SPEAKERS

Verne Harnish is a private investor in many scale-ups. He is the founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 13,000 members worldwide and is the founder and CEO of Gazelles, a global executive education and coaching company.  Verne has spent the past three decades helping companies scaleup. Verne also chairs FORTUNE Magazine’s
annual ScaleUp and Growth Summits and serves on several boards including chairman of The
Riordan Clinic and the newly launched Geoversity. Verne resides in Barcelona, Spain, with his
wife and four children and enjoys piano, tennis, and magic as a card-carrying member of the
International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Ace Chapman bought his first business at 19 with some savings from a summer job and caught the business buying bug. He leveraged the $3,000 he had saved working the summer before college into buying an Internet based Stock Market Simulating business for $70,000. Over the last 16 years he has bought 40 businesses. Since then he has returned to buying and selling Internet based businesses. Over the course of his two decades doing deals he has seen an explosion in the market for businesses under $2,000,000. He coined the phrase Micro-Private Equity. Since starting his network of business buyers he has helped members close deals all over the country. From 2 Sylvan Learning Centers in Seattle, to a Software Company in Pittsburgh and from a Fitness Gym in Huntsville to a Catholic Retailer in South Dakota were deals done by the network.

Bob Arciniaga is centered in the entrepreneurial world, as a leader, business owner and investor. His roots in business started at a very young age. His grandmother founded one of the largest Mexican Food Products Manufacturing Companies in the United States in the garage of their home in East Los Angeles in 1948. With his first-hand knowledge of working in a family-owned business environment, he headed off to work on Wall Street becoming one of the youngest and often only Hispanic Institutional Equity Traders. His thirst for learning and advancement opportunities lead him to the role as head trader for a large hedge fund where he developed his own algorithmic trading systems and headed up quant trading operations.

Bob is the Founder and Managing Partner of Advisory Board Architects, LLC. Founded in 2005, ABA builds, maintains, and manages “High Impact” advisory boards and boards of directors. ABA’s expertise is in how to effectively and efficiently leverage fiduciary and non-fiduciary boards for maximum impact and return for organizations and their board members. ABA’s proprietary Board Engagement system is designed to address the lack of quantifiable strategic impact that many organizations fail to measure, leverage or receive from their boards. ABA has developed a first of its kind scalable process that turns a board into a Strategic Accelerator that generates quantifiable ROI. ABA works with both private and publicly traded companies from $20mm in revenues to $22bil. Bob has personally run and built boards in Panama, Columbia, Mexico, Ukraine, Malaysia, Spain, Singapore, China, and the US. Since our inception ABA is proud to have had over 1400 board meetings run on our proprietary platform in 16 different countries and 4 different languages.

Bill Trimble has been a member of EO since 1990. He accredits much of his business success to his time spent at EO events and with EO members. He has a family owned Investment Company, Public & Private Venture Capital / Real Estate. Bill has spent 35 years in the Public Venture Capital (PVC) markets, specializing in Private Company to Micro Capital Public listings with a heavy focus on resource
exploration. He is the father to four tremendous adult children, he has participated in 50 EO Universities and is a music lover and avid attendee of live concerts.

Brad Feld has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars. Brad writes the widely read blogs
Feld Thoughts, Startup Revolution, and Ask the VC. Brad holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brad is also an avid art collector and long-distance runner. He lives in Boulder, Colorado and Homer, Alaska with his wife and is on a quest to run a
marathon in every state in the US.

Brian Pallas is the CEO and Founder of Opportunity Network (ON), the invitation-only platform that enables clients of the world’s premier banks to connect around business deals and investment deals. In just a few years, ON has grown to include over 17,000 members from 122 countries, and has hosted deal flow of over US$145Bn. He also has worked in Private Equity and Investment Banking, managing the sales process of two companies. In 2014, Mr. Pallas earned his MBA from Columbia Business School. In 2016, he was asked to be a judge for the first European Forbes “30 Under 30” and is part of the Expert Network of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Jason Eckenroth is a SAAS entrepreneur and investor. His last business, ShipCompliant, was bootstrapped for 17yrs to become the industry standard platform for compliance and taxation in the beverage alcohol market. He also founded Taxify.co to provide sales tax determination and filing automation for US-based ecommerce and retail businesses. He sold both businesses in 2015, and since has been investing in and coaching other business owners in the US and EU. Jason holds a Masters degree in Structural Engineering from the University of Colorado. Jason is married with two children under 11yrs. He and his family just returned to Boulder, CO after living 2+ years in Barcelona, Spain.

Jeff Hoffman is a successful entrepreneur, proven CEO, worldwide motivational speaker, published author, Hollywood film producer, and a producer of a Grammy winning jazz album. In his career, he has been the founder of multiple startups, he has been the CEO of both public and private companies, and he has served as a senior executive in many capacities. Jeff has been part of a number of well-known companies, including Priceline.com. uBid.com, CTI, ColorJar, and more.

Today he is Managing Partner of Legend52, an investment fund created to buy professional sports teams, as well as invest in technology and entertainment. He supports entrepreneurs and small businesses on a worldwide basis, serving on the boards of The Unreasonable Group, the
global board of directors of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (supporting entrepreneurship in over 170 countries), the US State Department’s GIST program (Global Innovation through Science and Technology, working in 49 emerging nations), the APEC Startup Initiative (the Asia Pacific Economic Council’s 21-member nation association), and many others. He supports the White House, the State Department, the United Nations, and similar organizations internationally on economic growth initiatives and entrepreneurship programs.

Marcus New is a passionate and experienced entrepreneur with a strong track record of success. He is the current Managing Partner/Chief Entrepreneur of InvestX Capital – one of the first growth equity platforms for high net-worth investors, family offices and their advisers. InvestX single investment and fund structures focused on providing investors with 20% annualized returns net of fees. InvestX investments include: Lyft, Uber, Pinterest, Spotify, Palantir, Dropbox, Docusign, 23&me, and other global category leaders.

Through Mr. New’s family office, he has led more than 200 private placements into early stage private and public companies. He is the founder and chairman (and previously the CEO) of Stockhouse Publishing – one of North America’s leading online financial communities and a global hub for affluent investors, with over 1 million monthly visitors. Prior to launching Stockhouse, Marcus built Stockgroup Media, an online information company whose client base consisted of 13 of the top 25 Canadian brokerage firms, 14 of the top 15 global institutional sales desks, and over 200 hedge funds.

Noah teaches successful entrepreneurs how to create lasting freedom so that they avoid the pain of regret. Freedom is the ability to make choices without constraints. Too many entrepreneurs make trade-offs they wish they could avoid. They speak with Noah because they want to work less, live more and create financial freedom.

Noah has a wide set of expertise and experience in all things related to business and money, not just taxes. As a longtime EO member, he speaks from experience – sharing the tools, resources and strategies he has used to build his own lasting freedom. Noah has sold eight companies and is currently acquiring businesses, websites and real estate so he has personal experience beyond being a technical expert.

Noah lives in Parkland, Florida with his wife, Amanda and two young children. He is passionate about travel and fortunate to have visited 61 countries on 5 continents. Noah tries to work only on days his kids are in school so he can enjoy massive amounts of family time at home, on the water and seeing the world.

Sean Tonner is a Managing Partner at The Fulcrum Group. He is sought after by clients for his diplomatic skills in navigating complex political environments, both internationally and domestically. By marrying online and offline communications tactics, he is a mastermind in creating campaigns that not only improve the political environment but also the image and reputation of his client’s brands.

Over the course of his career, he has managed communications efforts for political parties and corporations around the globe. He has also served in numerous high-level staff positions for Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Governors. During his service in the U.S. Army he attended reconnaissance, airborne, ranger, desert and jungle warfare training and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for Valor for his actions during Desert Storm.

Sean is currently a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO. In addition, he serves on the executive committee of the YPO Subcommittee on Global Diplomacy and Public Policy. He also serves on the Colorado chapter of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, Colorado Business Roundtable, Council for a Strong America – Ready Nation, and is a regularly attendee of the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Aspen Institute. Sean is past President of the Entrepreneurs Organization, Colorado Chapter, former Trustee of Metropolitan State University of Denver, USO Advisory board member, and the Colorado Veterans Nursing Home Board Member.

Sean and his wife Laura of over 20 years have two children Reagan and Hunter. Their family helped establish and currently serve on the board for the charity Project El Crucero which supports the needy in Nicaragua

Scott Duffy is the Founder of SD Media Holdings. He began his career working for best-selling author and speaker, Tony Robbins, and went on to work for several small businesses that became big media brands like CBS Sportsline, NBC Internet, and FOXSports.com. Next, he founded Smart Charter, an online booking tool for private aviation, which was acquired by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. Today, Scott is a champion for entrepreneurship. He has been listed as a “Top 10 Keynote Speaker” by Entrepreneur. He has spoken at the NYSE and provided commentary in numerous media outlets including CNBC, FOX News, and CBS Radio. He is the Co-Host of “Business & Burgers”, Contributor to Entrepreneur, and Best-Selling Author of “Breakthrough” a roadmap for building great companies. Mostimportant, Scott is a former Member of EO who served on the Boards of the Los Angeles and OrangeCounty chapters and has spoken to chapters throughout the country.

Scott Fritz founded Human Capital in 1997. He grew the company into a nationwide player with 2007 annual revenues of $170 million dollars. This hyper growth landed Human Capital and its affiliate division on the INC. 500 list in 2003 and 2004 with growth rates in excess of 1,000 percent. Human Capital was sold to a nationwide staffing firm in 2007. As an active Angel Investor since 2001, Mr. Fritz has invested in nearly forty separate ventures. His involvement with these companies ranges from passive investor to business coach and advisory board member. In 2010 Scott authored The 40 Hour Work YEAR. Mr. Fritz currently oversees acquisition funding and strategy for SGI Property Management.