Community & Guest List
David Karandish is Founder & CEO of Capacity – an enterprise artificial intelligence SaaS company headquartered in St. Louis, MO. Capacity’s secure, AI-native support automation platform helps teams do their best work. Prior to starting Capacity, David was the CEO of Answers Corp. He and his business partner Chris Sims started the parent company of Answers in 2006 and sold it to a private equity firm in 2014 for north of $900m. David sits on the boards of Varsity Tutors (an on-demand, real-time learning platform in the ed tech space), Create a Loop (a computer science education non-profit tackling the digital divide by teaching kids to code), and Prepare.ai (a non-profit providing educational resources and strategic guidance about Artificial Intelligence to individuals, communities, and companies). David lives in St. Louis with his wife, Erin and four kids. When not working, he enjoys spending time with his family and playing ukulele.
Dan Rochon is an Associate Broker in VA, Broker in MD; Operating Principal/ Owner of the Keller Williams Realty office in Alexandria – Kingstowne, VA; Owner of Rochon Investments, LLC; Owner and Co-founder of www.GreetingsVirginia.com and Owner of other Joint Ventures as well as a real estate principles instructor at Moseley Real Estate Schools. As a real estate sales agent, Dan and his team are consistently top producers in their marketplace and provide solutions for their clients. Through their investment company, Dan and Traci Rochon have been investing in residential and commercial real estate ventures for more than the past decade.
David Treece has nearly 30 years of experience as a fee-based investment advisor and is an accredited investment fiduciary. He understands financial markets and is an expert in financial planning. Recognized for his financial acumen and client-advocacy work, David has been featured on PBS's Nightly Business Report, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and on NBC6 in Miami in an Emmy-award winning series about his work. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Aging regarding senior citizens and financial planning. David has an MBA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and lives in Miami, Florida.
Debbie Page is the leading authority on cash flow and profitability for women business owners. As a business coach she guides her clients to creating scalable and sustainable businesses with strong revenue and healthy profits. An accidental entrepreneur, over the past twenty five years she has acquired scaled and sold two businesses and helps her clients do the same. When not talking strategy and money with clients you can find her digging in her garden or sharing a glass of wine with her best pals.
Dan Smolen is an author, podcaster, and advocate for people who want to do meaningful work. He is founder and executive producer of The Dan Smolen Experience, LLC, and, host of The Tightrope with Dan Smolen, a podcast that speaks to the hopes and dreams—but also the fears and anxieties—of workforce professionals. The Tightrope Podcast just finished its Fall 2019 season.
Dan is the founder and creative director of Metro Nova Creative, a design shop based in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Metro Nova Creative's mission is to inspire business owners to Love Your Brand. Dan has been in the design industry for nearly two decades and running his branding business full time for 5 years. His passion is to help small business owners learn, grow, and succeed while supporting community.
Darin Gull is the General Manager and President of TRACI.net, Inc. As President, Darin keeps TRACI.net at the forefront of the communications industry as a leader in Hosted PBX, Unified Communications, SIP, Cloud, and Data solutions. Darin actively fuels the vision and direction of the company while managing partners, vendors, and key client relationships.
Deborah Myers, CEO of VirtuArte, is a specialist in assisting businesses and individuals cultivate a culture of genuine gratitude through meaningful and thoughtful gestures of appreciation. Among the suggested gestures of appreciation are the unique handcrafted items, Deborah finds during her travels in the developing world, that can be given as gifts. In doing so VirtuArte is assisting artisans generate a sustainable income, continue their traditional craftsmanship, and pass their skills on to the next generation.
Dylan is the youngest ever advisor to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, which is sold in book stores around the world. Since age 11, he has been collecting, buying, selling, and attending shows around the country. Comics are Dylan’s life, and his day always has an aspect of comic books in it; Whether it is making up more comic boxes, or pursuing the next collection, comic books will always have a special place in Dylan’s heart. Most recently he has cracked the code with his team on running a business with efficiency in college.
Dorothy at Dorothy AB Johnson specializes in coaching single women between 25-30 who just went through a breakup from a financially stable relationship and now want to find financial stability on their own. She has her Master's in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and is certified Life Coach with The Life Coach School.
