For the past fifteen years, I have helped companies and individuals to grow and succeed. And I've built a solid understanding of how to move mountains, avoid molehills, and have fun in the process. I build teams that thrive on challenges around instability and creating something valuable from an idea.
Everywhere Wireless
VICE PRESIDENT, CULTURE + INNOVATION
Everywhere Wireless owns, manages, and controls a Chicago-based Gigabit Internet Network, designed exclusively for multi-family communities within Chicago. EW’s relentless focus on customer service has made them one of the most unique ISP’s in the country, leading to monumental growth.
My work with Everywhere Wireless began as a consultant, assisting the senior leadership team with identifying opportunities to inject innovation into the company. This eventually lead to a role on the executive team while leading all aspects of the company’s innovation efforts. I continued in this role and took on the important job of implementing new strategies to ensure a vibrant company culture, securing a diverse talent pipeline and elevating the role of human resources throughout the company.
GrevCo
PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT
GrevCo was launched to meet a growing demand from clients, partners, and referrals, for strategic consulting and growth strategy for entrepreneurs, business owners and c-level executives. The firm now addresses a wide range of industries, from consumer products and media to education and technology. I lead the work with Chicago-based clients, and serve in interim executive roles in operations, finance, marketing and sales; also executing on pressing initiatives across all functional areas of the companies GrevCo serves.
In addition, this work includes building both traditional and non-traditional financing. The latter includes conceptualization, design, manufacturing, marketing, sales, logistics, and support for multiple successful crowdfunding campaigns, while also entailing building brands around anchor products.
Experience Institute
Interim CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
Experience Institute works to help individuals build important skills. Ei works with corporate clients looking to bolster their teams' personal and professional development needs, professionals seeking a "leap year" of self-directed experience, and current college students to provide a combination of international study and targeted professional internships.
My work with Ei originated as a senior advisor to the Founder & CEO. After only a brief engagement of strategy and coaching, I was quickly recruited join the company as interim COO, where I led a successful round of investment, helped the company develop additional products and services, and restructured the company's operations to increase both margins and output.
PROACT Search
PRESIDENT · CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER · OWNER
PROACT Search is an executive search firm that provides search processes and services to help school districts identify and recruit their C-level executives, senior leaders and central office administration as well as school-based principals. PROACT was the first executive search firm to broaden school leadership recruitment beyond Superintendent searches to a wider range of education executives.
A talented group of investors reached out and offered me the opportunity to join them in acquiring PROACT. After completing due diligence, I worked with them to create an acquisition strategy and post-acquisition plans, and built new financing, legal, and organizational structures to lead the turnaround of this 15-year-old company. Within 15 months, PROACT had undergone a full turnaround and saw revenues more than triple, and operating margins experience a five-fold increase.
PROACT is now the largest and most successful executive search firm in education, nurturing many strategic relationships, developing innovative products and services while leading all operational, financial, technological, human resource and marketing efforts. After 8 years of sustained growth, we negotiated the company’s profitable acquisition by a strategic partner in the education industry and the company continues to thrive.
SUPES Academy
PRESIDENT · CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER · OWNER
Working with Synesi Associates, I realized that few executives or management of our nation’s schools received any management training. These leaders oversee complex, often multi-site organizations, with hundreds of employees and thousands of “clients,” so this was a clear need. I acquired SUPES, an educational leadership organization then training 30 leaders a year.
In 12 months, we were training 300 leaders annually. This growth continued and more than 70% of graduates were hired in their target roles within a year of graduation. In addition, SUPES worked with large school districts across the country to develop and deliver customized leadership programs. It became the largest and most successful professional development firm in education, nurturing strategic relationships with Apple, NBC and other organizations. During this time, I expanded products and services while leading operations, finance, technology, HR, marketing, and a team of 200+ talented consultants across the country.
After almost 7 years of sustained growth, we positioned the company for acquisition and negotiated a profitable sale with a respected organization in the field, and the organization continues to grow.
Synesi Associates
PRESIDENT · CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER · OWNER
Synesi Associates helped K-12 institutions assess, determine, develop and implement reform strategies to improve student achievement. I was recruited by the owner as a minority partner to lead a much-needed turnaround of the company. After heading a full audit of all processes and systems, we went on a 100-day sprint to reconstruct the organization from the ground up.
The results were significant. All operational, financial, technological, HR, and marketing functions were redeveloped to enable consultants to work virtually – and reduce time on non-billable administrative tasks. School district clients received incredible work product at a reduced cost, which led to substantial repeat / referral business.
Together, the leadership took Synesi to years of critical work and growth in some of the nation’s most tenuous districts. These included New Orleans and Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina, Detroit, Newark, Philadelphia and St. Louis. We generated tens of millions of dollars in grants for impoverished districts, and after 9 years of continued growth, sold the firm to an investment group.
Princeton Review
ASSISTANT VP + EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
After seeing great results on an extended SolTyra contract, The Princeton Review made me an offer to join the company. My mission was to grow a federally-funded program that provided low-income students with free after-school tutoring. After an accelerated 90-day strategic audit of the existing programs, visiting 300+ schools in Chicago, we began to implement drastic changes. As a result, we grew the program from 70-100 participants to 8,000+ in within months. This program alone grew to more than 10% of the company's total revenue.
The role was expanded nationwide, then relocated to Houston with orders to close and outsource Princeton Review’s national call center. But on assessing the division, I realized this was a valuable asset, just underperforming. A rapid turnaround plan was able to restructure the call center into a high margin sales organization. In 6 months, costs dropped by 20% while revenue grew by 200%. My team centralized and standardized collateral mailings and customer service calls from 50+ individual offices to one highly efficient center. In this role, I created one of the country's first online sales and support chat platforms, and was promoted to VP in charge of online programs.
SolTyra
FOUNDER
In the early 2000s, the Internet took off. While working with small and mid-sized companies, I realized they needed help. There weren't many tools for SMBs to utilize the internet in marketing and sales – existing solutions were too costly. Thus SolTyra began. Starting in Chicago, I built an agency helping businesses with their marketing collateral, websites, eCommerce sites, amongst many other products and solutions. Starting from nothing, we grew to include marquee clients such as Careerbuilder, the Philadelphia School District, US Cellular, and The Princeton Review.
UpZing
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER · CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER · PARTNER
While at Northwestern, Tom met fellow technology buffs and realized there was a need for a new technology for the upcoming wireless revolution. Tom and two partners founded UpZing, which provided large-scale wireless networking and deployment services to high-end real estate developments in and around Chicago. For this startup, we obtained financing through a Chicago angel investment firm, and we found success with installations in a landmark building on Lake Michigan as well as in the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
