George Salem, ProxsysRx
Fixing a $4.3 trillion catastrophe. One problem at a time. Imagine creating a business that generates so much positive buzz you’re forced to sell it. That, for all practical purposes, was George Salem’s dilemma in 2009. He’d founded Respond Medical Staffing — which provided nurses for hospitals — in 2004, and in the company’s fifth […]
VIDEO SERIES: Malcolm McDonald, Endeavor
Since I profiled Malcolm in 2021, he’s become the local GM of Endeavor — an international non-profit, led by a Who’s Who of business luminaries, that supports genuinely gifted and promising entrepreneurs (like Fleetio‘s Tony Summerville — whom I profiled in 2018). After hearing him describe his work with Endeavor in a recent panel discussion, two things were clear: 1) I wanted to profile Malcolm again. 2) Malcolm in […]
Kellie Clark, AppThink
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been.” —John Greenleaf Whittier Kellie Clark still remembers the night, at the age of 13, when she saw that sense of heartbreak quoted above in her mother’s eyes. “Mom worked her way through nursing school while raising three children. […]
Shegun Otulana, Therapy Brands
Hello, Customers. I’m Listening. (NOTE: This post was published in 2019, when Therapy Brands was a finalist for the Birmingham Venture Club’s Jemison Award). It’s January 2013 and Shegun Otulana is running a software development firm with one programmer: Himself. Five years later, he’s running a company — TheraNest — with 300 employees, of whom […]
Jim Cavale, INFLCR
Self-Made Man? “Hardly.” (NOTE: This post was originally published in 2018) The single most important career and life decision Jim Cavale ever made was to transfer from Ithaca College to the University of Montevallo. He still remembers the moment. “It was after normal business hours in my baseball coach’s liquor store. Which he still owns, […]
VIDEO: Jim Cavale, INFLCR
Clip 1 (2:06) (NOTE: This post was originally published in 2018) Jim recalls his most important career & life decision ever — followed by a brief overview of creating a television network from scratch at the University of Montevallo. The first in a series of Jim’s profiles.
Tony Summerville, Fleetio
BirminghamTech, Generation 2.0 (NOTE: This post was originally published in 2018) In 1982, a novelty band calling itself The MBAs released the album “Born To Run Things” — a title which fairly well describes Tony Summerville. “Growing up, I always knew I would start my own company. It runs in the family. My father and […]
Mark Roberge, HubSpot
Can you believe he actually would do it differently? As HubSpot’s former SVP of Worldwide Sales — who helped take the company’s customer base from 1 to over 12,000, and revenues from near-zero to more than $100 million — it’s safe to say Mark Roberge can sell anything. Anything, that is, except vacuum cleaners. Yes, […]
Dave Gray, Biso Collective
“Figure out what business we need to be in, and make it make money.” With that piece of advice from company founder Tom Patterson, Dave Gray was given the reigns of Daxko — the company he led for over 15 years — in early 2003. Sure, the two had conducted several lengthy meeting-of-the-minds conversations before […]
Ashlee Ammons & Kerry Schrader, Mixtroz
Can we talk? (NOTE: This post was originally published in 2018) It’s safe to say that the Mixtroz brand did not get off to the most auspicious start. Ammons remembers, “We’d come-up with dozens of name combinations. Any number of which involved the word Intro. I dreamed the word Mixtroz, which combines ‘mixer’ with ‘introduction,’ […]