Businesses With Integrity

I continued our series with Life University’s Dr. Gilles LaMarche, focusing on business leaders with integrity. The series is a lead-in to Life University’s Life Talks World Congress event coming up May 12-13. The 2 day event will be featuring numerous subject matter experts on relationships, personal and professional, and various aspects of our lives where we can improve how we experience others and how they experience us. Last year’s event was very popular with its attendees, with many proclaiming it to have made significant impact on their lives for having gone.

Gilles introduced us to Chuck Papandrea, of Life Leadership (unrelated to Life University). His firm works with businesses seeking to increase morale, productivity, and customer satisfaction through improved communication and leadership. He has seen his small- to mid-sized business clients experience major turn-arounds in morale and employee retention, coupled with growing revenues as employees begin to truly personalize their work and the company.

Bo Wilkins of SoundRiver advisors works with business owners and entrepreneurs to help them plan and execute transition of their business through successful sales or migration to heirs/family. He talked about how challenging it can be for a busy owner to effectively manage the business and coordinate what is a multi-person team who needs to be evaluating and in some cases modifying elements of the business’s financial plan and execution.

Bo explained how important it is to begin planning for a transition 3-5+ years ahead of an anticipated move to sell or transfer the company, as it can take that long to have all elements lined out that affect sale value and pay-outs, viability of the business after the owner moves aside, etc.

He introduced us to Steve Hunter, of Greene, Holcomb, and Fisher. With offices in Minneapolis, Phoenix, Seattle and Atlanta, is an investment banking firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions, private placements and financial advisory services for the middle market.

At Greene Holcomb Fisher, experience from nationally prominent investment banks and leading law firms is blended with senior-level attention and entrepreneurial ingenuity to deliver creative services to high quality companies. The firm’s investment bankers specialize in the Consumer, Food & Agribusiness, Healthcare, Industrial Products & Services, Business & Education Services, Technology and Energy & Infrastructure sectors. Greene Holcomb Fisher provides global reach through Clairfield International. For more information, please visit www.ghf.net and www.clairfield.com.

J Cornelius of Nine Labs stopped by to talk about how his company helps companies insure they are effectively projecting their brand across digital platforms such as website and social media, and mobile devices. The company also provides consulting services that seek to clearly identify the client’s true customer base such that messaging will be appropriate to meet the needs of that customer, who is often not who the business initially thought they were.

With a complement of experts in branding, digital media, and web design, J’s team at Nine Labs help companies to know the time and revenue invested in their website and branding is actually achieving the desired goal and allowing it to create the ROI that should come with such efforts.

Sabetay Palatchi, of Just Military Loans shared information about their service, providing active duty and military veterans with access to needed capital through small loans and other options. He talked about some of the challenges military personnel face getting access to loans such as frequently moving and/or being deployed, which occasionally results in negative credit events. Just Military Loans is able to work with military personnel with a personalized approach that helps them re-establish their good credit and take care of personal business in need of funds.

Special Guests:

Dr. Gilles LaMarche, DC, VP of Professional Relations at Life University