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

Avi Kahn joined the Hilti Group Executive Board in January 2020, with responsibility for Asia and the Americas. Prior to that role and at time of recording, he was Hilti North America’s operations as president and chief executive officer, overseeing businesses in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Guam. Prior to this role, he served as president of Hilti Canada. Kahn holds a Bachelor of Business Administration, Information Technology from The Interdisciplinary Center and a Master of Business Administration, International Business from Bellevue University. He joined Hilti in 2004 as a territory sales representative for construction in San Francisco. From there, he was promoted to regional manager for San Diego and Hawaii. In 2008, Avi took on greater responsibility as the Chicago-based West Great Lakes division manager. In January 2011, Avi took an international assignment when the organization named him president of Hilti Canada. Kahn is active with the Dallas Regional Chamber, serving as a member of the board of directors and executive committee, as well as chairing the international task force. He is involved with several charitable organizations including serving as a foundation board member of Children’s Health of Dallas, a pediatric health care organization, and was on the Habitat for Humanity Canadian Leadership Council. Avi is a member of the ownership advisory group of the Dallas Stars hockey team. Since 2017, he is a Catalyst CEO Champion for Change. Avi Kahn resides in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex with his wife Maryann and their two sons, Ethan and Adam.

Francesca Schuler is passionate about growth and delivering results by building teams, brands and businesses with signature cultures and diverse leadership teams. As the CEO at In-Shape Health Clubs, a California-based chain full service health clubs, Francesca and her team transformed the organization to create a people and experience focused culture. She prioritizes team member development and diversity at all levels, both in the clubs and in all functions. This is evidenced by the increase in women on the leadership team from less than 10% in 2015, to now 50%. Her diverse background in consumer marketing generates innovative thinking in how to create compelling fitness experiences for members to motivate them to live healthy, fit and happy. Francesca joined In-Shape as CMO in 2015 and was promoted to COO in April 2017, before assuming her role as CEO in March 2018. Prior to joining In-Shape, Francesca was the CMO of BevMo!, a specialty beverage retailer based on the West Coast. She joined BevMo! from Treasury Wine Estates Americas where she was CMO, managing a wine portfolio of over 50 brands. Previously, Francesca was the Head of Marketing for Method Products, Inc. a pioneer of premium non-toxic home care products, the VP of Global Brand Management at the Gap and a partner at Marakon Associates, a boutique management consulting firm, where she advised consumer and retail companies. Early in her career, she held several marketing and sales positions at the E&J Gallo Winery. Francesca is currently on the board of O’Neill Vintners & Distillers and The Bundschu Company. She was named the 2019 Woman Leader of the Year by IHRSA, one of 2014 SF Business Times Most Influential Women in Business and was awarded the 2013 Marketers that Matter award for Customer Engagement. She holds an M.B.A. from Wharton and a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Brown University where she also rowed crew. Francesca is Chilean-American, bilingual in Spanish, and loves to travel with her husband Eric and children, Aria and Will.

Marcel Botha, MIT SMArchS ’06, is an entrepreneur, architect, and investor. Botha specializes in guiding product development teams from concept to viable product and is currently locked in a wave of parallel experimentation, feeding off his passion for product acceleration, and digital manufacturing. In 2012 he co-founded Infant Ventures LLC, a company innovating at the stress-points between infants and parents, and was one of the inventors behind the much acclaimed Spuni feeding product. As Founder and CEO of 10XBeta, a product development and engineering firm working in consumer and enterprise electronics, medical devices and specialized robotics, Marcel works to build expert multidisciplinary teams to solve unique, solve complex problems by leveraging a global network of manufacturing partners and has developed hundreds of products. Over the course of 8 years, 10XBeta has helped numerous medical professionals test, develop and commercialize products ranging from electronic stethoscopes, colposcopes, to surgical instruments. Recent works include; INDIEGO, autonomous robot that powers manual wheelchairs; CARE-E, KLM Dutch Airlines’ new helpful concierge and baggage carrier; INSPIREN, a sensor platform providing insights into the quality of care provided to patients; FOOTPRINTLESS, a sneaker prototype created from CO2 recovered from energy production; BEATBOT, a programmable self-driving robot designed to motivate athletes; JEFFSOLVES MEDTECH, an immersive medical innovation program developed in collaboration with Thomas Jefferson University.

Pat is an experienced leader adept at building alliances and gaining cooperation with critical stakeholders on challenging organizational issues.  He is results-driven with a demonstrated ability to acquire and manage scarce resources by leveraging partnerships and technology to resolve organizational challenges.  An entrepreneur, he founded and grew two startups in the Public Sector, with each firm achieving an Inc. 500 appearance.  Understands private and public sector business development, including capture, project and program management, and federal acquisition requirements.  He’s a 2022 Birthing of Giants Fellow and a subject matter expert in entrepreneurship, crisis management, communication, and change management.  He has extensive executive-level experience in leading, managing, and participating in large-scale, high-profile events, including, but not limited to, the loss of the space shuttle Challenger in the mid-1980s, mass migrations of Haitians/Cubans in the early 1990s, the loss of TWA Flight 800 and Alaska Air, the loss of JFK, Jr.’s aircraft off of Martha’s Vineyard, and dozens of contentious and complex business and legislative issues associated with FEMA’s transformation following Hurricane Katrina.  Before starting his own company and acquiring a second one, Pat served as Senior Vice President of PIER Systems, a technology-focused crisis communication company (2007-2008); Director Office of External Affairs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (2006-2007); and as a Technical Director/Program Manager for Anteon Corporation (now General Dynamics Information Technology) (2005-2006). Pat served more than 21 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, retiring as Chief of Public Affairs in 2004.  Other notable staff assignments include serving as the Deputy Chief of the Coast Guard’s Strategic Analysis Staff, Press Assistant to the Commandant, and Chief of Coast Guard Media Relations.  Operational assignments include more than seven years of shipboard experience, including command of two Coast Guard cutters.  Pat has consulted with various sectors, including oil & gas, education, nonprofits, and pharmaceuticals. Pat holds a Doctorate in Communication from the University of Maryland, a Master of Business Administration from George Mason University, a Master of Science in Public Relations from Syracuse University, and a Bachelor of Science in Government from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.  He is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

With a lifetime of experience as a championship-winning rower, the former president of Chicago Union Rowing and Paddling, and the coach of the U.S. National Team, Bruce has always been passionate about moving the sport of rowing forward due to its positive impacts on the body and the mind. However, you might say his life’s work was predestined. Long after he fell in love with rowing, Bruce discovered quite by accident that his ancestors were, in fact, a legendary rowing family. In addition, his great grandfather was a master boat builder in Cambridge who made the first sliding seats in racing shells. Throughout his career, Bruce has remained steadfastly committed to improving communities by making rowing accessible to all, including his work previously as the executive director of Community Rowing in Boston. He also founded Lincoln Park Juniors, a rowing program in Chicago for underserved youth. Today, Bruce continues to thoughtfully innovate new ways to make the water and the rowing world more accessible, while also improving the communities in which we live. Bruce will tell you it was the “swing” of the rhythm of rowing in perfect harmony with his teammates that bonded him to the boathouse and the lifestyle. And he says that same “swing” is what continues to move the entire rowing community into the future. Under his guidance, the Hydrow team has been able to create a world-class way to do that: our rowers. Together, we continue the movement, with a state-of-the-art home fitness offering that grants you access to world-class waterways, the sport’s most elite Athletes, whole-body health, and a community that spans centuries, and the globe.

I have been involved in business finance and investment for the best part of 30 years having started working for Merrill Lynch Investment Bank in Munich, Germany in 1987 at the tender age of 24. I now run an investment company and a knowledge platform teaching finance to entrepreneurs which goes by the name of Good & Prosper. My focus has always been on Small & Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) primarily in Germany and Europe and mostly in some sort of distress or need of restructuring. I work at the seam between strategy, finance and leadership and bring three decades of experience as a finance and investment professional to the world of SME operations. Good & Prosper also offers courses to entrepreneurs and SME business owners to enable them to further their expertise in finance, capital allocation, leadership, culture and strategy, as well as individual leadership coaching and mentoring. My perspective on business, politics and society is shaped primarily by my alignment with the Austrian School of Economics. I was irredeemably inspired by my early reading of the Intelligent Investor at the age of 24 and am at a loss to understand why anyone would want to think differently about investing and capital allocation other than from a value perspective. I am a Christian Libertarian by conviction. You can read more about my own journey and the influences on my thinking by reading the blog post „why we do what we do“ I am an Englishman, born in Lancashire in 1963 who moved to Germany at the age of 24 after completing my education at Rugby and Durham University. Starting in 1987, I spent almost all of my investment career in Munich, Germany, before moving to Ireland with my family in early 2015. I now commute between Dublin and Germany and have come to the conclusion that there are worse things in life…I have been married to Britta since 2000 and our family consists of four children, three dogs, and a horse, all of whom live in Delgany, Co. Wicklow. I am an avid long distance trail walker (see www.peregrinations.eu for my trail blogs), cross country skier and sailor, I read voraciously, listen to an unhealthy amount of podcasts, write enthusiastically and drink large quantities of green tea every day. I am also a founding member of the Small Giants Community ( www.smallgiants.org ), a wonderful, US- based organisation, that caters to companies that choose to be great instead of big and provides resources and a community to value-based leaders. In addition I am an active supporter and mentor within the Ashoka Social Entrepreneurship (http://ireland.ashoka.org/ ) network, both here in Ireland and in Germany and Britta and I have been actively involved with Ashoka in one way or another since 2002. In 2015 I was invited to join an interfaith delegation to the caribbean island state of Grenada, whose purpose was to coordinate a number of reconstruction and redevelopment projects for infrastructure seriously damaged by hurricanes a decade earlier. As part of that delegation representing the Anglican community, I was awarded with an honour bestowed by the Governor General into the Order of the Nation of Grenada with the rank of Knight Commander. Since 2017 I have served as one of a number of business professionals working as mentors to high growth entrepreneurs with the Ryan Business Academy „Mentoring for Growth“ Program. In 2018 I was elected to serve on the founding steering committee (supervisory board) of the MyData Global Organisation, an Helsinki-based foundation set up to ’empower individuals with their personal data, thus helping them and their communities develop knowledge, make informed decisions, and interact more consciously and efficiently with each other as well as with organisations.‘ and was delighted to have been involved with that organisation in its founding year. I believe that business can and should be a force for good in our society and that the more people take entrepreneurial responsibility for their lives, the better our society will be. I also believe in Benjamin Franklin’s dictum of “doing well by doing good” and in that Abraham Maslow was right when he wrote „The difference between the great and good societies and the regressing, deteriorating societies is largely in terms of the entrepreneurial opportunity and the number of such people in the society. I think everyone would agree that the most valuable people to bring into a deteriorating society would not be 100 chemists, or politicians, or professors, or engineers, but rather 100 entrepreneurs”. Amen to that.  

Rich Scanlon is currently serving as the CEO of Workspace. Most recently, Rich was CEO of ImageQuix and PhotoLynx, both ASG companies. Prior to that, he was Director of Business Operations at Medallia, a leading customer experience management SaaS company. Prior to Medallia, he was COO of RPM Worldwide Inc, one of the largest private concert marketing/ promotions companies on the East Coast. He started his business career as a Management Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. Rich received his MBA from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. Prior to receiving his MBA, Rich played five years in the National Football League as a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, Tennessee Titans, and New York Giants. Rich completed his undergraduate studies at Syracuse University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was captain of the football team.

Claire Raab MD serves as the President & CEO of Temple Faculty Physicians, with over 600 physicians and 550,000 ambulatory visits a year, within Temple Health in Philadelphia PA. Prior to this role, Dr. Raab was Chief Clinical Officer of Temple Health responsible for inpatient quality, efficiency, and capacity management. Dr. Raab started her career as a Physician Advisor interfacing with payers focused on medical necessity. Dr. Raab completed her MD at Jefferson Medical College and her IM residency at Jefferson University Hospital. She continues to work with residents and students as a Hospitalist teaching attending at Temple Health.

Elliott Hyman serves as the CEO of Lyra Technology Group. He previously worked as Wolf Consulting’s CEO and Director of Business Development, as well as Chairman of Tech-Keys. Prior to joining Wolf Consulting, he held a diverse set of management roles with McMaster-Carr, a leading industrial supplier, and began his career working as a special education teacher with Teach For America.  Elliott earned a Bachelor’s degree in United States History from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Outside of work, Elliott enjoys spending time with his family, rooting for the New York Jets, and reading about history, technology, and business.

After starting, growing, and selling 3 different multi-million dollar businesses, Scott now delivers keynotes speeches and trains CEOs and executives in selling skills and leadership throughout the world. He has spoken in London, Paris, Geneva, Scotland, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Kuwait and throughout all of North America. He has also lived with the Hadza and Massai tribes in Tanzania. Scott's first business was in partnership with Tino Lettieri, called Tino's Inc. and after 3 years was sold to Schwanns in 1989. From 1990 until 2003 Scott built and sold Benchmark Learning, Minnesota's largest technology training company, and then from 2004 until 2014 he built and sold Insights Twin Cities to Insights Global in Scotland. He also learned lessons on life and leadership as a TEC/Vistage member from 1995 until 2003, and he has published four books: I Think I'll Stand Up, Get a Job Fast, GPS for Success, and Discover Yourself. He is also a highly rated speaker for Vistage International, the world's largest CEO member organization and has trained several dozen leadership teams running billion-dollar business units. Today Scott and his team deliver increased sales, profits, and productivity in some of the world's best companies while traveling globally training teams, leaders and sales people, speaking to thousands, and reaching millions more via his live webinars, his videos, and his Ted Talk (www.scottstedtalk.com). If asked "What's your dream job?", Scott would say, "EXACTLY what I do now... teaching people how to communicate better with each other.”