Building Birmingham Together

Today we interviewed Brett Ables, founder and CEO of Feast. Feast is a Birmingham based company that is providing a solution to catering for both customers and local restaurants. It is the best way for restaurants to connect to customers that need catering services. Brett has been in the restaurant industry for 14 years, most recently as the Director of Operations for Jimmy John's across the greater Birmingham area. He left a long career to help build companies that create solutions for the restaurant industry in Birmingham, and across Alabama.

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This week we interviewed Pamela Reed Phipps on Building Birmingham Together. Pamela became the Executive Director at Grace House in 2010. At Grace House she is responsible for managing the day to day operations as well as raising awareness and funds to support the ministry. Prior to joining Grace House, Pamela worked in executive level administrative positions at several companies including the Birmingham law office of Constangy, Brooks and Smith, AmSouth Investment Services, and Girls Incorporated of Central Alabama. Notable is her 10 year professional modeling career, which was the key that unlocked her passion for mentoring young girls. The Birmingham Business Journal featured Pamela in the class of 2014 "Top 40 Under 40" and she was a member of the 2016 Leadership Birmingham class. She was also recently spotlighted as "Birmingham’s Champion for Girls in Foster Care" by StyleBlueprint magazine. A Birmingham native, Pamela and her husband Bennie live in Hoover with their three sons: Douglas, Stuart and Reed. Pamela builds Birmingham together by being an advocate for girls, and committing to empower and equip every girl to be a confident and Godly woman.

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This week we have Ryan Robinett on Building Birmingham Together.  Ryan Is the founder of Multiply, Inc which can be found online at askmultiply.com.  Multiply Is a tech enabled services firm which uses operational and HR management principles to help companies of all sizes create a sales process from scratch or get more out of their current sales team.  Ryan Is a graduate of Auburn University and has a masters from UAB. He and his wife Ashley have two teenage children. He began his career as an IT professional services consultant, at Accenture, before moving to CTS In 2006.  Ryan was a key part of growing CTS around the southeast as it was acquired by CGI In 2017. Ryan departed CGI In 2018 and founded Multiply utilizing many of the key tenants that made CTS successful.  He continues to build Birmingham together using those key tenants.

Contact Multiply, Inc:

Ryan@askmultiply.com

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This week’s episode of Building Birmingham Together features Autumn Sanders, Founder and CEO of Quire Consulting. Since 2010, Autumn has worked with Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, and nonprofits, helping them grow their businesses by understanding their customers. She launched Quire in 2017 to bring ethnographic research and design thinking to organizational leaders that are looking for a way forward but don't know how to get there. Autumn currently serves on the City of Birmingham Small Business Council. She also teaches tennis with Better Basics and coaches entrepreneurs with Create Birmingham and EGK Starters. On top of that, she has served on several non-profit boards focusing on the arts and design. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ohio University (Athens, OH) and a master’s degree in design management from the Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, GA). Autumn is very passionate about the work that she is doing with Quire. She loves helping organizations use the design thinking process to make decisions that can have significant impacts on the day to day of their organization and ultimately helps build Birmingham together!

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In this episode we’re talking with Jessica Moody, the Director of Programs at Create Birmingham. Create Birmingham is the only agency in the region exclusively dedicated to the economic development of Birmingham’s creative industries, including performing arts, visual arts and crafts, culture and heritage, media and film, design, and culinary arts. Jessica oversees the services Create offers in support of the city’s creative industries, including CO.STARTERS, Film Birmingham, Birmingham365, SpaceFinder, and Office Hours. She serves as a valuable resource to visiting filmmakers and incoming productions and plays a critical role in mentoring local small businesses and entrepreneurs. In addition to weekly meetings with CO.STARTERS participants, she consults with graduates regularly to help them set actionable tasks and achievable goals and take full advantage of the spectrum of CO.S graduate support services. She also represented the commercial creative sector as a member of the City of Birmingham’s Small Business Council, an advisory group to the Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity. Jessica’s work with Create Birmingham is literally helping entrepreneurs around the city build Birmingham together!

Today we’re talking with Dave Wells, President and CEO of Alabama Goodwill Industries. Dave’s career in human capital performance and business leadership spans over 40 years in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. He has been a business owner, and worked for small business startups as well as large corporations and for the last 19 years he had been with Goodwill. In this episode you will hear how two of Dave’s passions, serving people and organizational development and leadership have come together to grow an organization that is making a huge impact on the people in our city.

You can reach David Wells at: davidwells@alabamagoodwill.org, 205-323-6331

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Today we’re hearing from Cindy Martin the founder and President of Bham Now and most recently also The Bama Buzz. Bham Now is Birmingham’s modern media company, helping to make our city better, smarter and more healthy. Bham Now provides news, information and camaraderie for a modern Birmingham by publishing content to help educate, inform and entertain the greater Birmingham audience. They are very passionate about promoting local companies, non-profits, products and events and are helping us all build up Birmingham together!

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Today on Building Birmingham Together we have the Drew Honeycutt, CEO of Innovation Depot and Kellie Clarke, Director of Programs at Innovation Depot.  The Innovation Depot has been a cornerstone in the tech ecosystem in Birmingham for the last 25 years.  It would be hard to find a tech company in Birmingham that did not spend some of their early years at Innovation Depot or rely on the services and programs at The Innovation Depot to get their start.  The Depot has really set the stage for the tech renaissance that we are beginning to experience here in Birmingham and Drew and Kellie are helping to push that forward now.

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Today on Building Birmingham Together, we have Tommy Mayfield, the co-founder of Wyndy. Tommy is an attorney turned entrepreneur working to build the technology for a new "skills economy". He founded Wyndy with his wife Ginger after they had their second child and became exhausted from the common methods all parents use to find babysitters (which most often is at the last minute).  Wyndy is a platform that uniquely combines trust and technology, enabling parents to easily connect with background checked college students in a way that benefits everyone. In the episode today you will hear how providing a solution for a personal need has led to a platform that is on its way to solving the problem of on-demand need in any area of the skilled workforce.

Today on Building Birmingham Together we hear from Ashley McMakin, known here in Birmingham as the founder of the amazing Ashley Mac’s restaurant!  Ashley took a chance in 2007 and turned her side hustle into a full career - starting with catering and growing to 5 locations around the Birmingham metro area. Ashley has a passion for food and a deep love for people that drives her business and brings so many people in Birmingham so much joy!

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Today’s episode of Building Birmingham Together features Dr. Adrienne Starks on Building Birmingham together. Dr. Starks founded STREAM Innovations in 2015. The mission of Stream Innovations is to help students develop and explore their passion in Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STREAM) by providing exposure, experiences, and engagement with high expectations for their success. STREAM Innovations is preparing to celebrate their 6th year anniversary in May with their first Giving Campaign. Their work to support more communities across Alabama and to be a trusted place for STEM education is truly building up Birmingham!

You can reach Dr. Adrienne Starks at stream@streaminnovations.org

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In this episode of Building Birmingham Together we hear from Patrick Visintainer and Spencer Ware, co-founders of REPOWR.  REPOWR, monetizes the supply chain's underutilized trucks and trailers. Simply put, REPOWR Is a virtual community that allows for B2B truck and trailer rentals. REPOWR’s digital ecosystem connects transportation companies and leasing companies to an asset-sharing, equipment rental marketplace. Patrick and Spencer are at the beginning of their journey with REPOWR - they both just left their full time jobs and started the Velocity Accelerator program at Innovation Depot. We cannot wait to see where they take REPOWR!

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Today's episode is a recording of our International Women's Day event on March 8th featuring a panel hosted by Forge CEO and Founder Kim Lee with Delphine Carter, CEO and Founder of Boulo Solutions, Javacia Harris Bowser, Founder of See Jane Write, and Mindy Rohr, Director of Marketing at Bayer Properties. International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. At Forge, we use this event as a time to celebrate the way that women are making a huge impact in our city, celebrating the contributions they are making to our societies. We also want to use this time to highlight and elevate local female business owners and professionals because we know they are an integral part of Building Birmingham Together!

Be Sure to check out our previous episodes featuring our panelists:

Today on Building Birmingham Together, I have Dr. Patrick J. Murphy. Dr Murphy is the Goodrich Chair, Professor and Director of Entrepreneurship at The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Collat School of business.  He has 20 years of experience worldwide in entrepreneurial ventures, angel investing, and advising. If that does not keep him busy enough, he is also a published author in the Yale U. Press, Harvard Business Review, and many international journals. Dr. Murphy was brought to UAB to start the Entrepreneurship program which just launched last semester - during a pandemic no less.  The program is already garnering national attention with 50 students enrolled after just one semester! We’re thrilled to see how Dr. Murphy’s work impacts the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the city and contributes to building Birmingham together!

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Today’s episode of Building Birmingham Together we’re talking with Javacia Harris Bowser, a freelance journalist, blogger, and entrepreneur based in Birmingham, Alabama.  She is the founder of See Jane Write, an award-winning membership organization and website for women who write and blog. The heartbeat for See Jane Writes is that every woman has a story worth sharing and through See Jane Write Javacia strives to help women make an impact and an income with their words. Javacia has created a thriving community of writers in Birmingham and beyond!

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Anne is the Executive Director of Cooperative Downtown Ministries, a nonprofit that provides comprehensive services to over 5,000 men, women, and children that are experiencing homelessness every year. Anne is deeply passionate about fighting homelessness and that passion pours out of a true love for the people that she is serving. Anne’s desire is that each of the guests at The Firehouse Shelter will be served in a way that brings light to their dignity and honor, that they will be served and treated as a person with value and true worth. Anne's work at Firehouse Shelter is such an important component of Building Birmingham Together!

Today’s episode features three amazing panelists who shared their knowledge and experience for our International Women’s Day event on March 8th. We saved one question to share with our Building Birmingham Together audience and we want to talk about failure, it’s never fun but everyone experiences it! And when we fail we usually learn the most. Our panelists spent a little more time with us sharing about a failure in their career and only now, looking back can they see the lessons they have learned from that pivotal time in their life.

Today we have Dr. Karim Budhwani joining us on Building Birmingham Together.  Dr. Budhwani is the co-founder and CEO of Cerflux, where they are literally crushing cancer.  He is also the co-founder and CEO of Elixir, an innovative software solutions company striving to make the world greener and more efficient. Dr. Budhwani was recently honored with a Vulcan Community Award where they beautifully summed up his work as believing that “the two-fold purpose of acquiring knowledge is to better understand the fabric of existence and to serve others.” Dr. Budhwani is a truly inspiring individual and is committed to Building Birmingham Together!

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On this episode of Building Birmingham Together we are so excited to be talking to Matt Pierce of Immediate. Matt is Founder & CEO of Birmingham-based Immediate, a financial wellness company that delivers on-demand access to earned wages, freeing employees from the cycles of debt created by predatory lending. Born in Decatur and a two-time graduate of Auburn University, he is passionate about investing in the local tech ecosystem and excited to share more about the Immediate journey. Immediate is on a mission to positively impact the financial wellbeing of a million people over the next three years, and we're grateful that Immediate calls Birmingham home as they pursue this audacious goal!

We are thrilled to feature Nate Schmidt on Building Birmingham Together today!  Nate is the Managing Director of Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator and they just finished their first cohort!  Nate is a serial entrepreneur and software developer and has participated in multiple startup ventures, including Cloverly, Preptix, Deal Co-op and co-founded Instagift with his wife. Nate is extremely passionate about startups and that led him to start and be the first managing director of The Velocity Accelerator program at The Innovation Depot.  Through his entrepreneurial journey, Nate has also become very passionate about the importance of mental health for startup founders.  As you listen today I hope that you take away from Nate’s story that taking care of yourself and your mental health is one of the most foundational building blocks to you successfully starting and growing your business.

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Today on Building Birmingham Together, we are chatting with Delphine Carter, CEO and Founder of Boulo Solutions. Boulo Solutions offers professional achievement without compromise for women, creating access to professional opportunities that fit their lifestyles and career goals. Businesses get access to a hidden candidate pool and fill their roles at a faster rate, saving them time and money. Boulo developed a matching process that combines hard and soft skills, effectively re-skilling the existing strengths of a non-traditional labor force and quickly providing businesses with essential help. Delphine realized she had access to a hidden talent pool to solve her own professional challenges of hiring which started her down the path to discovering her true passion and starting Boulo.

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On today’s episode we’re talking with Deontée (Deon) Gordon whose passion for entrepreneurship, technology, the built environment and culture of the city is a contributing force to Building Birmingham Together! Deon Gordon serves as CEO & President of TechBirmingham, the regional technology council for the seven-county Birmingham metro area, representing hundreds of companies and approximately 30,000 IT professionals. As part of his function, he also serves as the Executive Director for TechBirmingham’s affiliated 501(c)(3), TechAlabama, which recently launched their signature project where he now serves as Advisor, the Education Farm, a coding initiative designed to equip students and teachers across 13 district schools, as well as regional adult learners, with the equipment, curriculum, and resources needed to create viable employment and entrepreneurial pathways for program participants. Prior to joining TechBirmingham in December 2017, he led as the Director of Business Growth for REV Birmingham, an economic development agency partnered with City of Birmingham to focus on place-based revitalization and small business growth. He proudly serves on the boards of the Southern Research advisory body, Alabama Futures Fund, Innovation Depot, TECNA (the Technology Councils of North America), Birmingham Bound Leadership Council, and the Birmingham Business Alliance among others. Gordon was named by the Birmingham Business Journal as a “Top 40 Under 40 for the decade” in 2019 and was selected as one of “Birmingham’s Power 60: The Magic City’s Most Influential Executives” in 2020. He is also a graduate of the 2019 class of Leadership Birmingham as well as the 2019 class of YALP at Harvard Business School.

On today’s episode of Building Birmingham Together we’re talking with Madison Kerns Conrad. Madison is Director of Operations for Urban Avenues, a Birmingham nonprofit designed to unite disconnected communities by inspiring people to be curious and make beautiful things together. In 2020, Madison led Urban Avenues’ CareHealth initiative — a response to the COVID crisis. The initiative served two communities that were greatly impacted by COVID: healthcare workers and local restaurants. Raising over $80,000 from the community, Madison and the CareHealth team were able to pour those funds into the restaurant community and serve over 8,000 meals to healthcare teams. Talk about Building Birmingham Together!

You can contact Madison at madison@urbanavenues.com

On today’s episode of Building Birmingham Together we’re talking to Haley Medved Kendrick, the Director of Bronze Valley Accelerator, a Gener8tor Program. Haley is committed to building a more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem in Birmingham and recently moved from Innovate Birmingham to Bronze Valley Accelerator. We’re excited to see what she does in this new role!

Jacqui Jones of One Degree MMM joins Building Birmingham Together to share her passion for marketing and teaching others the tools they need to be successful through her new project Elevation Academy. Jacqui is committed to empowering people to “do more with what they have” and it is evident in all her work!

Jacqui’s awards:

• 2018 Rensant Bank Capacity Building Awardee
• 2018 SBA Emerging Leaders Awardee
• 2019 TEDx Speaker
• 2019 American Marketing Association "Young Professional Marketer of The Year"
• 2019 BBJ Woman To Watch
• 2020 BBJ 40 Under 40
• 2020 BeyGood/Naacp Grant Award Winner
• 2020 BBJ CEO Awards Finalist

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Today on Building Birmingham Together, we’re talking to David Fleming, President and CEO of REV Birmingham, to hear more about how REV Birmingham helps businesses, creates experiences, and builds authentic places. Throughout his career David Fleming has been committed to building Birmingham up so we were thrilled to chat with him!

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Lauren and Emily join Building Birmingham Together to share the ethos behind Somerset Advisory and how they launched The Wealth Edit to break down the taboos women experience talking about money. They are committed to serving women well and empowering them to take control of their wealth!

Russell Hooks joins Building Birmingham Together today and shares the journey of how a hobby sharing free and low cost events in Birmingham to do each weekend turned into the go to social media account for promoting Birmingham events, local businesses and philanthropies. Their love of Birmingham and spotlighting the amazing people of Birmingham has been the driving force behind the success of Happenin’s in The Ham.