Troy Deus is the Co-founder and Head of Experience at Drum, where he is focused on delivering powerful products that enable any business to drive customer engagement through Drum’s social recommendation commerce platform. Troy comes to Drum by way of years of managing Design, UX, and Product teams in a variety of industries, including interactive television, mobile, marketing automation, and fin-tech.
Troy graduated with a degree in digital design and 3-D animation from University of Georgia. Since graduating, Troy watched as product design, development and user experience gained prominence as a key revenue driver. Troy focuses on building elegant easy to use products with personality that enrich the lives of everyone that uses them.
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Dr. Kurt Jacobus joined GRA Venture Fund in 2018 as the managing director, overseeing the Fund’s investment decisions and board relations.
As CEO of MedShape, Inc. – an orthopedic device company he co-founded – Dr. Jacobus is a materials scientist and mechanical engineer with a track record of growing young businesses as a leader, advisor and investor. In addition to MedShape, he had a founding role in three other companies and has served in a formal advisory role to five other companies.
Dr. Jacobus began his career as a business consultant with McKinsey & Co., shortly after completing his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois. His engagements centered primarily on startup and turnaround work, infusing strategy, finance and operations expertise to drive better results for companies. Following McKinsey, he spent three years as vice president for The J.M. Huber Corporation, focusing on business development and mergers and acquisitions.
Dr. Jacobus left Huber in 2006 to launch MedShape with co-founder Ken Gall, whom he had met as a student at the University of Illinois. As president, he led MedShape from an unfunded business plan to a thriving company. Today, MedShape has a global sales force of more than 150 representatives and three FDA/EU-approved biomaterials for the human body, all of them new kinds of products.
Dr. Jacobus is an instructor at Georgia Tech. He also holds a B.S.M.E. degree from Georgia Tech and an M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois. He serves on two external advisory boards for Georgia Tech.
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Sean Gordon has an extensive track record recruiting, hiring, training, selling, and unlocking the talent of people. For 20 years, Sean has been on the front lines of business across North America. He started with AT&T, where he built award-winning teams in sales and operations from coast to coast. He delivered equally stellar results for EMC, Aetna and West Corporation before becoming CEO of a technology company in need of innovation.
Sean founded vidREACH.io to engage prospects, customers, employees and candidates through personalized automation via video, email, and/or mobile. Sean has created new lines of business, reinvigorated stagnant company cultures, and mentored hundreds of employees who have gone on to do great things.
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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.
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