The G&T Sessions

Today’s episode of The G&T Sessions we are honoured to have not one but two guests. Our first guest is Aaron Spradlin, the Chief Information Officer of United Planners. He joined United Planners in 2007, with 15+ years of broad based financial services industry experience including compliance and IT. Prior to joining United Planners, Aaron has been a sought after industry consultant as well as being a Director at Charles Schwab and Business Analyst for AIG.  Our second guest is Mike Hallett, the CEO of Cleverdome, a leader in growth acceleration, establishing global presence to rapid expansion and eventual acquisition of software based businesses. In addition, he has significant global board and advisory experience. Mike’s senior management experience includes Honeywell, Oracle, Siebel, Kintana, and CollabNet, and most recently he co-founded a company within the Tata Communications Innovation investment business. We covered in this episode a hot topic related to recent SEC focus on Cyber incidents and how Aaron and his work with Mike at Cleverdome has put in place an innovative way to protect and scale the United planners business. Very insightful for regulated businesses who want to manage risk at scale as this phenomenon is not going away any time soon. Links Https://www.unitedplanners.com  https://www.cleverdome.com  Aaron’s LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-spradlin-42407a24/  Mike’s LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-hallett-387237/ 

Today’s episode of The G&T Sessions, we are pleased to have Ben Murray as our guest. Ben is a corporate finance executive with over twenty-five years of public and private company experience in finance and operations in the software and airline industries. Throughout his roles, he has demonstrated the ability to link the key drivers between finance and operations to drive corporate transparency, margin improvement, and real time fact-based decision making.   Ben has been a SaaS CFO for the past nine years and helps SaaS founders and investors with strategic finance. He writes about all things SaaS finance and metrics at TheSaaSCFO.com, TheSaaSAcademy.com. He has an MBA from the University of Iowa and holds an active CPA license. Great episode for all Founders and Leaders who want to know what to do and by when in terms of embracing Finance for your business, now particularly important given all the jargon and also demands from investors and stakeholders. Enjoy !! Links https://www.thesaascfo.com htttps://www.thesaasacademy.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray/

Chenoa Farnsworth is the managing partner of Blue Startups, a top 20 U.S. Accelerator (Techcrunch), based in Honolulu, Hawaii.  To date, Blue Startups has invested in 110 companies which have gone on to raise $500 million in venture capital. She also manages the Hawaii Angels investment network, which has invested over $60 million in over 100 startup companies. In 2010 she founded Hi Impact, a Hawaii-based impact investment organization which led to the establishment of the Impact HUB Honolulu in 2012, a co-working space dedicated to social entrepreneurs.  In 2006, she co-founded Kolohala Ventures, a Hawai‘i-based venture capital firm that invested $50 million into Hawai‘i-based technology start-ups. Prior to that she provided strategy development and business planning consultation for start-up companies and high-growth businesses through her company Farnsworth Consulting. Farnsworth has served the community as chair of the Women’s Fund of Hawai‘i, director of the Hawaii Venture Capital Association, director of the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Hawaii, director of the Impact HUB Honolulu, and judge for the University of Hawai‘i business plan competition. Farnsworth earned a BA in political science from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an executive MBA from the University of Hawai‘i. Amazing episode with Chenoa, her business partner is Henk Rogers, who Founded Tetris and so we discuss the recent Apple TV Film called Tetris besides Chenoa sharing some absolute golden nuggets for Startup Founders. Enjoy ! Links:  www.bluestartups.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/chenoafarnsworth/

Philip Nordenfelt is an entrepreneur with tech and AI focus, born in Sweden and professionally hardened in Amsterdam and across the world. He specialises in taking AI-oriented companies from idea to revenue. His current mission is building Cytely.io - a life sciences microscopy SaaS company with the mission to significantly reduce time and resources necessary for significant breakthroughs in medicine development and academic research. This was a long awaited episode and boy oh boy was it worth the wait. We covered a lot of topics including Philips evolution at work, working in Kuwait, moving back to Sweden and even his time in Latin America experiencing things that has given him clarity on his life and mission. Really great episode and hope you enjoy! Links  Life Sciences SAAS where Philip is CEO https://cytely.io  A side project with AI based automatic routing of invoices https://invoicealpha.ai -  Contact Philip here https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipnordenfelt/ 

Theo Priestley is a globally recognised and sought after futurist and international speaker, author, and authority on the future of business, technology and society focusing on the convergence of emerging trends, including Web3, Metaverse and Artificial Intelligence.  He is widely known and sought after for his forthright views on the negative impacts of technology on society and currently works to inform political and business leaders of the risks and benefits of adoption. Theo has been listed as a Top 100 global technology influencer and thought leader on the Internet of Things (IOT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Fintech multiple years in a row. Priestley has worked with some of the biggest names in tech and business including SAP, Siemens, Bosch, Software AG, AON, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise - consulting, speaking for, and advising on strategic foresight, and emerging technologies. He has mentored for a number of startup accelerators including the HTC ViveX VR incubator and Alchemist, one of Silicon Valley's Top 10, and gives guest lectures at Universities. He has published more than 300 articles on topics including Web3, Artificial Intelligence, Space, Blockchain, Metaverse, and Mixed Reality, for Forbes, the European, WIRED, Huffington Post, and more. He has also contributed op-eds to VentureBeat, GigaOM, and The Times Raconteur, and has been interviewed for radio and national television news on technology trends. He authored the book, The Future Starts Now, published internationally through Bloomsbury. An energetic, informative, and polished speaker, he has engaged groups ranging from 20-2000 on emerging technology trends and their impact on society and business, and featured talks have taken place globally at conferences, corporate events, meet ups, webinars, and innovation boot camps. www.theopriestley.com 

High flying software Chair & CEO, Phill was diagnosed with Parkinsons' in 2017. Retiring, Phill founded Boardwave in 2022, a networking community for Software leaders to connect, share ideas, & build better businesses and a European software sector able to compete with Silicon Valley. Boardwave is an independent impact-driven business that puts community before profit, and offers free membership too all European Founders and CEOs, meaning everyone is equal and their are no financial barriers to inclusion. Over 32 years Phill was CMO of Salesforce.com (Silicon Valley), and CEO of IRIS (UK) and Exact (NL), two of Europes largest PE-backed businesses, as well as several other Chair, CEO, NED or Advisory roles. He also Chairs the Cure Parkinsons' Development Board. Great episode with some fascinating lessons and takeaways shared based on Phill's extensive journey leading multiple high growth software businesses. Connect with Phill here https://www.linkedin.com/in/phillrobinson  Learn more about Boardwave, The pre-eminent networking community of leading Software CEOs & Founders in Europe http://www.boardwwave.org A life the day : Phil's blog from the early years after diagnosis of Parkinson’s - some people just diagnosed find it useful http://stirrednotshaking.com Phill chairs the development board for Cure Parkinsons, the only charity focussed entirely on finding a Cure for Parkinsons https://cureparkinsons.org.uk/ Phill's just giving page, for anyone minded to make a donation to help find a cure for this degenerative disease https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/phill-robinson3

James Church is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, Investable Entrepreneur: How to convince investors your business is the one to back, and co-founder and COO of Robot Mascot, a global award-winning investment readiness agency. He’s on a mission to stop great ideas failing due to poor communication and is frustrated to see so many founders struggle to raise the capital they need because they’re unable to convince investors their business is the one to back. James is passionate about working with founders to present a clear, concise and credible business case to investors. James has won the Business Advisor of the Year award at the Growing Business Awards and has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and Forbes. He’s run mentoring sessions at Tech Hub, Google Campus and Runway East, and delivered mastermind sessions for accelerators run by The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Design Museum, Dent Global and the University of East Anglia. LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/jamescchurch Instagram: @jameschurch88 Twitter: @jameschurch88 Test your ability to attract investment by taking this short quiz. It’s completely free, takes less than five minutes and you’ll get a 12-page tailored report with tips on how to improve. Plus you’ll be able to claim a free copy of the best-selling book Investable Entrepreneur: https://www.robotmascot.co.uk/pitchready/

Richard H Harris is a an M&A dealmaker, Chairman, NED and former CEO with a proven track record of harnessing entrepreneurial spirit to build, transform, scale and sell early-stage technology companies. Adept at designing and presenting business cases for developing new business and partnerships at the CXO level, as well as securing and managing investors. A perceptive, influential leader with acute business acumen and expertise in building, empowering and leading high-performance teams to stimulate transformational change, innovation, and value creation. An expert presenter, negotiator and businessperson; able to forge solid relationships with partners and build consensus across multiple organisational levels. FCA approved for board positions. Company awards received include a Guinness World Record, Security Innovation of the Year, Best Software Solution Mobile Industry Awards and IoD Director of the month. On the corporate side he participated in two IPOs and one trade sale; he was responsible for the integration of the sales and pre-sales tech teams. With personal ventures he has one exit, two acquisitions (one integrated while the other flipped for 10x, which was self-managed). Currently Sell-side M&A dealmaker with Corum Group and occasional angel investor. Great episode, enjoy ! You can find more about Richard here. https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardhharris/ https://www.corumgroup.com/team/richard-harris-0 https://www.crunchbase.com/person/richard-h-harris https://businesschampionawards.co.uk/judges/richard-h-harris/ https://twitter.com/telecomguru https://open.spotify.com/artist/1Butj8MEiD7BkTBY0qlCWc?si=42LSZvoyRLKu1avYIZRs4w Investor: nuvolaris.io “The best cloud development environment” Investor: savortex.com “The smartest, most sustainable IoT hand hygiene solutions” Investor: gocarshare.com “Car sharing for a greener future”

We are joined today, not by one but two guests as JP and Darren, who are Co-Founders of Who’s Fabio. Their business is focussed on helping Tech Founders, get their startup off the ground and raise the first round of funding. JP Luchetti aka PASSION. JP has worked on hundreds of new products for startups, venture builders, VCs, SMEs and FTSE 100 businesses, including Invesco, Intelliflo, Hermes, National Express, Sony, HBO, ESPN, Coca-Cola, GE and many more. He is a Venture Partner at Mr. Pink - A LATAM-based early-stage VC, and Venture Design Lead at Rokk3r, a Miami-based venture builder. JP was previously a Board Director at Mubaloo – a leading mobile app development agency in Europe, and a founder at IPH – a mobile app development agency in Argentina with offices in Miami and Mexico. Darren has also worked on dozens of new propositions including Sura Mexico, Maersk, Go Ahead Group, HSF, Hanson UK, ABRSM and many more. He was the Chief Product Officer at CoGo and Yolion – two FinTech startups in the UK. Previously, he was a consultant at Mubaloo – a leading mobile app development agency in Europe, and at Accenture. In addition to Who’s Fabio he also plays a Product and Venture Strategy role at Rokk3r. JP and Darren have also written a Book called Traction in support of their POV, see link below. Very enjoyable episode where we cover a key element of how founders should consider the problem they are solving, work out how to generate demand for their offer in a forensic way and this should significantly improve the probability of securing first investment into their venture, to allow them to scale their business into the future. Enjoy ! Website: https://www.whosfabio.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Whos-Fabio-From-idea-to-your-first-round/100070725464705/ Podcast: https://anchor.fm/whosfabio LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpluchetti/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-ball-577110183/ Traction Book https://tractionfirst.whosfabio.com/book

Patrick Mullarkey is Senior Learning Experience Partner with Snyk, focussed on Learning & Development, passionate about all things people in the start and scale-up space. Father to Cillian, husband to Kim, and (until recently a long-suffering) avid Arsenal fan. Patrick is also an ambassador for charity NACOA, checkout their great work focused on helping everyone affected by their parent’s drinking. Very enjoyable episode where we cover a key element of how organisations should consider learning and development as a capability, Patrick’s views on how this has been and should be approached, and his views on tech companies vs non tech companies. This episode talks strongly to the aspect of looking after people, helping them develop their skills and addressing their edges as they develop their gifts and talents on their journey to greatness.  Connect with Patrick here https://www.linkedin.com/in/mullarkeypj/ Check out Patrick’s charity https://nacoa.org.uk/