Showcasing dynamic leadership stories, Into the Corner Office dives into the heart of what informed and formed these CEOs. Guests share their backgrounds, talk about their early years, and explore what shaped them before they were known for their successes in growing, developing, and leading extraordinary mi...
Episodes
Tuesday Aug 16, 2022
Tuesday Aug 16, 2022
Dr. Thomas J. Dammrich, DBA
Former CEO, National Marine Manufacturers Association and IPC-Connecting Electronic Circuits
Business Strategist, National Association of Healthcare Quality
Advisor, Global Marine Business Advisors
Thomas Dammrich was president of NMMA for 21 years. When assuming the role, he knew he had to get the industry working together and focused on things everyone could agree to work on. One of the first things he tackled was focusing on market expansion efforts that were also measurable. Dammrich’s leadership helped unify the industry to do just that with the Discover Boating campaign, now entering its sixteenth year.
Dammrich also served as President of IPC, an international trade association of companies producing printed circuit boards and doing electronics manufacturing services.
After retiring from NMAA in 2019, Dammrich continued his service on a number of Boards of Directors and has chaired or served on over 15 Boards of Directors including both non-profit and for-profit companies. He is currently engaged as Business Strategist for the National Association for Healthcare Quality and as a founder of Global Marine Business Advisors
Thom can’t help but look forward. He has said, “I constantly scan the environment in which industries operate to anticipate challenges and identify opportunities to keep the industry healthy, growing, and working together.”
Dammrich is a builder, having doubled revenues and members in every organization he has led.
Dammrich has a BA in Economics, an MBA in Finance, an MS in Accountancy, and a Doctorate of Business Administration, all from DePaul University in Chicago. He is a member of the NMMA Hall of Fame, ASA Sportfishing Hall of Fame, and Boating Safety Hall of Fame and has been recognized for lifetime achievement by the Water Sports Industry Association. He is a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Management Committee for the Center for Sportfish Policy and serves on the Board of Directors of Niven Marketing.
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
Tuesday Aug 09, 2022
Amy Pyles is the President at Saxum, an integrated digital agency obsessed for good. Amy excels in solving complex problems for brands and organizations using technology, insights and creativity. She oversees the execution of Saxum’s business strategy, operational strategy and the overall quality of services, and champions the alignment of people, business and clients. Throughout her career, Amy has delivered data-driven strategies across industries and brands including Walmart, Gathering Place, Walton Family Foundation, Williams, Procter & Gamble, and Anheuser-Busch. Prior to joining Saxum, she also led agency operations for WPP’s Rockfish Digital (now part of VML/Y&R).
Tuesday Aug 02, 2022
Tuesday Aug 02, 2022
Mary joined the MTI team in 2020 as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and in January 2021, she joined the MTI Board of Directors. She has an extensive background as a passionate business leader and operational expert. She brings 30 years of experience developing, commercializing, delivering, and supporting technology-related products, services, and companies. She values integrity, a purpose-driven and compassionate company culture, sustainability, and diversity as key factors in every company’s success and leads consistently with these values.
Mary has served as CEO, CTO, COO, CSO, VP, board director, board chair, founder, consultant, and advisor for private and public companies from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 across a variety of industries. A licensed Professional Electrical Engineer, P.E., Ms. Jesse holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering, and nineteen technology-related patents.
She is a frequent advisor, speaker and writer on technology, innovation and diversity, and is passionate about supporting underserved populations in STEM, technology, and business.
Tuesday Jul 26, 2022
Tuesday Jul 26, 2022
A Flagship founding partner, Mike is an IT industry veteran with over 25 years of experience, who takes pride in finding the right technologies to meet clients’ requirements. His basic philosophy drives the company: “Understand clients’ business challenges and deliver valued insights and outcomes through IT.” Mike served for many years on Dell Computers’ Advisory Council, and prior to founding Flagship was Vice President at CONNECT Computer Corporation. He graduated from Fairfield University with a bachelor's degree in Business Management and Information Systems.
Tuesday Jul 19, 2022
Tuesday Jul 19, 2022
Geoff Alexander joined Chicago-based Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (LEYE) in 1993 and following his work on multiple concepts within LEYE’s portfolio, including he took over LEYE’s Asian concept, Wow Bao in 2009.
A pioneer in both technology and social media, Geoff redefined the fast-casual space by implementing mobile ordering, self-ordering kiosks, bicycle delivery, and nationwide shipping. Geoff has overseen Wow Bao’s inclusion into airports, major sports stadiums, university campuses, music venues, and grocers around the country that sell Wow Bao’s frozen retail line.
Shortly after being named to both Nation’s Restaurant News’ Power List and Most Influential Restaurant CEOs in the country, Geoff changed the game in the restaurant industry once again by creating Wow Bao Now; launching more than 500 Wow Bao Dark / Virtual Kitchens in more than 400 cities in less than 18 months.
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Rev. Dr. Kenneth V. Daniel, President and Chief Executive Officer of United Church Homes.
Rev. Dr. Kenneth V. Daniel joined United Church Homes as President and Chief Executive Officer in 2011. Over the past 30 years, Rev. Daniel has worked in a variety of positions in senior healthcare and housing services and as a licensed nursing home administrator. Prior to joining UCH, Rev. Daniel served 19 years as executive director of Ingleside at Rock Creek, a Presbyterian retirement community in Washington, D.C. Rev. Daniel also has spent extensive time in senior living, affordable housing and skilled nursing leadership positions within Phoebe Ministries in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Rev. Daniel holds a master’s degree in public administration from Marywood University and earned master’s degrees from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and from Moravian Theological Seminary. Additionally, he received an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University in Ohio. Rev. Daniel has earned Fellow and Certified Nursing Home Administrator status with the American College of Health Care Administrators and previously served as a Senior Examiner with the American Healthcare Association’s Quality Award program.
Rev. Daniel currently serves on several community, church and professional boards and is the immediate past Chairman of the Board of LeadingAge Ohio.
About United Church Homes
United Church Homes is the 21st largest multisite nonprofit senior living organization in the U.S. according to the 2021 LeadingAge Ziegler 200 ranking, serving more than 5500 residents in its owned and managed communities in 15 states and two Native American nations.
Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
ANNA FABREGA is Chief Executive Officer for Freshly, the $1.5B D2C fresh meal delivery service that was recently acquired by Nestlé USA.
Anna is a growth-oriented leader with over 22 years of business, operations and organizational leadership experience at high growth early-stage businesses as well as large, scaled organizations. Her experience spans across brand/marketing, distribution and supply chain, ecommerce, physical retail, technology and CPG. During her career, she has built a reputation for operational excellence, innovative strategic thinking, leading leaders, working with the highest level of integrity, and a deep and passionate commitment to putting the customer first.
Upon completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida in 1999, Ms. Fabrega started her career at McMaster-Carr, managing various distribution operations at a 300,000 sq ft facility carrying over 500,000 products. She earned an MBA in 2004 from Kellogg School of Management and took a leadership role at Stripes, a 500+ store convenience store chain (now owned by 7-11), where she spent time in field operations, category management and ultimately led brand, marketing, PR and merchandising for over 500 stores, while also building and leading a wholly-owned financial services subsidiary.
In 2008, Ms. Fabrega migrated to Microsoft, where she served as part of the global brand strategy team and led the strategic brand migration of all on-premises server-based products to the cloud, before transitioning to Amazon in 2011.
At Amazon, she ran the $4B Sports and Outdoors business before joining the Amazon Go team in 2014 as the business leader responsible for developing and operating stores using Just Walk Out technology. As she built the organization from the ground up over the next six years, she took on increasing levels of responsibility, ultimately serving as the leader of the entire Amazon Go store organization (merchandising, marketing, field ops, supply chain, product management, research science, real estate, construction and design) and the Amazon Kitchen (fresh prepared private label) organization (700+ people in total). During her six-year tenure leading Amazon Go, she scaled the business to 28 stores across four cities and launched Amazon Go Grocery, the first full Just Walk Out grocery store.
Anna is a big thinker that balances scrappiness with operational and financial rigor. She has a high degree of curiosity and is well-known for her ability to ask the right questions, look around corners, and to be clear and concise with her direction and advisement. She is based out of NYC.
Tuesday Jun 28, 2022
Tuesday Jun 28, 2022
Markus Reinmund is the founder and CEO of Knocking, a content and commerce company for all media. Throughout his career, Markus has held senior executive positions within P&L management, corporate strategy, marketing and consumer analytics for several Fortune-500 companies.
Prior to founding Knocking, Markus worked for Aetna, a Fortune-100 healthcare company, as a full-time executive advisor reporting directly to the General Manager of the company’s $1 billion Consumer Business. In this role, Markus led the definition and implementation of Aetna’s customer experience governance and operations for the launch of Aetna’s B2C business.
Before Aetna, managed corporate strategy, consumer analytics and marketing functions at New York Life, a Fortune-100 insurance company, where he worked directly with senior leadership and the company board on key initiatives around business operations, investment management and corporate planning.
Markus has held roles at Medtronic (formerly Covidien), a Fortune-500 healthcare company, where he was responsible for the company’s $150 million bariatric surgery and trocar businesses, and Fonar Corporation, a NASDAQ-traded medical device company whose founder, Dr. Damadian, invented and first commercialized the MRI scanner in the 1970s. Reporting directly to Fonar’s CEO, Markus successfully restructured the company’s European sales and service operations, and was responsible for obtaining the company's first contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.
Markus grew up in Munich, Germany, and began his career as a financial analyst at Siemens AG, a German electrical engineering and electronics company. He holds a BA and MA in Economics from Cambridge University and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Tuesday Jun 21, 2022
Tuesday Jun 21, 2022
Stanford Le is the CEO and president of Snoqualmie Casino.
Le joined the casino as chief marketing officer in June 2018 and helped shape the marketing and acquisition strategy for the record-setting year and 2019. During his tenure as interim CEO, Le led the casino team through the pandemic while retaining the company’s entire team member workforce of 1,100.
Le has more than 24 years of experience as a senior executive, leading companies including Fortune 500 casino companies, including Wynn Resorts, Sands China and Caesars Entertainment. During his tenure with those companies, he’s been part of the opening or pre-opening planning for five different integrated resort properties, which have grown significantly.
Le holds two post-graduate degrees, a master’s degree in management and a law degree he earned concurrently while attending Cornell University.
Tuesday Jun 14, 2022
Tuesday Jun 14, 2022
James Miller, II is a Board Director and CEO who works in partnership and collaboration across diverse groups of people to set strategic direction, foster cross-functional consensus, enable transformation, and attain mission success. Merging extensive C-level leadership experience with a broad and diverse Board Director background, James guides companies and their leaders in achieving strategic growth.
James has served in numerous C-level roles, as well as mid- to senior-level positions, across diverse industries where he has garnered extensive experience in multi-unit management/ownership, strategic brand positioning, business growth/transformation, product development, M&As, and marketing in domestic and international markets. He has also served on 15 Boards of Directors as Chairman, President, Parliamentarian, Sergeant at Arms, Secretary-Treasurer, and multi-board liaison for private, public, and nonprofit sectors, both international and domestic, including Subway (Corporate and Franchisees), Westin Resorts, Vistana Signature Experiences, and Marriott. In all roles, James works in partnership with all board members and company leaders, creating and launching forward-thinking strategies that create highly competitive market leaders.
Beginning his career with Weaver Popcorn as Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer, James was selected right out of college from 1,200 applicants to spearhead a $20M division. In 1996, James was recruited by Nesco, a highly specialized utility equipment company in international telecom and fiber optic as their first Chief Marketing Officer of North America, adding the title of Chief Sales Officer of North America one year later. In these roles, James turned around the business, securing status as a Top 3 largest global supplier in the industry and positioned the company for successful acquisition, and was awarded Recipient of Award from CEO for the Highest Sales Transaction in Company History.
In 1998, James founded Vision Investment Group, where he served as a Chief Executive Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Subway Multi-unit Franchising, where he initially acquired two Subway Franchises with 20 employees and led the company through startup to strategically position his Subway franchise business to grow to today’s “Top 25 largest franchisees globally” (50+ locations; 1,200 employees). He grew revenues from $250K to $20M+ by acquiring 38+ businesses and building 14 new locations from the ground up.
Within the Subway family, James is most proud of generating $3.8B in sales as Board Liaison working with Subway marketing team by creating and launching a $5 Footlong promotion in recessionary 2008. This campaign achieved a #1 Fast-Food Brand ranking in multiple categories worldwide and is recognized as the highest revenue-generating promotion in company history (recorded in Smithsonian’s Institute of Marketing). James has also received additional awards that include Franchisee of the Year, Best Advertising and Promotions of the Year (2X), Most Improved Operations, Highest Sales Growth (multiple), and Manager of Year (multiple), among others.
James Miller is a strategic, game-changing visionary who brings about the revolutionary and constructive change that positively impacts profitability. Leading from the front, he builds highly cohesive environments and teams. Throughout his career, he has forged and delivered numerous multimillion-dollar partner relationships with companies that include Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, Subway, Sprint, NASCAR, NFL, Disney, Twitter, Google, Westin Hotels, and Resorts, American Heart Association, and Walmart, among others. James is recognized for merging an open mind, an engaging personality, and an out-of-the-box leadership style to uncover new opportunities, improve brand positioning, significantly enhance operational efficiencies, and quickly resolve business challenges.
An accomplished speaker, James has presented to audiences of up to 2,500 people and has served in an advisory/mentoring role for various fundraising efforts and companies that include Dancer Concrete, Subway Franchisees, Steak ‘n Shake, Mr. Brews Taphouse, Umi, and the Subway Executive Leadership Team. James also served as the Advisor to the Boy Scouts of America/Scouts Canada, where he was awarded the “men’s necktie” worn by Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, for exemplary service to Scouts Canada. James attended Milligan University where he received his Bachelor of Science in Marketing, Computer Science, and Team Labor.