Adam Bryant is a respected and noted expert on executive leadership whose work includes 525 Corner Office columns for the New York Times. He joins Merryck & Co as managing director and partner after a distinguished career as an editor and journalist. Adam has a proven ability to distill real-world lessons and insights from his hundreds of interviews and turn them into practical tools, presentations, and exercises to help Merryck & Co clients deepen their leadership benches and strengthen their teams. He works with executive leadership teams and organizations to foster a culture of innovation based on a best-practice framework he developed for his widely praised book Quick and Nimble. Prior to joining Merryck & Co, Adam Bryant worked for thirty years as a journalist, including eighteen years as a report, editor, and columnist at the New York Times. Bryant earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree, English Language, and Literature, from York University in Toronto, and his Masters of Science, Journalism, from Columbia University in New York. He and his wife have two children and live in New York City.

Joel Penton is the Founder and CEO of LifeWise Academy, a program that provides Bible education to public school students during school hours. Since its launch in 2019, LifeWise has quickly grown to serve more than 100 schools across the U.S. each week. Nearly 14,000 students attend a LifeWise program and receive a Bible class as part of their public school day. Joel’s 15-year career as a nonprofit entrepreneur has been marked by the relentless pursuit of impacting students. He honed this skill playing defensive tackle at The Ohio State University where he relentlessly pursued quarterbacks for the Buckeye’s national championship football team. In his senior year at OSU, Penton received the Danny Wuerffel trophy, known as the “Humanitarian Heisman,” which is awarded to one college football player each year for outstanding community service. Upon graduating, Joel founded Stand For Truth and Relevant Speakers Network, a speakers’ bureau that has touched more than 3,000 public schools and 2 million students nationwide. As a public speaker, Joel has presented to more than 2,000 live audiences and over 1,000,000 people across the country. He is also the author of three books including DURING SCHOOL HOURS: Why and How LifeWise Academy is Reinstalling Religious Education into the Public School Day. Joel Penton lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife, Bethany, and their five children, where they all enjoy telling stories at the dinner table, watching sci-fi movies, and playing full-contact monkey in the middle.

Francesco and Ignacio co-founded Grove Bay Hospitality Group and both are currently its’ Co-CEOs. The group has successfully launched an array of chef driven restaurants in partnership with celebrity chefs such as Jeremy Ford, Marcus Saumelsson, Jeff McInnis, Janine Booth and Giorgio Rapicavoli. Currently, the company owns and operates 9 different restaurants in Miami, and is bracing to launch five more, by the end of 2020. Grove Bay Hospitality Group was recognized by Restaurant Hospitality in their “RH 25 Most Innovative Multi-Concept Restaurant Groups”, was ranked by Entrepreneur Magazine as the “#250 Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America”, and was named the “Business of the Year” by the South Florida Business Journal. In addition, Ignacio and Francesco were Finalists for the “EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award” during 2018. Grove Bay Hospitality Group was created in 2010 with the idea that it would be fully connected to the community. Like our logo, our founders and core team members have deep roots in South Florida. For us, this connection to our community can be in the form of opening a great restaurant, providing new jobs for our fellow Miamians, or even donating our time and resources to the many charities we support. Named Best Places to Work in 2017 and 2022 by South Florida Business Journal, Grove Bay aspires to enhance the lives of its guests, employees, communities and investors as a restaurant industry leader by developing innovative, memorable and highly successful restaurant concepts. From ingredients to customer service, Grove Bay is committed to delivering only the highest quality across all levels of operation. We believe that if we provide our guests with exceptional hospitality experiences, if we train and take care of our people, and if we’re an active member of our community, then the performance and profits will take care of themselves. In 2022, two of Grove Bay Hospitality Group’s restaurants were recognized by the world’s most famous restaurant rating guide, Michelin. Stubborn Seed received one Michelin star and Red Rooster Overtown was awarded the Michelin Bib Gourmand. Additionally, through incredible chef partnerships, Grove Bay has been a multi-semi-finalist nominee by the James Beard Foundation.

As an International Best-Selling author and highly credentialed Investment Banker, Brian Callanan has created the program Chief Exit Officer™️. The vision was to simplify the very complex world of mergers & acquisitions for business owners. Brian’s experience in Private Wealth Management uncovered breakdowns costing these business owners millions of dollars in value and taxes. Owners often learn very expensive lessons after it is too late. Brian educates and aligns with the CEO to help them get maximum value for their businesses. Brian’s passion for people is obvious whether through his book or on stage.

Molly Sargent is Founder & CEO of ProImpress, a dynamic keynote speaker, a master facilitator and author of the forthcoming book, Mastering Authentic Influence™. Since 1985, Molly has successfully trained and coached tens of thousands of Trusted Advisors and teams (and the leaders who love them) to wield greater, positive influence in their client-facing and colleague-collaborating exchanges — face-to-face, voice-to-voice, pen-to-pen. As a business owner and corporate consultant since 1997, Molly’s roles have included: sales, sales management, curriculum and course design, meeting facilitation, front-line employee training, leadership training and development, executive development & coaching, strategic consulting, organization change management, and project management. The focus of her training and coaching is on helping Trusted Advisors and Trusted Experts make the most of precious facetime with clients and colleagues, increasing their influence during hard-won sales calls, high-risk presentations and hard-charging collaborative problem-solving sessions. Thanks to her highly discerning clients over several decades, Molly designed – and truth-tested – the no-nonsense training that makes up the ProImpress curriculum. The flagship programs include: Mastering Authentic Influence™ (sell), Presenting Yourself & Your Ideas with Impact™ (present), Dynamic Team Problem-solving™ (teams), Leader as Coach™, Leader as Change Champion™ (coach) and Leader as Culture Carrier™(peer-coach). More recently, as an outgrowth of her Leadership & Transformation Coaching Certification from the Hendricks Institute in Ojai, CA, she began teaching her course participants how to successfully and pragmatically leverage mindfulness practices in everyday business exchanges; for instance, she began demonstrating the power of breath to help ground nervous impulses in negotiations. She playfully refers to this research-supported curriculum as “Spinach in the Cookies,” so named because these “extra skills” are mixed into every core training from ProImpress. Molly earned her Bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate from Penn State University, and spent a year teaching at the Center for English as a Second Language in France. She has earned numerous Certifications and Master Certifications in training and executive coaching. A key specialty is organizational culture transformation—aligning behavior with corporate strategy and realizing better business results. Over the years, she has worked alongside representatives of McKinsey, The Boston Consulting Group and others to translate their recommendations from written reports into measurable behavior change on the job. Molly feels passionately about the work of her company and team: “There’s a bigger game at play here. Busy, accomplished professionals don’t always want to stop what they’re doing to focus on how they’re doing it. Yet, I’m convinced that by waking up super-smart professionals to the benefit (and the practice) of being more intentional in their communications, not only will their workplace relationships (and results) improve, their personal connections will deepen, as well.”  

Jeff Totten is the Founder and CEO of Evergreen Services Group and focuses his efforts on vision, capital allocation, team building and growth. Prior to founding Evergreen, Jeff was a Vice President at Alpine Investors where he led investments in business services companies and was a board member of Risk Management Strategies, MidAmerica, YouCaring and Constructive Media. Jeff Totten graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley where he was President of the Berkeley Investment Group. Evergreen is a holding company that acquires and operates a group of leading service companies. Selling your business is one of the biggest decisions you will make in your lifetime. Owners and founders of services businesses trust Evergreen to help them achieve their long-term goals and to steward their legacy. We are committed to acquiring and holding businesses indefinitely and empowering management teams with a proven playbook for growth. We’ve succeeded in guiding companies through the next stage of their growth. Our north star is our mission to be North America’s best home for businesses and their leaders. That means we empower employees and treat each deal as a unique opportunity to work with owners to support and grow businesses into perpetuity. We believe the single greatest input to our operational success is our CEOs and we also believe in attributes over experience. Evergreen’s CEO program directly places MBA graduates at the helm of businesses we acquire in a variety of management roles and have seen these leaders grow into running our highest-performing businesses. We have the benefit of sharing best practices between the exceptional leadership teams across our portfolio. We are committed to specific industries and all Evergreen companies have access to the community platform that connects leaders across the entire portfolio. We believe that by connecting CEOs and other team members with their counterparts at other companies, everyone can learn and grow.  

Matt is the Founder/CEO of Uniquely Normal, LLC. Uniquely Normal exists to equip and train leaders to build flourishing team members and organizations through empathy, empowerment, and excellence. Matt has had the honor of training leaders, teams, and boards in over 40 countries over the past 20+ years. Prior to launching Uniquely Normal, Matt served in C-Suite roles in private equity, banking, and industrial supply and distribution. Matt spent the first 15 years of his career leading his family’s business in the wholesale (later adding retail as well) petroleum industry. After starting the business over after less than a year at the helm, the business grew by over 15x before being sold. Matt earned undergraduate degrees in business from Indiana University and an MBA from Taylor University. Matt is certified in nearly 20 personality, team building, and leadership assessments. Matt is a best-selling author and his first book, unSatisfied: When Less is More, was released on 11 October 2022; his second book will be released late 2023. Matt also serves as an Adjunct Professor, and he has served on several Boards of Directors in businesses and non-profits both domestically and internationally. Matt’s greatest treasures are his Faith, family, and friends. Matt resides in northeast Indiana with his family.

Mike Plaia is a proven hands-on leader and senior executive with over twenty years of leadership and business experience in small, medium, and large companies. He is responsible for the overall performance of PharmaPoint, an innovative technology-enabled pharmacy management and software company focused on medication optimization and outpatient retail pharmacy management for hospitals, health systems, and physician groups. PharmaPoint has been recognized as one of the most innovative, inspiring and fastest-growing private companies for six consecutive years (2013-2018) by Inc. Magazine, a Fast Track 30 company by the Birmingham Business Journal (BBJ) for three consecutive years (2015-2017), and highlighted in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ report, “Digital Accelerators for a New Innovation Era.” In addition to these corporate accolades, Mike has been recognized by the BBJ as a Top 40 Under 40 recipient (2003), Top CEO (2015), Veteran of Influence (2018) and Who’s Who in Healthcare (2021-2022). Prior to PharmaPoint, Mike served as a founder and chief operating officer of Source Medical, the largest nationwide provider and leading source of information technology solutions and other critical services for ambulatory surgery centers, specialty hospitals and rehabilitation clinics. During his tenure, Mike developed the initial business plan, helped raise all capital and spearheaded the acquisition and integration of three companies and one asset purchase from a publicly traded company. Mike also co-founded Industriaplex, Inc. and served as executive vice president of business development. Industriaplex focused on providing a full range of commercial equipment, systems, maintenance and professional services to national retail, food service, and industrial customers in the United States, Canada, Middle East and Asia. Industriaplex was twice ranked in the top 100 of the Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies. Working on the corporate audit staff for General Electric (GE) in more than seven different GE businesses, Mike oversaw such initiatives as acquisition integrations, Six Sigma implementations, financial audits and controllership assessments. Mike is passionate about mentoring our younger generation through sports and pursues a lifestyle of giving back to his community. He has served two terms as president of the Hoover Athletic Association (HAA) governing youth sports in the city of Hoover. Mike has coached more than 500 area youth in both football and baseball over the past ten years. He now works with his alma mater, John Carroll Catholic High School, in helping coach within their football and baseball programs, while also serving on the school’s advisory board. In addition to his commitment to coach and mentor area youth, Mike also believes deeply in giving back to the city he loves and was raised to appreciate. To that end, he has served more than 10 years as chairman of Rise Above, Inc., a charitable foundation providing contributions to a myriad of non-profit organizations within the Birmingham community. His most recent commitment is to serve as chairman of gotURback, Inc., a not-for-profit organization focused on helping children facing adversity. It is both founded and led by local high school students who have a passion for being known as a generation of selfless leaders. Military Mike served his country on active duty for the United States Armed Forces from 1994 until 1997. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in management from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and was then stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, where he served as a Field Artillery Officer for the United States Army. After his time at West Point, Mike served as Graduate Assistant Coach (awarded Army Achievement Medal for performance), Fire Directions Officer (awarded Army Achievement Medal for performance) and Assistant Divarty S1 (awarded Army Commendation Medal for performance). He also earned the distinction of Commandant’s List Graduate, Master Fires Award (highest academic average in fire support) and Master Shooter Award (best in observed fire) at the Field Artillery Basic Course. In addition, Mike was a three year letterman in both football (Coaches Award for “Most Courageous Attitude”) and baseball (voted co-captain by the team). Mike Plaia was selected by West Point leadership to escort President Bill Clinton during his inaugural visit to the Academy in 1993.  

For over three decades, Corey has been engaged in the global world of direct selling. He has lived and worked in Hong Kong, Japan, China, Australia and, of course, the United States, solving complex business issues. Corey has worked in senior C-level positions for two billion dollar-plus consumer product companies that market products through direct selling–one being doTERRA. Developing competent and loyal teams has been the hallmark of Corey’s professional career. He holds a BS degree in accounting and an MBA degree, and began his professional career in 1987 working for one of the world’s largest public accounting firms prior to beginning work in the direct selling world in 1990. He loves all sports, especially golf, but Corey is quick to point out that his favorite pastime is being with his amazing wife, Janis, along with his eight children and their families including 20 grandchildren doing whatever it is that they want to do. About doTERRA: doTERRA sources, tests, manufactures, and distributes pure essential oils and natural wellness products to over nine million Wellness Advocates and customers. Our products are shipped to 86 countries and counting. Through industry-leading, responsible sourcing practices—Co-Impact Sourcing®—doTERRA maintains the highest levels of quality, purity, and sustainability in partnerships with local growers around the globe. The doTERRA Healing Hands Foundation®, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, offers resources and tools to sourcing communities and charitable organizations, raising self-reliance, increasing access to healthcare, promoting education, advancing sanitation, and fighting against human trafficking. With our social impact mission to triple our impact by 2030, doTERRA is helping the world heal—one drop, one person, one community at a time.

Wiley Mullins is the founder and president of Uncle Wiley’s Specialty Foods, Inc., a Fairfield, Connecticut-based firm that produces and markets Wiley’s “Healthy Southern Classics” seasonings and spices. A passion for southern cooking and a starting base of his grandmother’s recipes, combined with ten years of marketing expertise in the packaged food industry enabled Wiley to launch this business in 1992.  His goal was to introduce a healthy approach to preparing common foods.  He has expanded his product line and distribution network so that today Uncle Wiley’s are now sold in supermarkets across the country. Wiley is a graduate of The University of Alabama and received a Master’s degree in Business Administration from The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. After graduate school, he joined Procter & Gamble, Inc. Throughout his marketing career he has managed national brands including Vick’s VapoRub, Mott’s Apple Sauce, and Vick’s NyQuil.