Guest Diana DiZoglio has played a pivotal role in public service throughout her career, serving as an advocate, legislator, and now, Auditor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In her role, DiZoglio is committed to increasing transparency and accountability in state government, ensuring that all residents receive equitable treatment, regardless o…

Yvonne Hao, Secretary of the Executive Office of Economic Development for Massachusetts, joins the Boston Speaks Up podcast live on stage at Startup Boston Week 2024.By Zach Servideo

Hack.Diversity CEO Michelle De La Isla joins the Boston Speaks Up podcast live on stage at Startup Boston Week 2024.By Zach Servideo

In this special episode of "Boston Speaks Up," host Zach Servideo, founder of Value Creation Labs and a former doorman at the iconic Pour House, teams up with Lee Stabert from "Explain Boston to Me" to explore the ever-changing landscape of Boston’s dive bar culture. This conversation takes listeners deep into the heart of the city, reflecting on h…

Guest Mike Farber has played many roles throughout his career, serving as a brand builder, mentor, advisor, partner, and now, co-founder. In his latest career move, Farber has the world’s best interests in mind by co-founding GreenStory, an agency focused entirely on elevating the stories of organizations addressing the climate crisis. Farber is al…

Guest Kyle Wallack is an artist-entrepreneur and the founder of Refined Graffiti, and you can learn more about his work at his digital gallery The KW Gallery. After graduating from Endicott College in Beverly, MA, he lived in New York City for several years where his career took off before recently relocating to the Tampa Bay, Florida area. Wallack…

Guest Nick Cicero is an analyst, entrepreneur and growth expert operating at the intersection of digital media and advertising. He made a name for himself in the 2010s when he founded Delmondo, a social video analytics company. Founded in 2014, Cicero quickly established Delmondo alongside established media measurement companies by introducing nume…

Guest Kristen Craft is the new Vice President & Business Partner Manager at Fidelity for Startups, one of the largest brokerage firms in the United States, headquartered here in Boston. She’s a major catalyst supporting Fidelity in its efforts to help fill the startup banking void in Boston. Craft is working closely with the team at Shoobx, a Cambr…

Barbara Fortier is the CEO of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts (GSEMA) where she has over 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Before assuming this role, she served as Chief Operations Officer at GSEMA for an impressive 17 years. Fortier's influence extends beyond her impressive tenure at GSEMA. She is a specialist in volunteer m…

Guest Alice Pomponio is the Managing Director at BrightEdge, the venture capital and impact investment arm of the American Cancer Society, where her work is making waves in the fight against cancer. With a passion for economic and health equity, she has built a strong track record of bringing groundbreaking ideas to life, developing cutting-edge te…

Senofer Mendoza is the Founder and General Partner at Mendoza Ventures, a woman-owned and the first Latinx-founded VC fund on the east coast. In the ever-evolving landscape of venture capital, Mendoza stands as an innovation economy trailblazer and an advocate for diversity and inclusion.Mendoza has a creative background having previously worked as…

Stanley Rameau is the Founder and CEO of Renavest, a financial education community for investors and individuals to connect, share and build wealth. He is poised to make an even greater impact with the imminent release of the Renavest app on both the App Store and Google Play Store this fall (Join the waitlist). When Rameau isn’t guiding individual…

Guest Gabriela Serret-Campos is the Global Head of People Strategy and Talent at Chronosphere, a cloud company that raised $200 million on a $1+ billion valuation in 2021. She is a seasoned professional with a rich background in shaping organizational strategies and fostering talent to drive success. As the modern workplace changes, Serret-Campos i…

Guest Stephanie Roulic is the founder and CEO of Startup Boston where she’s become a driving force behind Boston's startup ecosystem. Through Startup Boston, Roulic is on a mission to bring networking opportunities that bridge connections between people from different industries and companies from all stages. She leads a team of dedicated volunteer…

Dr. Jeff Sutherland is the Founder and Chairman of Scrum Inc. He is credited with being one of the creators of Scrum, which is celebrating its 30 year anniversary in 2023, and is a framework for enabling business agility at scale across an entire organization. Sutherland’s mission has always been to spread Scrum around the world to free people from…

Devan Sood is the Co-Founder of Orca, a membership-based network of furnished month-to-month accommodations in dream destinations around the world. As working a 9-5 increasingly no longer requires a long commute to a 5’ x 5’ cubicle, Orca is designed for digital nomads who travel freely and work remotely around the globe. A digital nomad himself, S…

George Deveney is the Chief Advancement Officer at Make-A-Wish Massachusetts and Rhode Island, headquartered in Boston, MA. Make-A-Wish is a non-profit organization on a mission to create life-changing wish experiences for children with critical illnesses. In 2023, Make-A-Wish Massachusetts and Rhode Island celebrate 40 years of providing life chan…

Guest Kerty Levy is the Managing Director of Techstars Boston, the successful startup accelerator tied to a global network of Techstars programs. (Techstars Boston applications are open now and will close June 7, 2023. Don’t miss out!) Levy replaced Greg Raiz, who stepped down as managing director at the end of October 2022. She brings a global per…

Guest Alex Kantrowitz is the founder of Big Technology, a combo newsletter-podcast news operation analyzing the systems in the tech world that drive what we see in the headlines. He launched Big Technology on the back of his wildly successful book Always Day One, which gives a behind-the-scenes view into how Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft …

Guest Chris Cardoza is the Founder & Director of Doza Visuals, a Boston-based media production company with experience filming and photographing across the globe. You may be familiar with Cardoza’s work locally via the artist documentaries he produces for ICA Boston. Cardoza’s entrepreneurial journey was preceded by a childhood culminating as a mul…

Guest Tucker Cohen is the Founder & CEO of Smoov, an app that makes it easy for couples to split their expenses automatically before they have a shared bank account. Smoov has enjoyed a popular beta period in Boston for its ability to save people time, money and headaches. Cohen is an entrepreneur with a range of experience on the west and east coa…

Guest Lily Lyman is a General Partner at Underscore VC, a leading Boston venture capital firm known for its Underscore Core Community of proven business builders helping each other succeed. She is also a Board Director for the New England Venture Capital Association, MIT Sandbox Funding Board, and is a leader of the Boston All Raise chapter.Lyman h…

Miranda Perez is a cross-topic multimedia journalist on a mission to highlight and elevate marginalized voices. Evolving beyond the newsroom, she recently joined the team at HBCU Founders Initiative, a nonprofit organization that is engaging rising HBCU students and alumni interested in pursuing entrepreneurship. For those unfamiliar with the term …

Guest Scott Ernst is an entrepreneur who’s been at the intersection of market research, commerce and technology for three decades. He was building startups on Newbury Street in Boston long before this recent wave of VCs and startups began moving into the Back Bay area. After stints at multiple startups in the 1990s, Ernst was a founding management …

Guest Kristen Craft is a proven entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in enterprise software and digital marketing. In her role as Director of Early-Stage Startups at Silicon Valley Bank, she’s become well known around the Boston startup community for her passionate support of founders. Craft has helped build several prominent brands i…

*Bonus Episode* Boston Speaks Up host Zach Servideo joins Deirdre Sartorelli on The Repivot Project podcast, which explores the art and science of change. Zach discusses: how Value Creation Labs is navigating the current economic downturn; how to select the right people to collaborate with; the value in consulting with different customer archetypes…

Yvonne Castaneda is a licensed mental health professional and part-time faculty member at Boston College School of Social Work where she teaches courses such as Basic Skills in Clinical Social Work and Social Welfare Systems. Born in Los Angeles, Castaneda spent much of her childhood in Miami. Her parents were immigrants to the United States – her …

Sara Mraish-Demeter is an artist, educator, mother of three, and founder/CEO of Art Resource Collaborative for Kids (ARCK), a nonprofit delivering creative programs with social justice themes in Boston Public Schools since 2012. Born in Jordan to Palestinian refugee parents, she came to the United States at age 15 and Boston was where she first exp…

Guest Frank Sinton is an entrepreneur, investor and innovator from Concord, Massachusetts. A Tufts University graduate, Sinton is a life-long learner and engineer by trade with several patents under his belt. He has a growing interest in adapting his deep technology background and CEO experience to actively nurture the next generation of companies …

Guest Zach Servideo is an entrepreneur and the founder of Value Creation Labs® (VCL), a brand studio-growth accelerator. The 15-year consulting veteran has spent time in Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles.Known for his boundless energy and storytelling prowess, Servideo is a sought out chief brand officer of sorts for companies looking to elevat…

Guest Bridget Hunter-Jones is the co-founder and CEO of Impact Biosystems, a venture-backed startup in the Boston area developing adaptive hardware and software solutions in the health and fitness space. Hunter-Jones leads a small, passionate, cross-functional team that wants to create a new personalized recovery market to support the at-home fitne…

Allison Byers is the founder and CEO of Scroobious, which is increasing diversity in the startup ecosystem by affordably helping founders create compelling pitch material and a platform to help investors easily find those founders. Her earlier career includes over a decade of startup and tech operator roles. Prior to founding Scroobious, Byers laun…

Guest Dan Rossignol is an entrepreneur, investor and lifelong learner with a proven track record as a technology generalist who can drive revenue across business verticals. He currently serves as the Chief Growth Officer at Stonehenge Technology Labs, doing business as STOPWATCH, a Bentonville, Arkansas-based unified commerce software startup that …

Guest Gina Deschamps currently serves as the Director of the Angle Center for Entrepreneurship at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts. She’s in a fascinating position with a role focused on embedding entrepreneurship into the DNA of a college campus. Previously, Deschamps enjoyed a successful career as a senior sales and marketing leader whi…

Guest Raghav “Rags” Gupta is an entrepreneur, operator, investor and author of the bestselling One to Ten: Finding Your Way from Startup to Scaleup. He currently serves as President of Butlr, a wireless motion sensing platform that generates privacy-compliant, anonymous data for physical space management. Corporate real estate, senior living and we…

Guest Rick Grinnell is the Founder and Managing Partner of Glasswing Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in pre-seed and seed-stage companies in AI and frontier software technologies. Grinnell is one of the most reputed cybersecurity investors in venture capital land. For the last 21 years, he’s been investing in the various evolutions of…

Guest Russell Follansbee leads Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) enterprise software team in New England, which counts roughly 60 percent of VC-backed startups in the Greater Boston region as clients. He and his team help enterprise software companies, typically post-series A funding, to more efficiently achieve scale. While his experience ranges across …

Michael Caron is the founder and CEO of Get Burly, which organizes and creates custom fitness programs and team building retreats. WIth more than 40 seasons of coaching under his belt, Caron fosters a team of elite level coaches that push individuals and groups to overcome adversity. Caron is an elite coach in every sense of the concept. He is a Sp…

Guest Jordan Staab is the CEO of SmarterTravel, an industry leader in online travel with a travel media portfolio including Airfarewatchdog, BookingBuddy, Family Vacation Critic, Oyster, SmarterTravel, and WhatToPack. As the story goes with most entrepreneurial ventures, Staab’s journey in building SmarterTravel endured various pivots, twists and t…

Guest Cam Brown is the founder and CEO of KingFish, a Boston-based marketing agency set to celebrate its 20-year anniversary in November 2021. Brown has developed a hybrid agency model which combines a full-time staff of strategists, account executives and designers with a database of hundreds of subject matter experts (SMEs) to create custom conte…

Guest Guy Hudson is a marketing programs manager in the Boston office of ZoomInfo (NASDAQ: ZI), a global go-to-market enterprise SaaS leader. Hudson caught our attention on LinkedIn where he’s posted several inspiring messages, including an official ZoomInfo corporate video he recorded for Juneteenth. Unsurprisingly, ZoomInfo CEO Henry Schuck recen…

Guest Aisha Chottani is a former McKinsey consultant turned thriving entrepreneur. After a stint at Harvard Business School, and amidst a pandemic, Chottani founded her company Moment, a natural botanical and adaptogen beverage that aims to bottle the feeling of meditation in a can.Chottani is a heart-driven leader on a mission to help people more …

Guest Mike Salguero is the founder and CEO of ButcherBox, a Boston-based meat brand that delivers high quality, humanely raised meat to consumers across the country. He founded ButcherBox in 2015 as a hobby, but quickly solved the need to increase access to high-quality, humanely raised protein. Prior to ButcherBox, Salguero founded CustomMade, a m…

Guest Jennifer Neundorfer is cofounder and managing partner at January Ventures, an investment firm that is trying to address the unique challenges and biases faced by entrepreneurs often under-represented in business, including women and people of color. Neundorfer believes the next generation of startup investment returns will be driven by a much…

Guest Ryan Durkin is a serial entrepreneur, operator and product guy who’s interwoven himself into the fabric of Boston’s elite tech talent. Following his latest successful stint serving as head of product at Drizly (sold to Uber for 1.1B), Durkin is now busy building a sports agency for tech professionals in Boston -- The Operators. Durkin’s goal …

Guest Dominique Aubry is the founder of Aubry, an influencer-driven shopping app that uses computer vision, augmented reality and AI to help women build personalized wardrobes. This isn’t Aubry’s first foray into retail innovation. She previously founded All Yoga Pants to give curvy women better clothing options. With more than 15 years of experien…

Guest TJ Douglas is the founder and CEO of The Urban Grape, a wine store in Boston’s South End neighborhood known for its proprietary Progressive Scale - a system of sorting wine by its body, instead of by varietal or region. Douglas has led The Urban Grape to becoming one of the most successful independently-owned wine stores in the country as a r…

Enjoy this bonus episode of Boston Speaks Up host Zach Servideo appearing on the Fuel Your Fire podcast from Endicott College's Angle Center for Entrepreneurship where Zach is a visiting Entrepreneur-in-Residence. In this episode, Zach speaks on the future of tech and innovation, tells his story of packing up and moving out west to LA and "Silicon …

Guest Cara Shortsleeve is the CEO at The Leadership Consortium (TLC), a leadership development platform designed to accelerate high potential and diverse leaders.Shortsleeve joined TLC in 2018 to launch and scale the business which has since forged relationships with Google, IBM, HubSpot, P&G, WPP and dozens more. Under Shortleeve’s leadership, TLC…

Guest David Chang is an entrepreneur and angel investor who has held product, marketing and operating roles at six startups and invested in 60 companies. He was most recently the CEO at student loan startup Gradifi, which was acquired by E*TRADE in December 2019. Previously, he was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School and Director o…