Speakers
JOHN WARRILLOW, FOUNDER & CEO, VALUE BUILDER
John Warrillow is the founder and CEO of The Value Builder System™, which helps business advisors start more strategic conversations with business owners. John is the author of three bestselling books: Built to Sell, The Automatic Customer, and The Art of Selling Your Business. John also hosts the Built to Sell Radio podcast, the world’s leading podcast on exiting a business, boasting over 3 million downloads.
LAURA FERGUSON, CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER, VALUE BUILDER
Laura’s mission is to help business advisors (and their clients) succeed. As a former business consultant and entrepreneur, Laura specializes in helping business owners in the start-up phase with sales, marketing and operations. In addition, she is a passionate public speaker and mindset coach that enjoys sharing insights into the psychology of selling. Laura continues to bring a customer-first focus into each role she tackles, positively impacting both the publishing and non-profit space before joining The Value Builder System™ in 2017.
JOHN JANTSCH, AUTHOR, DUCT TAPE MARKETING
John Jantsch is a fractional CMO, speaker, and Wall St Journal best-selling author of Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, and The Ultimate Marketing Engine. He is also the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Agency Network, which trains and licenses independent consultants and agencies to use the Duct Tape Fractional CMO+ System.
ROB WALLING, FOUNDER, TINYSEED
Rob Walling is a serial entrepreneur who has started six companies (five bootstrapped, one funded). He’s been teaching founders how to build, launch, and grow startups for nearly two decades. He runs the original community for bootstrapped SaaS founders, MicroConf, and the first bootstrapper-friendly accelerator, TinySeed. His podcast Startups for the Rest of Us has shipped every week since 2010 and now has more than 730 episodes and 15 million downloads.
SHERRY WALLING, FOUNDER, ZEN FOUNDER
JASON REILLY, VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING, VALUE BUILDER
Jason Reilly is the Vice President of Marketing at The Value Builder System™, where he drives growth, strengthens brand strategy, and leads product rollouts. Before joining Value Builder, Jason led major retail marketing initiatives at The Home Depot and worked as a freelance marketing consultant. A trained improviser and former member of The Second City Touring Company, Jason brings creativity and collaboration to his leadership style, making marketing as dynamic as the stages he’s performed on.
AARON EGIER, VP OF PRODUCT & ENGINEERING, VALUE BUILDER
Aaron Egier is the Vice President of Product and Engineering at Value Builder. With 20 years of experience in engineering and product development, he has held leadership roles at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, Points, FreshBooks, and Salesforce. Aaron holds a Master of Applied Science (M.A.Sc.) in Computer Engineering and an M.B.A. from the University of Toronto.
DANIEL GILHAM, MANAGING DIRECTOR, FARTHER
Over the past 15 years, Daniel Gilham has helped business owners, entrepreneurs, and families realize their financial aspirations through goals-based planning. This comprehensive approach and coordination of all assets brings clarity and confidence to financial decisions: each client has a unique situation, and Daniel’s tailored approach is vital to achieving their goals. Daniel is a former Systems Engineer and Product Manager at AOL, and he transferred those skills to assist clients with financial planning. Daniel is an Advisory Board Member of GrowFL and the University of North Florida, as well as an alumni of Leadership Jacksonville and 40 Under 40.
PETE MARTIN, FOUNDER & CEO, ASKMYBOARD
Pete Martin is the Founder and CEO of AskMyBoard, a company focused on helping business owners unleash their business’s highest potential value to grow faster and more profitably to put you in a position to exit at the highest price or confidently detach from the business. As a serial entrepreneur, Pete has started, scaled, and successfully exited four previous companies, including his last to KPMG for 12 times EBIDTA and no earn-out. Pete is also the author of the upcoming book, “Scale Up Faster– Secrets of the Quickest-Growing Bootstrapped Companies.” He is the creator of Bootscaling™, which helps companies work strategically on every part of their business improving all eight drivers of business value simultaneously.
BRIAN TRZCINSKI, DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS OWNER MARKET DEVELOPMENT, MASSMUTUAL
Brian is the Director of Business Owner Market Development for MassMutual. He’s worked with MassMutual for the past 18 years. He’s the host of the bi-monthly podcast Real Business, which features expert talk on all things related to business exit, protection, and valuation. Since 2018 he’s been a Certified Exit Planning Advisor through EPI.
LINDA RATNER, FOUNDER, RATNER CONSULTING
Linda is an accomplished business owner, master coach, and sought-after speaker. She is a trusted advisor across the service, professional, industrial, and technology industries. Her client roster includes companies in legal, engineering, HVAC, trucking, healthcare, insurance, pest control, accounting, wealth management, construction, non-profits, IT, and manufacturing. Executives leverage her vast business experience to navigate disruption and change. With her strong financial acumen, she enables business owners to drive productivity, growth, and long-term success – no matter the business climate.
BRIAN MARSHALL, FOUNDER, TRANSFORMATIONAL GROWTH PARTNERS
Brian is a serial entrepreneur, investor, author, podcast host, and business advisor with a diverse background spanning 35+ years across a variety of industries. Brian has been involved in starting and exiting half a dozen companies throughout his career, including a broadband technology startup that was sold to a large Canadian-based Telecom company in 2001 for just under $1 billion. His latest ventures include Transformational Growth Partners, a consultancy he founded in 2014, and a Singapore-based SaaS company, StrategyX, which he co-founded in 2022. He is a Certified Value Builder, Certified StrategyX Partner, Five Behaviors Authorized Partner, and an award-winning sales training coach.
NICK LONG, CEO, NXT90
Nick Long is a seasoned serial entrepreneur with over 24 years of experience. He has generated $600 million in revenue across various ventures. As a successful investor and CEO consultant, Nick’s expertise extends beyond conventional business practices. He is a culture expert and high-performance coach who has pivoted to become an Exit Advisor and Private Equity accelerator. Nick is dedicated to guiding entrepreneurs towards transformative success and life-changing exits, ensuring they maximize their business’s value and secure their legacy.
GINA GONZALEZ, FOUNDER, BUSINESS 2 ETERNITY
Gina Gonzalez, founder of Business 2 Eternity, brings a wealth of experience spanning geophysics at MIT, NASA/JPL, and transformative leadership roles across tech, real estate, and non-profits. After navigating the loss of a business post-9/11 and executing a successful turnaround strategy for Habitat for Humanity during COVID, Gina combines her expertise in business brokering, valuations, exit planning, and coaching to help business owners transition seamlessly from entrepreneurship to their next chapter.
