Will Marshall is a co-founder and partner of UBM Law Group. He drafts and negotiates commercial contracts, especially SaaS and traditional software licensing agreements and takes care of all sorts of legal things that come up for businesses. He is also especially knowledgeable in issues that come up with small businesses and startups. If you are avoiding talking to your lawyer, have ever had a bad experience with a lawyer, or are curious about the issues that can come up when technical people de...
Oct 08, 2019•32 min
Burt De Mill is the President of BDM Consulting, a San Diego based consulting firm that works with small and medium sized companies who are in the biotechnology tools and clinical diagnostics spaces. Burt helps companies define their products and markets, conduct new market research, and launch products. Burt talks about the challenges scientists encounter when they interface with the business world. Highlights: Q: Burt, you are a scientist by training. How did you move into business? “I wanted ...
Sep 06, 2019•27 min
Adam Cuppy is the Chief Operating Officer at Zeal, a web and mobile apps development company. He is also an actor. He helps Zeal focus on how process drives success. He says he has “no idea” of what he does. Already, you can tell this is an entertaining episode. Really what he focuses on is business development, evangelism, speaking nationally and internationally on confidence and process-driven team development and how to apply the soft side of life into the highly technical side of life. Highl...
Jul 26, 2019•37 min
Joanie has a conversation with Gina Stetsko, Vice President of Manufacturing at Eupraxia Pharmaceuticals in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Gina has a been a leader in Pharmaceuticals for over 35 years and she’s held other executive positions in the pharmaceutical industry including: Vice President of Product Development, Vice President of Operations, and Chief Scientific Officer. Highlights: Q: How did you get into pharmaceutical development? “As a child, believe it or not, I used to read e...
Jun 03, 2019•34 min
Joanie interviews Meetesh Karia, CTO of The Zebra, the nation’s leading insurance search engine. Meetesh’s interest in computers goes back to childhood. He taught himself several programming languages back in the 80s when he was a kid and played on his dad’s 8086 computer. He studied computer science and math and minored in psychology in college. Meetesh is first generation Indian American and he grew up understanding and valuing what diverse teams bring to the table. We talk about how to recrui...
May 22, 2019•35 min
Joanie interviews Vladimir Baronov, who is a Founder and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of AdvisorEngine. They build powerful and intuitive technology for financial advisors. Vladimir oversees the company’s software development and technological operations. He has nearly 15 years of experience designing and building successful technology solutions. Vladimir shares keen insights on the stressors that arise for CTOs and others in startups and how to manage them. We also dive into overwork, how...
May 13, 2019•33 min
Joanie interviews Alex Balazs, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect at Intuit. Alex shares the story of his transformation from being a quiet engineer to becoming a communicative leader. He also shares his insights on inclusion and describes how he is supportive of women in tech. Being inclusive is key for Alex and he shares why. He is also on the Board of Lead Inclusively, Inc., a company that helps companies be more inclusive. We cover a lot in this episode, so be sure to listen to the en...
May 03, 2019•34 min
Dr. Lisa Kaczmarczyk is an award-winning computer science researcher, educator and book author. She provides independent evaluation services for academia and the hi-tech industry. These evaluations are used as evidence of project viability to secure funding from grant agencies and investors. Her clients have included Google, Stanford University, the University of Illinois, Purdue University, California State University and the Broward County Florida Public Schools. Dr. Kaczmarczyk is also an Adj...
Apr 23, 2019•30 min
Joanie has a conversation with Nihar Bhakta, who is a project team leader at Gossamer Bio. Nihar is a kidney transplant physician by training and has worked in biotech and pharma for about 14 years. Nihar has a very thoughtful approach to collaboration and teamwork and discusses the challenges that arise in biotech and pharma and what he’s done to lead teams effectively. Not surprisingly, a lot of his learning was from trial and error, and Nihar is very open about how he leaned into his humility...
Apr 13, 2019•33 min
Joanie interviews Joseph Molina, the Executive Director and CEO of the Veterans Chamber of Commerce. Joe draws from his experiences in the military, teaching at Cal Poly, being an entrepreneur, writing books, and working with veterans to bring us his lessons learned about the people skills needed to be an effective leader. He talks specifically to veterans and techies. Highlights: Q: How did your varied experiences lead you to be the CEO of the Veterans Chamber of Commerce? “I’ve been teaching s...
Mar 27, 2019•36 min
Are you looking for free legal advice? Tune in as Joanie interviews John Thornburgh, a patent litigator and principal at Fish & Richardson, about the people skills you need if you go to trial over your technology. Whether you’re suing or being sued, you may end up testifying some day and it’s a totally different language in court. They don’t speak in binary; interpreting the law lands you smack in the gray area. This can be difficult for engineers and scientists who are used to being precise...
Mar 18, 2019•33 min
Joanie has a conversation with Jamie Leben, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the Loveland Makerspace. A self-proclaimed nerd, Jamie has developed from a socially awkward kid to a community builder. He has a strong sales background as well. As a community leader, he exhibits humility, gratitude, teamwork, and giving. Highlights: Q: What is a Makerspace? “It’s simply a community workshop. Makerspaces have been around for roughly twenty years, worldwide, starting back in Berlin and MIT, for ex...
Mar 09, 2019•31 min
Joanie interviews Nick Armstrong, a Super Nerd who founded Fort Collins Comic Con. It’s a completely volunteer-run Comic Con that donates all of its proceeds to the local library reading programs. It has burgeoned into a thriving, welcoming community of generous geeks who bring joy to themselves and the broader community. It’s also a very affordable Comic Con. Listen to Nick’s story of how he started this venture and what led to its success. By the way, he also started FoCo TEDx and there’s a st...
Mar 01, 2019•35 min
Joanie interviews Vidya Dinamani, founder of Product Rebels. Vidya uses her impressive experience in product management to teach others how to do it. She calls herself a fully qualified nerd, having started her career coding, with a physics degree in her pocket. Vidya is quite articulate and has really nailed how developers and product managers can work together successfully. She doesn’t go with the canned messages, but rather has her own that will no doubt resonate with you. Highlights: Q: What...
Feb 19, 2019•30 min
Joanie interviews JV Crum III, author of Conscious Millionaire: Grow Your Business by Making a Difference . In nerd speak, JV is a Jedi Master. Not only has he mastered the art of helping entrepreneurs make money, but he also uses the Force for good. JV says you have to get in touch with yourself and know what your purpose is before you will be able to take focused action and have the biggest impact. The people skills for this episode center around communicating with one person: yourself. Highli...
Feb 06, 2019•36 min
Joanie interviews Slava Khristich, CEO of Tateeda. Tateeda provides clients with software development resources in the USA and internationally to extend teams, complete complex projects and solve challenging tasks. Their model provides, among other things, improved communications between technical and non-technical people. You can see why he’s a perfect guest for Reinventing Nerds. Highlights: Q: What is your background? “My education is in economics and mechanical engineering. I got to the US i...
Jan 31, 2019•27 min
Joanie Interviews Rebecca Johannsen, a people expert. Rebecca is a corporate trainer who has a Ph.D. in theater. She writes and directs plays and, of course, she’s a skilled actor. She’s taken her knowledge and skills in acting to teach executives soft skills. It’s a really interesting approach and I highly encourage you to listen to this episode. It’s truly unique and very informative. Highlights: Q: How did you start doing executive development? “About ten years ago, I put together a course ca...
Jan 25, 2019•31 min
Joanie interviews Agnieszka Vestal, a software engineer at Grasstree Engineering who focuses on embedded software. An MIT graduate with an MBA in her pocket, Agnieszka adds global experience and a business perspective to her programming expertise. She’s also a long-time telecommuter and shares advice on how to make telecommuting more satisfying and productive. Highlights: Q: When working from home, how do you get the people interactions you need? “I have to work at it, for sure. That’s one of th...
Jan 18, 2019•29 min
Joanie interviews Duncan Davidson, CTO In Residence at Microsoft, Berlin. He provides service to and is a liaison between Microsoft and the CTOs at start-up companies that Microsoft supports through the ScaleUp accelerator program at Microsoft for Startups. What’s great about this interview is that Duncan shares his own experience with what he calls an “empathy wobble” when his company was acquired. He shares insights into how it happened, what the impact was, and what he needed to change within...
Jan 10, 2019•47 min
Joanie interviews Mike Nowland, whose purpose in life is to help managers be better, do better, and live better. Joanie met Mike when he was working as the Corporate Training Manager for the Americas at ResMed. Now he’s the president of Enriched Learning and Development, LLC. Mike shares tips for technical people who move into leadership roles. Highlights: Q: What kind of nerd are you? “I’m probably the least technically proficient person you’re going to meet, at least on this podcast. Numbers a...
Dec 20, 2018•37 min
Joanie interviews Calie Hendrickson, who is a systems engineer at Engility Corporation. Calie acquired her people skills along a roundabout path to the aerospace industry. She capitalizes on these skills to communicate with her multidisciplinary teams of engineers. Calie also talks about how she mentors across disciplines and the surprising benefits of cross-disciplinary mentoring. Highlights: Q: How did you get to where you are now? “My path to get there was puddle jumping. I started out with a...
Dec 14, 2018•36 min
Joanie has a conversation with Rich Yumul, a web designer and CEO of Sage Tree Solutions. Rich calls himself a “website therapist” because he helps clients have better relationships with their websites. Highlights: Q: How did you come to start your own company? “I started out being a freelancing contractor. I got so much work, I started adding people. That’s when it started to become a full-fledged company.” Q: How do you find a customer like Comicon? “They actually found us. They were looking f...
Dec 05, 2018•35 min
Joanie interviews Kevin Ehlinger-Wilde, a nationally award-winning creative entrepreneur, speaker, and innovation trainer who has worked with over 500 executives and companies across the country. He’s an expert on the TIPS personality profiling tool and he has offered our nerd community a special offer. Get a free overview of all of the TIPS profiles: www.wildespark.com/reinventing-nerds . The first 20 people who visit will get a free TIPS assessment! Highlights: Q: Kevin, you’ve worked with num...
Nov 16, 2018•32 min
Joanie interviews Elisa Yu, a business coach who started out as a biochemical engineer. Elisa talks about the people challenges she’s faced in running a startup company and being a business coach and what skills she has developed to succeed in these different roles. She also gives tips for leaders from her business coaching practice. Highlights: Q: How did you come to move out of biochemistry? “I did some soul searching and realized I was not interacting with people as much as I would like to. I...
Nov 10, 2018•34 min
Joanie interviews Brian Dersch, the president and CEO of Dersch Design & Engineering. Their mission is to design power and lighting systems for construction projects with an emphasis on renewable energy, customer service, and employing engineers that you can hold a conversation with . Brian is no exception! We start out a little bit differently in this episode because Brian is able to articulate how his keen awareness of what was going on around him led to his career and business and success...
Nov 01, 2018•36 min
Joanie interviews Etienne de Bruin, CEO of 7CTOs, a company that offers forums of peer groups of CTOs who follow a curriculum to pursue and inspire innovative thinking. Etienne shares the typical people challenges CTO’s run into, as well as his own. He also asks Joanie about hers! Highlights: Q: What kinds of challenges do CTOs run into? “When you start going into a leadership role, especially CTO land, your problem starts to shift to a people problem.” Q: How did you pivot when you moved into t...
Oct 25, 2018•34 min
Joanie interviews Abby Malchow, who was attracted to the dynamic, growing tech industry even without a technical background. Intel recruited her because of her experience with supply chain management in the Navy. She now is a commodity manager in software and cloud technology. Abby tells stories about how she made the transition from military to tech and how she helps veterans. For example, while others use Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to generate revenue, Abby works with AI to help p...
Oct 17, 2018•31 min
Joanie interviews Geoffrey Mattson, CEO of MistNet. Geoffrey leads a team of software engineers who use artificial intelligence to detect digital security threats in real time to keep organizations safe from cyber-attacks. Geoffrey shares his insights into how having such valuable technical skills can lead nerds to feel entitled and not bother learning people skills that are critical to success in the long term. Highlights: Q: What kinds of challenges do you see with people at work? “There is a ...
Oct 11, 2018•32 min
Joanie interviews David Wallace, who talks about emotionally charged situations on this entertaining and enlightening episode. David is the president of 5th Avenue Energy where he combines two of his passions, electricity and protecting the environment. 5th Avenue Energy is a San Diego based Electrical Contracting Firm that specializes in solar and renewable energy solutions in the Commercial and Industrial space. David is a funny guy and this interview will certainly entertain you, but you will...
Oct 01, 2018•28 min
Joanie interviews Dr. Tamsin Woolley-Barker, an evolutionary biologist, business consultant, author, and speaker. Dr. Tamsin helps companies look to nature for sustainable business solutions but not necessarily in the way you would think. Tune in for an extremely interesting episode of Reinventing Nerds. Highlights: Q: How do you bring evolutionary biology to companies? “I ask myself, ‘How would nature design a company?’” Q: How do you communicate with non-scientists? “As scientists, everything ...
Sep 17, 2018•32 min
