The transferable skills from competitive athletics to business, particularly the ability to handle rejection, recover from failure, and maintain performance under pressure—traits that define successful salespeople and leaders.
6 episodes
Lisa Calhoun, managing partner of Valor Ventures, discusses her journey from fourth-generation entrepreneur to leading seed-stage venture capital investments across the South. She shares insights on transformational innovation, the venture winter of recent years, and how AI is fundamentally changing software development and startup economics.
Antonio Pagano, CTO and co-founder of Symbol Security and founder of Wano, discusses the evolving cybersecurity landscape with a focus on phishing attacks enhanced by AI. He shares how AI enables more sophisticated social engineering, domain spoofing, and grammatically perfect phishing emails that bypass traditional detection methods. Pagano also covers his journey building two companies—a Colombian software consultancy and a cybersecurity SaaS platform—while maintaining work-life balance and learning from sports and continuous education.
Katherine O'Day, partner at Atlanta Ventures, discusses her journey from employee #9 at Pardot through two successful acquisitions (ExactTarget, then Salesforce) to COO at Rigger (acquired by Splunk, then Cisco). She shares insights on building company culture, bootstrapping versus raising capital, and her current work doing early-stage investing and running a venture studio that co-founds companies with experienced entrepreneurs.
Rich Makover, a fractional Chief Revenue Officer and executive coach at TechCXO, shares his journey from Penn State lacrosse player to CPA to sales leadership at Avon and beyond. He discusses the value of athletic resilience in sales, the evolution from individual contributor to C-suite executive, and his transition into fractional leadership and executive coaching. The conversation covers sales strategy, team building, leadership development, and helping professionals navigate career transitions.
Jay Kleinman, a 30-year healthcare business development veteran, discusses his journey from playing D1 football at Auburn under Pat Dye to leading commercial strategy for early-stage healthcare companies. He shares frameworks for segmentation, discovery-based selling, and go-to-market planning, emphasizing relationship capital, authentic outreach, and the transformative potential of digital health for elder care populations.
Mark Flickinger, partner at BIP Ventures, discusses his journey from mechanical engineering and competitive rowing to venture capital. He explains BIP's platform-heavy approach with 50 employees supporting both investors and portfolio companies, their focus on high net worth LPs, and strategies for helping founders navigate the current market environment. Flickinger emphasizes the importance of solving real problems, building strong boards, and maintaining discipline during economic uncertainty.
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