wharton – MENTOR dna

August 8, 2022August 8, 2022

Bill Schlough – CIO SF Giants

When I talk to people about getting their MBAs, most of their focus is around gaining new technical skills like financial modeling or something similar. I strongly believe that connecting with classmates and creating new memories with those friends is more important than learning how to be an excel jockey. Bill Schlough is a perfect example of this as we never took a class together, but share fun memories from our days playing volleyball at Wharton – hours spent on the courts and traveling up and down the New England corridor for tourneys. Bill’s held the role of Chief Information Officer for the San Francisco Giants since our graduation 25 years ago. It’s no surprise that we chat a lot about the importance sports plays in the lives of our children and communities across the US.

I incorrectly assumed that Bill, a former collegiate two-sport athlete and Olympics employee, seeks athletes in his hiring, so he fills me in on what he seeks in candidates. His hilarious story about the real life challenges Covid presented as he simultaneously navigated keeping his kindergartener on task during Zoom classes while dialing into his executive staff meetings amidst flying Nerf darts are sure to make you laugh.

I’ve had a hunch about the long-term effects of innovation with remote work. The US boasts some of the most innovative companies in the world, but my experience is that ideas occur in serendipitous moments in the break room during your afternoon chocolate break. Bill says that being back at work breathes lives back into his work day, and he supports my thesis that being in-person is critically important to keeping the flywheel of innovation spinning.

Bill’s an incredible mentor and reveals that he loves giving back and particularly expressing his gratitude with the mentors in his life. With 600+ mentees over his career, Bill demonstrates a servant’s heart and desire to help and guide others. This episode is truly inspirational as Bill is a down-to-earth executive with such rich and deep insights to share with anyone looking to break into the C-Suite. Thanks for tuning in!

About Bill Schlough

Since Bill Schlough’s arrival in 1999, the Giants have been recognized as one of the most innovative teams in sports, playing a pioneering role in the world of mobile connectivity, video, ticketing and payment systems. The Giants were the first team to provide free Wi-Fi to all fans beginning in 2004, and Oracle Park is currently the home of the third largest and first 4K-capable video boardin MLB. Schlough’s IT team has also supported the baseball operation in implementing an array of proprietary analytictools that helped the team secure three World Series titles in recent years.

In addition to his technologyleadershipresponsibilities in San Francisco, Schloughserved asInterim President and subsequently Chairman ofthe Giants’ Class-A San Jose affiliate, ultimately overseeing the team’s recent sale after a decade at the helm.

An Olympic enthusiast, Schlough assisted in crafting the technology vision and operations plans for San Francisco’s bids to host the 2012, 2016 and 2024 Olympic Games. His event experience includes assignments at the 1994 World Cup along with Olympics in Atlanta, Salt Lake, Torino, PyeongChang, and Beijing.

Previously, he worked as a consultant with Booz-Allen & Hamilton and EDS. Schlough serveson the boardof Junior Achievement of Northern California and isan avid supporter of Junior Giants, raising over $150,000 through speaking appearances and other fundraisers. Schlough was inducted into CIO.com’s CIO Hall of Fame in 2017, was named Trace3’s 2016 CIO Outlier of the Year, InformationWeek’s 2012 IT Chief of the Year, and is a Sports Business Journal“Forty Under 40” honoree.

A San Francisco native and Ironman triathlete, Schlough holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Duke University and an MBA from the Wharton School. He resides inLos Altos with his wife, Erin, and sons, Xavier and Quinlan.

July 12, 2022July 13, 2022

Dave Liu – Tech Investment Banker, CEO Advisor

David Liu is a retired tech investment banker who now advises CEOs and makes strategic investments to support Asian content creators. A mutual friend introduced us and I was surprised to have met someone else with so many shared interests and passions, while never crossing paths!

His personal journey includes moving from China to the US and having to pay for everything on his own, including a college degree from an Ivy League university.

After seeing the long list of job openings for investment banks, he applied and made it through the rigorous hiring process to land his first Wall St. internship.

Dave learned a LOT about cultural differences and became an astute observer of people, learning what nuanced behaviors made for great success in high-powered environments.

And he continued to study and learn…

At the pinnacle of his career as the youngest person to have made Managing Director, Dave made a seemingly crazy decision; he left after 25 years and decided to write his observations and notes as a way to share his learnings with his sons. Anyone interested in working on Wall Street will find tremendous value reading The Way of the Wall Street Warrior.

About Dave Liu

Dave Liu started his investment banking career working for Goldman Sachs and then joined the fledgling investment bank, Jefferies, when it had fewer than 200 employees and an equity market capitalization of under $200 million. Jefferies was a scrappy, entrepreneurial California-based bank that was started by an ex-cattle rancher in a phone booth and dared to challenge the incumbent giants of Wall Street. Today, Jefferies is a multi-billion dollar diversified public company (NYSE:JEF).

Over almost 25 years at Jefferies, Dave progressed from the proverbial janitorial suite to Managing Director co-running all Digital Media and Internet investment banking activities. He’s worked with hundreds of companies, including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Sony, Yahoo!, and Yelp. He’s managed all aspects of capital markets, venture capital and advisory for high growth Internet and technology companies and completed over 100 transactions for a broad range of companies in the USA, Asia and Europe. Dave’s worked on almost every conceivable type of corporate finance transaction including IPOs, follow-on offerings, convertibles, securitizations, and private company sales. Dave has seen it all.

After retiring from investment banking, Dave entered the world of start-ups and co-founded several companies in asset management, technology, media, and entertainment. His current and past activities include:

CEO of Liucrative Endeavors, a merchant banking firm
President of La Mesa Capital, an investment firm
Vice Chairman of MobilityWare, one of the largest mobile, casual gaming companies in the world
Chairman of Reel8, a NFT marketplace
Board Member of Francesca’s, a leading boutique retailer
Board Member of TEG Live, a GRAMMY and Tony Awards winning live production company
CEO Advisor to Capacity, an artificial intelligence platform
CEO Advisor to data.world, a leading cloud-native data catalog platform
CEO Advisor to Internet Brands/WebMD, a multi-billion dollar technology company
CEO Advisor to ProSiebenSat.1 Media, a multi-billion dollar company and one of the largest media companies in Europe
CEO Advisor to Vobile, a multi-billion dollar video software company
Investor in FIGS, a multi-billion dollar medical apparel retailer
Investor in Philz Coffee, an iconic coffee retailer based in Silicon Valley
Investor in Stampede, a movie and TV production company

Dave is also a perspiring artist and writer who is learning how to draw and write funny. He studied creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, Sundance Institute, and The Second City. He publishes a career advice column called “Breaking Bamboo,” and a cartoon series called “The ABC Life.”

Dave is active in philanthropy and non-profit organizations. Net proceeds from his books will go towards charities helping children born with clefts, Asian Americans, and other underrepresented groups.

April 12, 2022April 13, 2022

Jeff Stotland, EVP Hudson Pacific

When I returned to Philly for my graduate work, I was a seasoned executive assistant with deep experience answering phones, sending faxes, and managing schedules for overly-busy Disney and Sony execs. Ok, so maybe I did slightly more than that, but I was at the bottom of the totem pole and had big goals of climbing my way up.

Jeff Stotland was my classmate in business school and was the only other person with Disney experience, albeit much different than mine. We became fast friends. He and I are kindred in our entrepreneurial spirit, both having run start-up like businesses within giant companies.

Jeff has bought and sold several companies, worked at Disney as Vice President, Strategy & Global Development, and is now Executive Vice President of Global Studios and Production Services at Hudson Pacific, a joint venture with Blackstone, the world’s largest industrial real estate owner.

He’s always been a big picture guy, moving to where the puck is headed. At Hudson Pacific, he leads a team buying up content production space which has exploded in the past several years, and we chat about the human resource crunch to produce all this content.

He and I agree that success requires taking risks and being bold, but most of the time, people are optimizing to preserve their own jobs.

Jeff’s always taken risks, yet he’s learned how to be more calculated in his bets. He learned a lot during his stint trying to privatize companies in Eastern Europe and operating a handful of companies he bought or started.

This episode covers a lot of ground…from working at start-ups in eastern Europe in the late 90s, to Disneyphiles, to the extreme competition for industrial real estate worldwide and the macroeconomic impacts of building production studios in cities around the world.

About Jeff Stotland

Jeff Stotland joined Hudson Pacific in 2021 and serves as Executive Vice President, Global Studios. He leads the growth, direction and daily operations of the company’s studio portfolio.

Prior to Hudson Pacific, Stotland served as Vice President of Strategy and Global Development at Disney with a focus on the Parks, Experiences and Products segment. In this role, he worked on a variety of new business initiatives, acquisitions, strategic planning, joint venture management and real estate development, both domestically and internationally.

Before Disney, Stotland acquired and led SEMCO Aerospace, a privately held aviation maintenance company, for more than a decade. His early career included roles at Vulcan Ventures, The Walt Disney Company and J.P. Morgan.

Stotland earned a Master of Business Administration from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University.

January 11, 2022February 2, 2022

Meesh Pierce – advisor, board member, podcaster

Welp, here it is. An episode where I get interviewed on my own show. Weird. Uncomfortable. Awkward. Yes, all of those things!

BUT, I was able to convince Wharton Professor Pete Fader to interview me! We chat about how I landed my first internship in the music industry, my transition into tech, and the crazy and bold things I’ve said to colleagues and bosses.

Leadership podcasts allow seasoned execs to share their stories and I hope you enjoy my journey.

About Meesh Pierce

Meesh Pierce is a former tech executive who started her career in entertainment during the heyday of grunge rock. Her early days at Disney and Sony Music introduced her to the corporate world and importance of connectedness.

She worked long hours answering phones, faxing Winnie the Pooh and Lion King toy concepts to China, and sneaking into hole-in-the-wall concerts until the wee hours. During the early internet days, Meesh bet that tech was going to materially change the entertainment world, so she headed back to Philly for her 2nd stint at Wharton.

As a freshly-minted business school grad, she stepped into product management gigs for the likes of NBC, Sony Digital Entertainment, and Ticketmaster.

A risk taker, Meesh started an early dot com custom merch company, snacki, in the late 90s. A few years later, she took an opportunity to learn commercial and residential real estate development from a seasoned investor.

She spent 15 years as a hired gun consultant stepping into difficult 1-2 year projects; those that needed someone adept at strategy, product and marketing, and comfortable navigating across divisions and up to the c-suite and board. As an independent consultant, she’s worked with Epson, Mercedes (AutoGravity), Fandango (NBC), and Amor Boutique Hotel amongst others.

Meesh now serves on boards, as advisor to several organizations, and mentor to many. She loves using her experience to make connections between people and ideas.

Meesh is equally left and right-brained. She drives an F-150 to support her furniture painting habits as there’s rarely an abandoned roadside furniture piece she doesn’t stop to investigate. She started documenting her furniture painting techniques at imeeshu.com and learned a great deal about SEO through her personal journey as a blogger.

She’s also an avid gardener and has built her own hydroponics greenhouse with a fully-functioning set-up for tomato and lettuce farming.

Meesh loves people and mentoring. She has many mentees stretching across all walks of life; from Broadway stars, to growth-minded entrepreneurs, to people in career or life transitions.

January 4, 2022February 3, 2022

Pete Fader – Wharton Marketing Professor

I’ve always had a proclivity for marketing and curiosity for patterns. When I met marketing Professor Pete Fader, I didn’t realize what a big impact he would have on my career. At 26, he was one of the youngest professors at the Wharton School, and 10 years later had become one of the school’s favorites – teaching undergrad, MBA, and pHd students.

His research first focused on consumer products, but then shifted into the music and entertainment industry where he served as an expert testifying on behalf of Napster in the late 90s.

As a professor, he engages his students to really think about customers in a way that most people don’t – NOT every customer is the same. Some are far more profitable than others. So how do you lead your organization to truly understand and focus on customer centricity? Pete collaborated with some of his pHd students to help companies do just that.

With two successful data-driven businesses under his belt and 35 years at the finest business school in the world, we have much to learn from this humble leader who likely will never forget your phone number.

If you find numbers interesting, I highly recommend checking out Pete’s super duper old school site: coolnumbers.com

About Professor Pete Fader

Peter S. Fader’s expertise centers around the analysis of behavioral data to understand and forecast customer shopping/purchasing activities.

He works with firms from a wide range of industries, such as telecommunications, financial services, gaming/entertainment, retailing, and pharmaceuticals. Managerial applications focus on topics such as customer relationship management, lifetime value of the customer, and sales forecasting for new products. Much of his research highlights the consistent (but often surprising) behavioral patterns that exist across these industries and other seemingly different domains.

In addition to his various roles and responsibilities at Wharton, Professor Fader co-founded a predictive analytics firm (Zodiac) in 2015, which was sold to Nike in 2018. He then co-founded (and continues to run) Theta Equity Partners to commercialize his more recent work on “customer-based corporate valuation.”

Fader is the author of Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage and coauthor with Sarah E. Toms of the book The Customer Centricity Playbook. He has been quoted or featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Washington Post, and on NPR, among other media. In 2017, Professor Fader was named by Advertising Age as one of its inaugural “25 Marketing Technology Trailblazers,” and was the only academic on the list.

October 13, 2021October 14, 2021

Whitney Gomez

Whitney and I were in the same class in business school and reconnected when she and her husband moved within 3 miles of us fifteen years ago. Coincidentally, I went to college with her husband and our families have since spent much time together through sports and family fun.

Whitney has a deep passion for current affairs and international business. She’s a voracious reader and has successfully parlayed her experience at Morgan Stanley and PAAMCO into every project she touches. She’s very intentional about the projects she takes on, always stretching herself and learning something new.

She’s an inspiration to me and I really treasure her sense of confidence in everything she does. She shares her philosophy that you can have it all, just not at the same time. It’s taken me years to finally come to grips with this after a lifetime of hearing “You can be anything and have it all!!” Pragmatic thinking and careful planning have led Whitney to the successes she’s experienced in the corporate and non-profit worlds. I know that you’ll love this episode!

About Whitney Gomez

Whitney Kane Gomez has twenty years experience in investment research and fund marketing, and currently serves in both working and advisory capacities on a number of non-profit boards in education and healthcare.

Whitney was a Director in PAAMCO Prisma’s Investment Strategies Group from 2008 – 2019. As a member of the leadership team, she was involved in client service, marketing and regulatory compliance. Whitney also oversaw the firm’s analyst program, media relations and external publications efforts.

Prior to joining PAAMCO in 2008, Whitney was an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley and spent ten years as an emerging markets strategist in the Fixed Income Department in New York. She covered a number of Latin American countries and was responsible for global strategy as the head of Morgan Stanley’s Fixed Income Emerging Markets Strategy team. Whitney’s research was recognized by Institutional Investor, Euromoney and LatinFinance magazines, and has been broadly quoted in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.

Whitney started her career at the US Department of State in the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center and later in the Office of Newly Independent States. She undertook short-term assignments for the State Department at the American embassies in Kiev, Ukraine; Chişinău, Moldova; and Yerevan, Armenia. Whitney received the U.S. Department of State Superior Honor Award for her service.

Whitney graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Richmond with a BA in Global Studies with a concentration in International Economics. She received an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Whitney resides in Newport Beach with her husband and three children. She enjoys off-the-beaten-trail travel, reading non-fiction, and the family’s Australian Shepherd.

July 26, 2021July 27, 2021

Casey Courneen, CEO Blackstone Technology Group

Casey Courneen - CEO, President and Founder Blackstone Technology Group

Casey and I met during our days at Penn. We were both Wharton undergrads hailing from California beach towns and we lived on the same street in W. Philly. There was comfort in the hometown familiarity of our Quicksilver t-shirts and flip flops.

Casey was President of his fraternity and head of the Inter Fraternity Council, bringing culturally diverse groups together through music and dancing on the edge of Penn’s campus. His house threw the most incredible dance parties, mixing with diverse greek houses across campus and always serving up the stickiest and most competitive beer pong one could find on campus!

Casey is one of the most loyal friends who’s committed to staying connected with his friends despite location or time. He’s a devoted husband and father, which isn’t surprising as Casey’s parents wholeheartedly supported of all of his endeavors and were the biggest influencers for him.

He and his business partners at Blackstone Technology Group had a very clear vision about what type of consulting business they wanted to start and run for the long-run. They wanted to build a company that provided a runway and they steered clear of the very enticing trend of quickly building a tech start-up and selling. They’ve held close to that early mission and 23 years later, still a privately-funded and held company, command a very strong position to look ahead to the future of tech consulting and the opportunities that lie ahead.

About Casey Courneen

Casey Courneen is the CEO, President and a co-founder of Blackstone Technology Group. Casey’s rich history in leading teams and servicing Fortune 100 customers helps him address our customers’ unique hiring challenges, and ensures profitability and productivity for all parties. Casey began his career at PriceWaterhouse in the Management Consulting Services division, helping Fortune 100 telecom, energy, and financial services companies gain advantage over their competition with superior information systems. From there he moved to a start-up IT services firm where he concentrated on leading several client-server, object-oriented and distributed technology projects across a number of different vertical marketplaces. At Blackstone, he continues to focus his efforts on driving innovation and developing creative internal strategies used to hire and retain the best talent in the industry. Casey holds a B.S.E. in Finance and Legal Studies from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

June 15, 2021June 15, 2021

Jason Hodell, CEO Skullcandy

Jason was one of the few married business school friends I had in Philly. I admired how he and his wife worked together through all the moves and changes a young Army family experiences. Jason and I shared a love for beach volleyball and found ourselves playing on an indoor team stacked with former collegiate players. Other teams would show up to tourneys wearing Goldman Sachs-sponsored unis while we’d roll in on an RV, sleep in the parking lot, and show up to the games squeezed into our high school and college jerseys. Life’s too short to take yourself too seriously…and we never did. But we always won which was never as important as having fun.

Jason’s leadership on and off the court has always left an impression on me. After business school, he worked on Wall St. and demonstrated a work ethic I’d never seen…ever. He was a beast putting in the hours to prove that he could make the transition as an Army Ranger into the corporate world. And he did.

We have too many stories to share in this episode, but I know you’ll gain some important insights from our chat!

Jason Hodell is the CEO of Skullcandy, the original youth audio lifestyle brand based in
Park City, Utah. In 2020, Skullcandy was #2 to Apple in total headphones/earphones
sold in North America, and the leader in units and total dollars sold at < $100 MSRPs.
Skullcandy is globally distributed in over ninety countries with offices in Park City,
Vancouver, Shenzhen, and London. Prior to this role, he was the CFO/COO of
Skullcandy and helped lead the company through its public company life (Nasdaq:
SKUL) and the subsequent 2016 “take-private” transaction with Mill Road Capital.

Prior to joining Skullcandy, Jason was the CFO of Shopzilla/Bizrate, the largest family of
comparison shopping engines (CSEs) in global Internet retailing, the CFO / COO of
Move Networks, an IPTV technology pioneer acquired by EchoStar Corporation in 2010
to create SlingTV, and, earlier in his career, Jason was the Senior Director of Business
Operations at Digex (Nasdaq: DIGX), a cloud-computing and data center pioneer
acquired by MCI (now Verizon Business) in 2003 for ~$230m in firm value.
Prior to Digex, Jason was in the Technology Investment Banking group of JPMorgan,
focused on communications technology mergers and acquisitions and initial public
offerings. He later served as portfolio manager at Plainview Capital for five years,
ranked multiple times by BNY Mellon among the top 10 performing domestic small-cap-
value equity funds.
Jason received his B.S. in Economics (Mathematical) from the United States Military
Academy at West Point and then served for five years as an Infantry Officer in the U.S.
Army. Jason earned his MBA in Finance from the Wharton School, University of
Pennsylvania.

May 11, 2021May 11, 2021

Dan Smith – CEO, ALT-CMO and JIMMYCASE

Dan Smith, ALT-CMO and JimmyCase on MENTOR dna

I wasn’t totally prepared for what I was about to walk into…..mission control at the Playboy Studios with hundreds of TV screens on display! But I kept my cool and kept listening to how TV production works. Those were the early days when I’d just met Dan Smith, then VP Production for Playboy. What I love about Dan is that he’s a risk-taker, open-minded, non-judgmental, and always willing to listen and provide feedback on ideas.

We’ve since collaborated on numerous projects for the Wharton Club of Southern California, where he created a highly-successful Media & Entertainment networking group, and now runs Marketing Mondays. He now helps clients with branding and digital conversion rates through his company, ALT-CMO.

Dan loves to learn and leveraged his experiences at Playboy to truly learn global commerce distribution and digital marketing. This experience has served him well in a direct-to-consumer venture to sell JIMMYCASE, a phone case wallet using just-in-time manufacturing in California that’s distributed worldwide. He tinkered in his garage for 6 months perfecting JIMMYCASE’s design and now is finalizing an innovative yet simple pour-over coffee offering.

About Dan Smith

Dan Smith started his career in the mailroom at a talent agency. From there, he worked for famed Academy-, Emmy- and Golden Globe Award-winning Edgar Scherick. It was during a meeting with Ed and famed Samuel Goldwyn where Dan got his big chance to become VP Development and Production at American Gladiators.

He then moved on to Fox Family Channel which sold to Disney/ABC. Dan transitioned from family programming to adult programming at Playboy, where he rose the ranks to General Manager, Home Entertainment. As the adult programming market was starting to wane, Dan took the opportunity to hone his skills while running the home entertainment business, learning global manufacturing, distribution, and digital marketing.

Dan has parlayed his digital marketing expertise into a very scrappy and successful phone accessories business called JIMMYCASE, is about to launch a coffee-related product and is also CEO of ALT-CMO, a marketing consultancy focused on digital marketing and branding.

May 4, 2021May 11, 2021

Matt Laessig – Co-Founder & COO, data.world

Matt Laessig and I are like long lost 13 year old twin brothers. Yes, you read that right. As a boy mom, I’m increasingly more immature and crack up at seemingly innocuous jokes. Matt has 3 boys and loves Dungeons and Dragons. Together, we laugh at dumb stuff that only our middle school kids find funny….if that!

Matt was a big part of my life when I started snacki.com, a really early commerce venture in the late 90s. My friend Allison and I built the business as a creative venture during school, and I then took a big risk at taking the custom merchandise venture online in ’99. Matt was the Chief Marketing Officer and while we were selling $50k a month in custom t-shirts to organizations like the Leukemia & Lymphoma Association, UCLA and USC fraternities and sororities, we were likely a bit too early and green to raise the piddly amount of money needed to keep us going. Great lessons learned and I recall having to tell Matt after his wedding that we only had 4 weeks left and had to shut things down. It’s a bittersweet memory, but one that we reminisce in this episode.

About Matt Laessig

Matt Laessig is the co-founder and COO of data.world, the world’s largest open data community and a leading software platform helping companies catalog their data and analysis for easier discovery and collaboration. Previous to data.world, Matt held multiple leadership roles at HomeAway (now Vrbo), the world’s largest vacation rental marketplace, including as Vice President of Global Business Development and General Manager of BedandBreakfast.com. Prior to HomeAway, Matt served as Vice President of Business Development at Bazaarvoice, the global leader in social commerce solutions. Matt is a graduate of both the Wharton Business School and the Lauder Institute of International Studies and Management from the University of Pennsylvania. Matt is also an 9-time competitor on NBC’s American Ninja Warrior, the world’s toughest obstacle course competition.