Disruptive Ceo Nation

Gautam Rao is currently co-founder and CTO at Pursuit, a technology startup enabling skilled workers to access global opportunities and fulfill their potential. Before this, he was co-founder and Head of Product at Finvoice, where he helped create a first of it's kind software for the small business lending industry, and helped steer the company towards profitability. At Pursuit, he's raised money from investors such as Sequoia, Angellist Spearhead and an early investor in Dropbox. He is a Stanford graduate and has lived and worked in 4 different countries on 3 different continents before moving to the US. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Or grew up in a humble Israeli family. His mother was an elementary school science teacher, and his father a travel agent. At the age of 21, Or found himself at a crossroads, either pursue a degree or find a job. He knew that attending college would be a financial strain on his family and felt that the employment opportunities available to him were disappointing, so he took a leap of faith and decided to move to NY to follow his dream of becoming a real estate mogul. Or began his career working for a small boutique rental agency. His job was to lease apartments to young professionals and students. Being a quick learner, it took him merely a year of working in the field to confidently start his own business. He began leveraging residential properties and offering them as alternative accommodations for tourists. This way lodgers could avoid steep hotel bills and save money when they travel. While business was booming, and his company was growing fast, Or, still eager to learn more about real estate, took th

Kurt Phelps, CEO of GNR, one of the nation's most successful high tech recruiting firms, has over 20 years experience working with executives to build some of the most powerful corporate teams in the industry. Over the last 2 decades, Kurt found that executives rarely put the same time and effort into networking, developing their digital presence, and establishing their own personal brand as they did for the companies they work for. To solve this problem, Kurt created Phello, the world's first SaaS platform, which allows professionals to organize their years of contacts, communicate with their network on a regular basis, and develop their personal brand and digital presence—laying the groundwork to be top of mind when new opportunities arise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Impish Lee is NY-made custom apparel brand that enables shoppers to design their own intimates and loungewear online. Sisters Noelle and Kali are the designers and owners of Impish Lee. With a love for innovative fashion, the pair set out to build a company that would reflect their artistic spirit and interest in co-creation.Impish Lee has been handcrafting custom lingerie and lounge apparel for years and, in 2015, it launched the online design tool that makes the process of customization simple, exciting, and interactive. Impish Lee seeks to empower women by mainstreaming inclusivity and individuality in the fashion industry. Kali Ventresca is the CCO and Co-Owner of Impish Lee, a customizable intimate apparel brand that enables women to design their own lingerie and loungewear online. Kali, along with her sister and business partner, Noelle, launched the Impish Lee design tool in November of 2015 after successfully funding their Kickstarter project. Kali received her BFA from SUNY New Paltz and has been

Eric Brown, Founder and CEO of Aliant Payment Systems (http://aliantpayments.com)Founded in 2003, Aliant is a leading payment processing company that processes credit card, debit card, cryptocurrency, and automated clearing house transactions for over 7,500 merchants, with annual card volume totaling $800 million. Aliant was one of the first payment processing companies to offer merchants the ability to accept cryptocurrency payments, with its solution available to over 137,000 merchants worldwide. Aliant is currently developing its own domestic, fully compliant solution that processes crypto payments, converts cryptocurrency to USD, and offers merchants next day payouts. For the last 15 years Eric has served as the CEO of Aliant, and he has been a guest speaker and on panels at multiple finance conferences, with the most recent being Litecoin Summit. He has also been featured in Business Insider, Digital Transactions, and dozens of industry sites. You can also check out this blog, which explains a little mor

Elyse Petersen is an advocate for transparency in the global food system and currently works with tea farmers to improve the quality of their products and access market opportunities. As the Founder of Tealet, she has made direct trade available to small-scale farmers, businesses, and consumers around the world. She is a food scientist and returned Peace Corps volunteer that is committed to building a sustainable future for agriculture and communities. She has a B.S. in Food Science and Technology from Cal Poly Pomona and a Japanese-MBA from the Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaii. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Connor Gillivan is the CMO of FreeeUp.com. He has sold over $30 million online, has hired hundreds of freelancers to build his companies, is a published author, and is the owner of ConnorGillivan.com. He currently lives in Denver, CO. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the co-founders of Eat Your Coffee – creators of the original, naturally caffeinated snack bar. Founded as coffee-deprived college students rushing to our 8am classes, we were looking for a better way to stay energized throughout the day. We joked about eating our coffee, started developing some recipes in our dorm, and sold them in the library for a semester. About three years later now, we've officially graduated from Northeastern University, sold our bars into over 600 retail stores and 700 offices around the country, raised nearly $3M, and sold over 1 million bars and counting. It would be great to learn more about the book you're working on and if there's a fit for our story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rahul is an entrepreneur, investor and mentor based out of Zürich Switzerland. He is currently building a corporate venture, GOKONG, of one of the largest private banks here in Switzerland. Prior to co-founding GOKONG, he invested in impact ventures in Asia, gaming ventures in Europe and advised academics out of University of Zurich building the next gen measurement metrics platform - FINEXUS within the sustainable finance space. Rahul actively mentors entrepreneurs and investors on business models, strategy, scaling and operational excellence. Rahul holds a Bachelors degree in pure mathematics and a Masters in mathematical finance and has been a high impact researcher focused on financial systemic risk. His research has not only been covered by popular news papers like the Boston Globe but has also found applications across many central banks across the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tatsuya Nakagawa is an accomplished entrepreneur, author, and expert on innovation & marketing. He is the co-founder of Castagra Products. Castagra develops, proves and delivers, game changing innovations for the building materials and coatings industry. http://www.castagra.com/ http://castagraroofing.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/tatsuya/ https://twitter.com/tatsuyanakagawa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kari DePhillips is a digital marketing expert and the owner of The Content Factory, as well as co-founder of Workationing. She's been called a "limit-breaking female founder" by Thrive, and NBCNews has referred to her as a "CEO who takes job perks to the max" for her approach to managing her companies. All employees of TCF and Workationing work from home – or wherever – and Kari lives as a digital nomad traveling the world while working on her businesses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Annie Eaton is the CEO of Atlanta-based future technologies company Futurus, where she creates immersive, engaging and interactive experiences in virtual reality, augmented reality and 360° capture. Annie earned her degree from The Georgia Institute of Technology in 2010. In 2014, she created XR Atlanta, which now boasts over 1,100 active members. Annie is involved with GeorgiaVR, Women in XR Atlanta, and is a re:imagine/ATL Alliance member. She currently serves as an advisor to the TAG Digital Media and Entertainment society and is a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Council. Earlier this year, Annie received the Women in IT Rising Star award and was named the Technology Association of Georgia Young Professionals’ 2017 Technologist of the Year. Annie has vast public speaking experience, having been invited as a speaker to engagements including General Assembly, Georgia State University, Hospitality Executive Exchange, Talk NYC, Federal Reserve, OrlandoiX, FutureX Live and Atlanta Tech Edge. Learn more about

Davis holds a bachelor’s degree in International Marketing, a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership from Huntington University and a credential in Executive Coaching. She holds a certificate from the National Institution of Health in Protecting Human Research and was named to The Wall Street Journal’s Women of Note database as an innovative woman who shares her expertise and inspiration. In 2015, she was featured by American Express’s Thinking Outside the Box Forum. But it isn’t just her education and credentials that qualify her to do what she does for others. Davis is a self-starter and has always been her own boss. At 18 she became a licensed realtor for the state of New York and sold real estate for 3 years. She later became a contractor for Mazda USA and traveled the country for six years as an automotive product specialist and speaker. Simultaneously, her entrepreneurial spirit led her to create Hoo-Kong in 2013, a jewelry line designed to empower its buyers to be the unique, world-changing

Octavia Conner is a financial management strategist, speaker, author, and accountant. Her movement, mission, company, and superpower – is helping businesses Say Yes To Profits. Here is where she strategically combines financial consulting, with proven money management and business growth strategies. After spending 10 plus years in corporate America, helping to build the dreams of multimillion-dollar businesses as their “go-to numbers girl”, Octavia decided to ditch the 9 to 5 in 2011 and build her dream business instead. Recently awarded one of the Top 50 Cloud Accountants in North America, her bold and fearless decision to launch Say Yes To Profits has allowed her to help hundreds of businesses around the global align their business dreams with a financial strategy that enabled them to achieve financial abundance and accelerate business growth. She specializes in closing the financial gaps and located hidden money leaks in order to significantly increase cash flow and profit margins. . As a typical

Rita Kakati Shah started her career at Goldman Sachs in London, where she has been a dedicated advocate for diversity and equality issues in the workplace. She was awarded the prestigious Excellence in Citizenship and Diversity Award for her outstanding contributions during her 10-year career at the firm. After a segue into the healthcare industry, Rita moved to New York City, took a career break to raise her children and now helms Uma, a company whose mission is empowering women to succeed at life and work after a career break or transition. Uma holds networking events that allow attendees to share valuable stories, lessons and contacts, and be part of a supportive community. Uma Academy workshops help polish skills in a constantly changing work environment, providing practical tools, clear career direction and emotional support. Finally, Umaships are curated job experiences with select companies across diverse fields, that help bridge the gap between current lifestyles and return to work. With offices in Ne

As co-founder and CEO, Natalie leads the direction, culture, and team happiness for Wildbit, makers of Beanstalk, Postmark and Conveyor. With 28 team members across 5 countries (15 cities) working on multi-million dollar products for developers, she’s proving that you can grow an extremely profitable business while focusing on shorter work days, an enjoyable work-from-anywhere environment, and staying small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michele is a Colorado native and 2x entrepreneur with unyielding ambition and a strong drive for success. She is the co-founder and COO of RevoKind (Revolutionary Humankind) which is an intelligent internet infrastructure that uniquely combines blockchain and artificial intelligence into a spatially-mapped platform called the RevoVerse. Michele is passionate about social impact and the potential for blockchain to empower the individual. Recently named one of Colorado’s Top 20 Female Founders to Watch in 2018, she brings energy and enthusiasm to everything she does. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Max Masure (they/them) is a gender inclusion strategist and co-founder of Argo Collective. They train organizations to use creativity, empathy and collaboration to tackle gender inclusion challenges by helping them find actionable solutions for their own issues, combining the power of Design Thinking Methodology and their lived experience as a transgender nonbinary person. They started their career working as a User Experience and Design lead, guiding Design Thinking workshops for an array of organizations, from startups to Fortune 50 companies. They led Design Thinking workshops for the innovation departments of Essilor and Johnson & Johnson, worked with Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse on award-winning mobile banking tools and co-created the first online therapy app, Talkspace, which has successfully helped thousands of individuals connect with an online support system. At the time, they were perceived as a woman. When they started to live their life authentically as a transgender nonbinary person

Kerstin Oberprieler is an entrepreneur, gamification expert, PhD students, and martial artist. She is Co-Founder of PentaQuest, a company that uses gamification to help clients improve productivity, staff engagement, and build positive culture. Kerstin is a sought-after expert in using gamification to motivate and nudge behavior, having spoken in various countries and even having spoken on the TEDx stage. Kerstin is also a black belt in 3 martial arts (and studying 2 more). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Colette Nataf is the CEO and Co-Founder at Lightning AI. Previously, Colette was a User Acquisition Manager at MileIQ. After the company was acquired by Microsoft, she managed the Demand Generation team at Intercom. Colette is now helping marketers scale their businesses through Facebook, Google AdWords, and other channels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices