ROI’s Into the Corner Office Podcast: Powerhouse Middle Market CEOs Telling it Real—Unexpected Caree...

Peter Dickstein, Founder, ShadyPower Technologies

Peter Dickstein is a 35-year business leader (Founder, CEO, CFO, and strategy advisor).

He is Founder of ShadyPower Technologies, developer of a proprietary, patent-pending IOT technology platform for climate-sustainable, enhanced comfort outdoor work and living. He is Co-Founder of TAPS, a machine-learning consultancy focused on sales lead optimization and churn prevention. He is Chairman (Emeritus) and Co-Founder of Solful (www.solful.com), a California-based branded destination cannabis dispensary company and a guest lecturer at universities including the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

He has served in CEO, Chairman, and other C-Suite roles for IOT, SAAS, cleantech, and travel insurance companies. In 1999 Peter founded and served as CEO of eProsper, Inc. (ultimately acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2018 for $900MM) whose patented, SAAS capitalization management system (“CapMx”) became the industry gold standard in the early 2000s and is used today by more than 6,000 venture-funded companies and their corporate law firms.

Peter served as CFO for several medical device and technology companies including TruMed Systems, Inc., EndoTex Interventional Systems (acquired by Boston Scientific) and Atrionix (acquired by Johnson & Johnson). He was an EIR at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he identified and helped commercialize technology including Acoustic Cytometry Systems (acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific) and architected the Los Alamos Venture Acceleration Fund.

In the early 90s Peter negotiated a $500MM vendor financing facility for Pyxis Corporation (ultimately acquired by Becton Dickinson for $12BB) with GE Capital that rapidly accelerated Pyxis’ market penetration and provided non-dilutive growth capital in lieu of equity.

In addition to his general management roles, Peter has initiated, organized, negotiated, and completed numerous equity, debt, and M&A transactions with angel, institutional and strategic investors, and lenders. He has managed functional areas including product development and engineering, sales, service, finance and administration, and external relationships with investors, contract manufacturers, investment bankers, banks, attorneys, and auditors.

Peter has served on the boards of Friends of the Urban Forest, the San Francisco Day School, and multiple companies. He is a dual citizen of the United States and Germany.

He holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a M.B.A. from The Wharton School.

Andrew Joiner, CEO, Hyperscience

Andrew serves as Hyperscience’s CEO. He brings a wealth of experience and proven track record that advances the company’s overall strategy and growth initiatives—at a time in which Hyperscience is experiencing rapidly expanding demand. Prior to Hyperscience, Andrew was CEO of InMoment, a recognized leader in the customer experience (CX) software industry, where he oversaw significant growth and expansion. He has also held strategic executive positions at several other successful technology companies, including HP Software, where he was responsible for driving key innovation, product development, and revenue growth. Before that, he led the high-growth business unit within HP Autonomy, a $1.1 billion market leader in unstructured data applications and solutions, focusing on customer experience and marketing technology. In 2006, his firm Singlecast Technologies was acquired and brought into Autonomy via ZANTAZ.

Mark Budzinski, CEO, Clean Data

Mark Budzinski is the CEO of Clean Data and a seasoned business leader with deep expertise in data analytics. As the former CEO of WhereScape, Mark led the company to over $30M in annual revenue before executing a successful eight-figure exit. Now, he advises clients on cutting through AI hype to achieve real business growth from their analytics investments. Mark is also the author of "Peer-To-Peer Culture: What It Takes For Small Businesses To Grow Up," where he explores the vital role of organizational behavior in driving business success.

Kerren Bergman, CEO, Hyde Engineering

As CEO of Hyde Engineering + Consulting, Inc., Kerren Bergman leads a global engineering organization of more than 250 employees. Kerren began her career with Hyde in 1998 as the Document Control Specialist, advancing with the company in various roles of increasing responsibility. Her experience in nearly every aspect of the business including Operations, Business Development, Human Resources, Quality, Safety, and IT has been essential to understanding all of the moving parts of organizational oversight.

As a servant leader, Kerren guides Hyde by cultivating an ‘attitude of gratitude.' She is driven, collaborative, passionate about people, and committed to the evolution of Hyde from a Founder-led to a 100% employee-owned organization. Kerren holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master’s in Education from the University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Having raised two daughters as a single mother, Kerren is proud to support her team members who are navigating parenthood while growing their careers.

Marc Mlyn, President & CEO, RaySearch Americas

Marc Mlyn is the President and CEO of RaySearch Americas, a wholly owned subsidiary of RaySearch Laboratories AB in Stockholm, Sweden.  Marc began work in medical physics doing research as an undergraduate in the late 1980's, and went on to become a certified medical dosimetrist (https://www.medicaldosimetry.org/about/medical-dosimetrist/).

He worked in Radiation Therapy hospitals until 1997, when he went to work as a customer service specialist for ADAC, which was soon acquired by Philips Medical System in 2000. He worked as a senior service manager, traveling the world and working with distributors, sales staff and customers all over the globe.  In 2007 Marc went to CIVCO and became the vice president of Marketing, developing software and hardware systems for radiation therapy.

When RaySearch Laboratories released a new software platform in 2011, he was asked to start up the Americas organization to provide sales, support and training.  RaySearch Americas grew from three people to fifty people over the next few years, and has built a successful organization with offices in New York City and Santa Clara California.

Marc has an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology, and an MS in Cybersecurity from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dale Wills, Owner & Founder, Centra Companies

Dale Wills is the owner and founder of Centra Companies, a group of land development, real estate, and construction companies based out of the Twin Cities. Since 2011, he has overseen the completion of more than $500 million in new construction across 50+ projects spanning 28 Twin Cities suburbs, ranging from new home construction to apartment rehab and commercial building. With more than 35 years of experience in property redevelopment, Dale has taken Centra Companies to new heights opening several divisions, including Centra Homes and Centra Capital Partners, under his leadership.

Re-Release: TJ Jiang, Co-Founder & CEO, AvePoint

Dr. Tianyi Jiang (TJ) co-founded AvePoint in 2001 and has served as the organization’s Chief Executive Officer since 2005. A recipient of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in New Jersey in 2010, TJ received both B.S. and Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University, and a Master of Philosophy and Ph.D. in Data Mining from the Department of Information Systems, Operations Management, and Statistics, Stern School of Business, New York University.

About AvePoint
A five-time winner of the Microsoft Partner of the Year award, AvePoint offers the only full suite of SaaS solutions to migrate, manage and protect data in Microsoft 365. More than 8 million cloud users rely on our solutions to make organizations more productive, compliant and secure.

Our SaaS solutions are also available to managed service providers, so they can better support and manage their small and mid-sized business customers. Our multi-tenant solutions are available from over a dozen distributors in more than 100 cloud marketplaces worldwide.

In 2001, our founders were busy preparing to bring our first product to market — a backup solution for Microsoft’s email service, Exchange. Shortly after, their focus quickly turned to providing a backup solution for a new Microsoft product that offered site-based collaboration: SharePoint 2001.

Today, our full suite of data management solutions for Microsoft 365 is hosted across 13 global datacenters for unmatched scalability, and to support data sovereignty requirements. Our cloud platform is certified against leading security accreditations and boasts one of the largest SaaS userbases in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

We have pushed the boundaries of enterprise digital collaboration with first-to-market technologies for two decades. More than half of our workforce – including our senior leadership team – are technologists.

Jeff Helfgott, CEO, Boardroom Styling Lounge

Jeff Helfgott loves scaling businesses by focusing on what makes them special – their people.

Jeff is currently the CEO of Boardroom Styling Lounge, an upscale men’s grooming franchise that spans 46 locations across 8 states. Previously Jeff was the CEO of Empower Aesthetics (a rapid growth medspa platform backed by Shore Capital), which scaled 3x through M&A and de novo growth, COO of Excel Fitness (a Planet Fitness franchisee which grew from 17 to 92 locations) and Chief of Staff of Alamo Drafthouse. Jeff is a proud US Army veteran.

About Boardroom Styling Lounge: 

We’ve created a connected space in a relaxing environment where you can grab a beer, sit back and let our expert stylists help you express your personal style or create an entire new one that goes beyond your expectations.

Style can be transformative and it isn’t reserved for a select few, it’s available to every single one of us, every single day. And we believe that everyone who walks through our doors should leave feeling as great as they look. That's why we are proud to offer The Boardroom Experience across 8 states and over 45 locations and counting. 

 

Ambassador Ken Hackett, Former Ambassador to the Holy See and Former President of Catholic Relief Services

Ambassador Ken Hackett was nominated by President Barack Obama on June 14, 2013 to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. The United States Senate confirmed Ambassador Hackett on August 1, 2013, and he was sworn in on August 20, 2013.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Hackett was President of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), an international humanitarian agency supported by the U.S. Catholic community, from 1993 to 2012. As President, Mr. Hackett led 5,000 CRS employees in over 100 countries. He joined CRS in 1972, starting his career in Sierra Leone. Mr. Hackett also held CRS assignments overseas in the Philippines and Kenya. As regional director for Africa, he led CRS’s response to the Ethiopian famine (1984-1985) and supervised CRS’s operations during the crisis in Somalia in the early 1990s. It was under his leadership that CRS responded to recovery efforts such as those following the Rwanda genocide, the Bosnian and Kosovo emergencies, the Asian tsunami, and the Haiti earthquake. Equally notable was CRS’s work during his tenure as President on behalf of people living with HIV/AIDS. After a 40-year career with CRS, Mr. Hackett joined the University of Notre Dame’s Institution for Global Development in 2012 where he served as an advisor. Prior to joining CRS, Mr. Hackett served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana.

Mr. Hackett served on the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (2004-2010), a U.S. foreign aid agency dedicated to fighting global poverty. He was also a member of the Global Poverty Task Force led by the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. From 1996-2004, Mr. Hackett was Vice President of Caritas Internationalis, the confederation of Catholic humanitarian organizations. He has also served as a Member of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum – the Vatican body that coordinates the Church’s charitable work – and on the Boards of the Africa Society and Jesuit Refugee Services.

Mr. Hackett holds many distinguished honors. In 2004, he was named a Knight Commander of the Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great, one of the highest papal honors. He holds 16 honorary doctorate degrees from various U.S. universities and was the 2012 recipient of the Laetare Award from the University of Notre Dame, the oldest and most prestigious award for American Catholics. Mr. Hackett has received recognition for his humanitarian work from foreign governments, including the National Order from the Republic of Benin (2008) and the National Medal of Honor from Sierra Leone (1998).

Mr. Hackett, originally of West Roxbury, Massachusetts, earned his undergraduate degree from Boston College.

Mark Bischoff, President and CEO, Starnet Worldwide Commercial Flooring Partnership

Mark Bischoff is the President and CEO of Starnet Worldwide Commercial Flooring Partnership, the leading marketing network of independent commercial flooring contractors in Canada and the United States.

His career in building products and construction services spans 32 years overall and 29 years in the commercial market. After a start at Sears in flooring retail, he spent most of his career at Johnsonite and Tarkett where he was part of the team driving Tarkett to industry-leading organic growth. 

While at Tarkett, Mark served in various roles such as Business Manager, Product Manager, Director of Strategic Partnerships, and Vice President of Sales. He went to the Mohawk Group for a brief period as Senior Vice President of the Healthcare and Senior Living end user-focused segment.

Due to his long history as a trusted vendor contact to the Starnet cooperative, he was recruited by the Board of Directors to provide the organization with a successful staff transition and leadership succession in 2018. In 2019 Mark became President and CEO of Starnet.

Mark Bischoff and his staff have dramatically expanded the visibility and thought leadership impact of Starnet in the construction industry. Starnet members now generate more than $4 Billion in product and installation sales.  His team has also led the member-owned marketing cooperative to record returns for the shareholders and record purchasing levels for their supporting vendors.