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

ACBL named Mark Knoy as its president and chief executive officer in August 2011. Prior to joining ACBL, he was vice president of American Electric Power’s (AEP) Fuel, Emissions and Logistics Group and president of AEP River Operations, having joined AEP with its 2001 purchase of MEMCO Barge Line. From 1984 to 1994, he was owner/operator of The Mark Twain Towing Company and Delmar Marine, Inc., Pekin, Illinois. Knoy began his career in 1973 working aboard towboats on the inland waterways as a deck hand and then as a captain. Knoy serves as a director of the Corps of Engineer’s Inland Waterways Users Board, a Board of Trustees’ member for both the Coast Guard Foundation and The Seamen’s Church Institute and its Center for Maritime Education and Ministry on the River, chairman of the National Waterways Foundation, board member for the H.T. Pott Inland Waterways Library at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, treasurer of the Marine Transportation Council and former member of the Board of Directors for the Fund for the Arts and the Boy Scouts of America, Greater St. Louis Area Council. He is a past chairman of both the Waterways Council, Inc. and the Midwest Region of the American Waterways Operators. Mark lives with his wife, Mary, in Louisville and together they have three grown children.

For someone who left home with $40 in her pocket to fetch a job in a call center in Mumbai, Anu Shah has come a long way in her career, overtaking challenges & hurdles head-on. Her career kickstarted with an FMCG company in Mumbai where she had to demonstrate extreme endurance in blazing heat for over 8 hours a day to cover 40 shops, to earn a commission of a mere $10 a month. From there she has come a long way as a serial entrepreneur with two exits under the belt, prior experience of working in M&A, Strategy Consulting, and Private Equity. Anu has lived in 4 continents and major metropolitan cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, London, and New York. Most recently she donated $7mn to UNHCRs refugee rehabilitation program and held an honorary role at UN to design a program to establish gender parity through entrepreneurship and innovation

Mark’s business career started in Indianapolis with the Burroughs Corporation where he played a business development role in their financial services division. After three years with Burroughs, Mark was offered a payroll market development position with a regional bank holding company who provided payroll and related services to both bank and non-bank clients. At the ripe age of 29, Mark and two other colleagues formed Interlogic Systems, a payroll processing company, where he stayed for more than 10 years. Mark formed TruPay in 2003 where he and his talented team have successfully built the company providing payroll and HCM services to over 1700 organizations with locations in every US State and territory. Mark grew up in Muncie, Indiana, and earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics in 1981, from Ball State University.

Mike Grossman has 25 years of entrepreneurial and executive experience. Currently CEO of Inflection, the country's fastest growing background screening provider, he has also been CEO of a diverse set of innovative, VC-funded software companies, including LiveCapital, Tempo, Attributor, SugarSync, and Zetta, all of which were ultimately acquired. Mike’s experience in large companies includes leadership positions at Intuit and Johnson & Johnson, and board roles at Borders and Quicken. He started his career as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company in San Francisco and Sydney. Mike holds an A.B. in Economics and a J.D. from Harvard University. He is passionate about his family, his cats (4 at present), international travel, science fiction films, tennis, creative writing (when time permits), and quiet irreverence.

Michael Castagna is our Chief Executive Officer and serves on the Board of Directors for MannKind Corporation. Dr. Castagna has over 20 years of experience in healthcare, pharmaceutical, biotech, and specialty pharmacy industries. He joins MannKind from Amgen, Inc., where he spent over three years as Vice President, Global Commercial Lead for a portfolio of nine biosimilar drugs, and Vice President, Global Lifecycle Management. Prior to Amgen, Dr. Castagna, was Executive Director of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Immunology franchise, where he served as co-lead to relaunch Orencia IV and launch Orencia SC, both rheumatoid arthritis drugs. Before BMS, Dr. Castagna was with Sandoz (Novartis) as Vice President and Division Head for Biopharmaceuticals, North America, where he established the US Biologics Business Unit and relaunched its lead product, Omnitrope, a human growth hormone. Prior to Sandoz, he held a variety of positions with EMD (Merck), Serono, Pharmasset and DuPont Pharmaceuticals. He received his Bachelors of Science – Pharmacy degree from Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, his Doctor of Pharmacy from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, and his MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Following surgery and chemotherapy to treat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Michael O’Neil emerged humbled, inspired and ready to finish the graduate studies interrupted unexpectedly by cancer. Steering the final year of his J.D./M.B.A. program from business plan to life mission, Michael founded GetWellNetwork to tackle an unaddressed problem in healthcare: educating, engaging and empowering patients and families to take control of their healthcare journeys. Today, he leads the global digital health technology company as founder and chief executive officer. His vision for transforming the patient experience launched a new healthcare technology segment called Interactive Patient Care™. Two decades later, GetWellNetwork has given millions of patients around the world a voice in their own care. In 2014, he founded the O’Neil Center, a think tank and research institute advancing the science of patient and family engagement. Michael also established GetWell Labs, an R&D incubator, to accelerate the development of disruptive patient engagement technologies. Michael is a recognized leader in the healthcare, technology and entrepreneurial communities. In 2019, he was named a Health Innovators Fellow by the Aspen Institute. He is The Global Good Fund’s 2019 Social Entrepreneur of the Year and recipient of the 2019 Social Impact award from the Georgetown Entrepreneurial Alliance. His past honors include the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year award and NVTC Tech Executive of the Year. Michael is an actively involved member of several leadership organizations, including Mindshare, a network of high-tech CEOs fostering entrepreneurship and growth throughout the nation’s capital, and the Young Presidents Organization, a global community of peer leaders committed to lifelong learning and idea exchange. He also serves as executive chairman of PerfectServe, a private-equity-backed clinical communications and collaboration company. Previously, Michael served on the boards of directors for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and for The DAISY Foundation, a global organization dedicated to honoring nurses. Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame and a Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Georgetown University. Michael lives in Chevy Chase, MD with his wife and two daughters.

I have a passion to see people meet Jesus and get to know God. Why? Because for years I was one of those guys who tried to follow all the rules, do everything right, and I even had some success. In the end though, my focus on “being right” led me to actually behave as if “I was always right”. I was no fun to be around. God in his mercy let things fall apart, and then met me in my brokenness. I have been fortunate to work in Corporate America, with my last position leading the organization that cared for the nuclear power plants of our nation’s fleet of nuclear submarines. I also had the privilege of working in the Church as a full time Pastor for 12 years. Today, I serve as the chief executive officer of The Pocket Testament League, where I get to lead this global movement of Christ-followers who are sharing Jesus in His own Words.

Frank Frietsch is Executive Vice President of Layher and CEO of Layher North America. He has served SAIA in numerous capacities since 2014, including time spent on the Executive Board. Frank holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the FH Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences and advanced degrees from FH Pforzheim University and a MBA Steinbeis-Hochschule in Berlin. In his free time, he enjoys doing sports and being active.

Larry Griffith, CEO of Corporate Chaplains of America (CCA), loves God, people, and business. Larry has walked with Christ since his childhood and brings more than three decades of leadership experience at a Fortune 250 firm, in the non-profit sphere, and as a Naval officer. At the pinnacle of his business career with ALLTEL, he led more than a thousand employees with annual P&L responsibility exceeding $1.5B. He considers his role at CCA as the magnum opus of his life, and is energized by their quest to see 6,000 people a year come to Christ through their Chaplains building caring relationships in the workplace.

Martin is CEO and Co-Founder of Trelus, an online platform transforming the misaligned marketplace for business owners seeking growth equity or to exit.  Trelus was built from the ground up to empower owners, giving them more control of their outcomes and legacy with smart tools and intelligent matching to a peer-reviewed network of win-win advisors, investors and buyers.  Martin’s professional career includes executive level experience spanning startups, Fortune 500 financial institutions, and advisory work for global private equity firms. Prior to founding Trelus, Martin was managing director at NexSpring Group, an advisory firm whose clients included leading global private equity firms and top-tier financial institutions. His private equity-related advisory work included acquisition targets and company turnarounds ranging in target/ investment size from $100MM to $1B+.