angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Shaun Bank with ImagineX Consulting

August 12, 2020 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Shaun Bank with ImagineX Consulting

00:00 /

Shaun Bank is a passionate and seasoned technology consulting leader with almost 20 years of IT consulting experience. He loves solving client problems, delivering high quality deliverables and being a trusted advisor to his clients. He has worked across large and small clients in the Telecommunications, Auto, Finance, Hospitality, Retail, and Insurance industries including AT&T, Verizon Business, Cox Automotive, IHG, ADP, The Home Depot, and Airbnb.

Shaun’s career started at Accenture in 2001 where he focused on telecommunications and large system implementations. After Accenture, Shaun joined Slalom and spent almost a decade working to establish their reputation in the Atlanta market and became a Consultant Manager and Client Service Lead for several clients.

Since Co-Founding ImagineX Consulting in 2015, Shaun has owned their technology practices including Adaptive Agile and Software Engineering & Cloud. He has grown the Atlanta office to be ImagineX’s National Delivery Center, and home to 40 consultants and growing rapidly. Shaun is currently involved in GA Tech’s StartUp eXchange, UGA’s Terry College Mentoring Program, and KSU’s Gold Circle Leaders in Entrepreneurship and focuses corporate sponsorship on Camp Horizon of Georgia.

Shaun was a 2018 finalist for Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Small Business Person of the Year. Shaun became CEO of ImagineX in January 2020. ImagineX Atlanta has been an Atlanta Business Chronicle Great Place to Work Top 30 award recipient the past two years.

Follow ImagineX Consulting on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Shaun’s response to layoffs / furloughs during COVID-19
About the technology environment in Atlanta
Return to work policies for ImaginX Consulting
Their shift to remove work

About Our Sponsor

OnPay’s payroll services and HR software give you more time to focus on what’s most important. Rated “Excellent” by PC Magazine, we make it easy to pay employees fast, we automate all payroll taxes, and we even keep all your HR and benefits organized and compliant.

Our award-winning customer service includes an accuracy guarantee, deep integrations with popular accounting software, and we’ll even enter all your employee information for you — whether you have five employees or 500. Take a closer look to see all the ways we can save you time and money in the back office.

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

BRX Pro Tip: Create the Right Environment

August 12, 2020 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Create the Right Environment

00:00 /

BRX Pro Tip: Create the Right Environment

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with BRX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, let’s talk a little bit about the stage, if you will, creating the right environment.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:10] Yeah. This is something, you know, that I’m kind of a behavioral science nerd when it comes to some of this stuff. And there’s so much research that shows that people like things that look like the way they expect them to look. So, for example, if you’re eating fish at a fish restaurant on the ocean, in your mind, it’s going to taste better because you’re going to think it’s fresher or whatever. The thing is, it’s going to be a trigger. If you’re eating Greek food in Greece, it’s going to taste better. If you’re going to have New York style pizza in New York, it’s going to taste better.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:41] The environment plays a role in how people perceive the services. So, when you’re in your studio, if you can make it look like a studio or how your your guests imagines a studio to be, they’re going to kind of emotionally connect deeper with you in your work because it’s going to look the way they kind of envision it should look. So, add those things, have the mic flags, have the phone, headphones. All the stuff that we do in the studio, make sure that you’re doing it. It’s important for them to kind of really immerse themselves in the whole environment.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:16] And so, the little things or big things, it has to be congruent in their mind that everything that’s happening there makes sense. That this is the place they think they should be. And this is the place where this kind of work gets done.

Retirement Tips Radio: Tom Lashnits with Sightings Over Sixty

August 12, 2020 by angishields

Retirement Tips Radio

Retirement Tips Radio: Tom Lashnits with Sightings Over Sixty

00:00 /

After 40+ years in New York publishing, working for Time Inc., Reader’s Digest, and various other publishers, Tom Lashnits retired in 2017 to Doylestown, PA. While he admits to playing golf, he also produces a retirement blog called Sightings Over Sixty, and occasionally has a column on the U. S. News Retirement website and on Manopause, the website for men over 50.

Tom also volunteers to tutor literacy outside of Philadelphia and teaches at the retirement center at Delaware Valley University. Tom and his wife spend the better part of the winter in Charleston, SC, visiting children and grandchildren, and soon they will start making the trip to Madison, WI, where they have a brand new granddaughter.

Connect with Tom on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Hillary D. Simpson with HDS Enterprises

August 11, 2020 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Hillary D. Simpson with HDS Enterprises

00:00 /

Hillary Drummond Simpson is a Certified Parent Coach and Young Men’s Success Coach who works with parents and organizations to support the success of young black men by coaching and mentoring alongside successful black men in various fields. Hillary also works with organizations that serve young men by providing turnkey programs that will motivate, inspire and help define who they are.

Hillary is the author of two books… How to Become a Successful Black Man…The Men Tell Their Story, and its companion The Action Guide. Here she gives young black men role models from various careers at their fingertips and has partnered with 100 Black Men to use this as a turnkey system for their success.

Realizing that young men start forming their self- image early, she decided to write, What Every Parent Needs to Know for Their Child’s Success. This book gives grade by grade directions so parents have the tools to keep their children at the top of the class from K-12, and focus on important milestones in their child’s school life.

This author is also an award-winning educator who holds two Master’s degrees, one in Educational Leadership and one in Elementary Education. Her Bachelor’s degree was from the prestigious New York University where she focused on Business Administration while double majoring in Marketing and Management.

Connect with Hillary on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

What the Save Our Black Sons Movement is about
How it could impact communities at large
How a black woman can coach the success of young black men
About Hillary’s two books
The ultimate goal for the Save Our Black Sons Movement
What HDS Enterprises has on the horizon

About Our Sponsor

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Toyin Adon-Abel with Civic Walls Project

August 10, 2020 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Toyin Adon-Abel with Civic Walls Project

00:00 /

Toyin-Adon-Abel-Civic-Walls-Project — Photo by Mushaboom Studios

In addition to the Civic Walls Project, Toyin Adon-Abel Jr. is also Founder and Creative Director of Meddling Minds, a network of socially conscious professionals and creatives leveraging the power of marketing to empower our communities.

MeddlingMinds centers around helping aspirational brands find purpose. They help startups, large brands, nonprofits and entrepreneurs generate revenue results from marketing while also aligning with consumer values.

Follow the Civic Walls Project on Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

What the Civic Walls Project is and how it got started
Who’s involved with the Civic Walls Project
Where the walls are located and what the murals are about
What Toyin hopes to accomplish through the initiative
Plans for expansion to Miami, Boston, London and Nigeria
How people can help the initiative

About Our Sponsor

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

BRX Pro Tip: From Hub to Node

August 10, 2020 by angishields

BRX Pro Tip: Standing Out

August 9, 2020 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Standing Out

00:00 /

BRX Pro Tip: Standing Out

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I’m fond of saying, “If you want to be outstanding, you got to stand out.”

Lee Kantor: [00:00:12] Yeah. It’s important to differentiate yourself in the minds of your perspective client. If you’re doing what your competition is doing, you’re not going to stand out. If you’re advertising in the same way your competition is, you’re not going to stand out. If your tagline, and mission statement, and your about page looks just like your competition, you’re just a commodity. If it’s interchangeable with anybody else, then you’re not going to stand out.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] You have to do things that separate yourself from everybody else. You want to position yourself as the only place in order to get the unique thing that you offer. So, if you have limited funds, then it makes no sense in doing what everybody else is doing. It just doesn’t make any sense. You’re not going to stand out. You’re just going to be one of the group, one of many. And the one with the biggest budget will win that battle. And if you don’t have the money, you’re not going to win.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:08] So, if you want to win, then I would read all about that Blue Ocean strategy and read that book that talks about that. Find a place where you’re the only game in town and the only place for your clients to get what you offer is through you. So, the more you can become the only game in town, the better your chances of success are, especially if you don’t have a lot of money to invest in marketing.

Tech Talk: Barclay Keith with Artis Technologies and John Wichmann with Maptician

August 9, 2020 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Tech Talk: Barclay Keith with Artis Technologies and John Wichmann with Maptician

00:00 /

This episode is brought to you in part by our Co-Sponsor Trevelino/Keller

Barclay Keith is the CEO and co-founder of Artis Technologies, a provider of modern lending solutions for businesses to offer affordable, low-friction financing to their customers at the point of need. Keith is responsible for the overall strategic vision, execution, and success of the company, instrumental in launching the startup and providing direction in its earliest critical stages of growth and development.

A self-taught coder with no additional training, Keith is a highly motivated individual who spent several years serving in the U.S. Army with a stent in Afghanistan – an experience that not only shaped his character but also largely influenced his business leadership style. Artis is where his technical skill converges with his desire to build a company that takes care of its people.

Before Artis, Keith was a Director at GreenSky where he was responsible for long-term forecasting, data analytics, and credit strategies research. Among other things, he rebuilt the VBA-based forecasting models, which reduced run times by more than 90 percent.

Keith also spent three years as the director of GUDHO, a company that serves the woodworking, plastics and composites industry with precision cutting tools. It’s a field he knows well, a passion of his being woodworking with traditional tools. Throughout his time at the company, he automated company operations and was given P&L responsibility.

Keith was the director for Heard Capital as well, developing risk management, investment, and trading execution strategies. As the company’s second hire, he helped build the firm to more than $30 million in capital.

After serving in the Army, Keith pursued his bachelor’s degree in finance at Kennesaw State University. He continued his studies by obtaining a Masters in Babson College’s Global Entrepreneurship programs and master’s in finance from the University of Rochester. He was also one of the original co-founders of the Atlanta Bunker Lab, a veteran entrepreneurship chapter.

He is from Atlanta and currently resides in the suburb of Roswell, with his wife and toddler son. An avid traveler, Keith lived in seven different countries and done business on three continents. In his free time, he enjoys the outdoors – anything from fishing and hunting to mountain biking and snowboarding.

Connect with Barclay on LinkedIn and follow Artis Technologies on LinkedIn and Twitter.

John Wichmann is COO and co-founder of Maptician; helping organizations accomplish the important objectives of returning to their offices in a safety-conscious, organized manner, and enabling them to plan their future, post-COVID use of office space to reduce expenses and improve employee experience.

John has spent the past 20 years focused on software and consulting services to help organizations gain new visibility, make better decisions, and unlock value. For the majority of that time, John has accomplished this through leading and growing teams that sold and delivered software, software services, and consulting services.

Most recently, John led services practices at both Teradata (TDC) and Fiserv (FISV). At Teradata, John led a $25M consulting practice responsible for selling and delivering software and consulting services to some of the largest and well-known companies in the world. At Fiserv, the practice area John led implemented and configured SaaS and installed software for hundreds of clients per year across banks, credit unions, and mortgage providers, with implementation durations ranging from less than a week to over 6 months.

Prior to Teradata, John served as President of Xpanxion, a software services company where he first worked with Maptician Co-founders Nick Eurek, and Paul Eurek. It was at Xpanxion that the team experienced, first-hand, the challenges of managing multiple offices within a growing organization. It was this, plus time spent at dozens of client offices that resulted in the launching of Maptician in 2017 and the software solutions it offers today.

John received his degree from Georgia Tech in Industrial and Systems Engineering. While there, had the opportunity to work for Lotus Development Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a co-op student. Lotus, one of the earliest and most innovative providers of business software, provided an early view into what well-designed software, paired with an energized company culture and effective leadership, could result in.

John lives in the Alpharetta area with his wife and three children, ranging in age from 10 to 18. John and the Maptician team are excited to be both founded and located in Alpharetta, Georgia; home to hundreds of technology companies and the innovations they bring to market.

Connect with John on LinkedIn.

About Your Host

Joey Kline is a Vice President at JLL, specializing in office brokerage and tenant representation. As an Atlanta native, he has a deep passion for promoting the economic growth and continued competitiveness of communities in and around Atlanta, as well as the Southeast as a whole. He has completed transactions in every major submarket of metro Atlanta, and works primarily with start-ups, advertising/marketing agencies, and publicly-traded companies. With a healthy mix of tenacious drive and analytical insights, Joey is a skilled negotiator who advises clients on a myriad of complex real estate matters.

With a strategy and business development background, Joey is first and foremost a pragmatic advisor to his clients. Most recently, he was the Director of Business Development for American Fueling Systems, an Atlanta-based alternative energy company. While at JLL, he has become a member of the Million Dollar Club, and has built a reputation as an expert on the intersection of transit-accessibility and urban real estate. With intimate involvement in site selection and planning/zoning concerns, Joey approaches real estate from the perspective of the end user, and thus possesses a unique lens through which to serve his clients.

Joey holds a Master of Business Administration from Emory University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a founder, board member, and the treasurer of Advance Atlanta, and also sits on the Selection Committee for the Association for Corporate Growth’s Fast 40 event. In addition, he is a member of CoreNet and the Urban Land Institute. Finally, he is part of LEAD Atlanta’s Class of 2019.

Connect with Joey on LinkedIn.

Retirement Tips Radio: Content Marketer Kristen Edens

August 8, 2020 by angishields

Retirement Tips Radio

Retirement Tips Radio: Content Marketer Kristen Edens

00:00 /

At age 45, Kristen Edens pursued her lifelong dream to become a writer. Through trial and error, she built a copywriting business that now serves healthcare, financial, and senior services.