On this episode of "The Matt Doong Podcast", Carvertise Co-Founder Greg Star joins Matt to discuss his experience building a fast-growth startup that is disrupting a mature industry, his thoughts on what it takes to be a world-class leader, and his take on mental health including his journey with meditation.  

Matt sits down with Former Goldman Sachs Partner, Advisor to Startups, Board Director, Angel Investor, Founder and Brand-Builder, Lisa Shalett.  Lisa reflects on how her passion for Japan, which really blossomed after spending a summer playing charades with her host family there at the age of 15, evolved into a 20+ year career at Goldman Sachs, where she initially started as a Japanese Equities sales associate.  Matt and Lisa also dig into her biggest achievements and highlights throughout her time at Goldman Sachs - such as making partner in its Security Division to taking on new challenges as COO of Compliance and then Head of Brand in its Executive Office during the 2008 Financial Crisis.  Matt and Lisa wrap up the episode discussing Lisa's post-retirement life, where she's trying new things, taking on new experiments, and building a community for women on boards.

Matt invites Kenton Langstroth, his friend and mentor, on the show.  Matt and Kenton cover a broad range of topics such as Kenton's journey within the media space over the past 10+ years, why building relationships and trust are important, the practice of authenticity, and the importance of having a growth mindset.   Overall, Matt and Kenton believe they are still works in progress.

From corporate to startup, Matt and Nick, Founder of Proto Ventures (proto.ventures), discuss Nick's career progression towards his passion for building things.  Nick and Matt dig into Nick's time as a hardware engineer at Bose, where he struggled to drive innovation in a corporate environment.  After a brief stint in the corporate world, Nick shares more about his wild, first startup experience as CTO at Shiftwear - a smart apparel company, and the importance of mentorship from the lens of a mentee and mentor.  Matt and Nick wrap up the episode focusing on Nick's latest startup passion projects including Intake (myintakepro.com), MIIST (mymiist.com), and Calibrex (calibrexinc.com). Personal & Executive Career Coach, Zach Young, website: zackyoungcoaching.com This episode is dedicated to Nick's mother, Susan Drury-Johnson.

The time for change is now.  Lauren Cardenas, Founder of The Cadence Project, and Matt converse about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.  Lauren reflects on what the BLM movement means to her, and how her experience growing up as a gay women of color creates the mission critical drive to invoke lasting change, starting with the youth in local Black communities via the sport of basketball.  Lauren also talks about her partnership with Local Hoops (local-hoops.com) and its Founder, Jon Harary.  She shares more about their goal to donate 200 basketballs in the immediate term, and their long term vision of building a mentor/mentee program at a local, national and global scale. In support of the BLM movement, please consider making a direct donation to one of the following organizations: Black Lives Matter, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Loveland Foundation & Color of Change

Matt welcomes Alex Wolfson, a professional actor turned sales professional.  Alex has held sales roles at prominent organizations such as LinkedIn, Salesforce, and Andela.  While Matt and Alex didn't have the greatest first impressions, they ended up building a strong bond and friendship throughout their time together at Andela.  Alex opens up about his journey from the performance to sales world - reflecting on why he started performing in the first place, how the skills he acquired were transferable to sales, and how his experience has accelerated his sales career progression.  Alex also share his approach to consultative sales including the importance of relationships & the "same side selling" methodology, his career aspirations, and his thoughts on always adding value.

Matt is joined by founder of Maven Talent and former VP, Sales at Andela, Chris Waldron. We start off by talking about how we met, and Chris' experience scaling Andela - a post-Series D, software engineering services startup in NYC - from a $5M ARR company to over $40M+. From there, he opens up about what it was like exiting Andela, and revisiting his passion as an entrepreneur with his latest venture, Maven Talent. In addition to sharing his take on world-class sales talent, Chris also touches on TakeLessons - a startup he cofounded and successfully raised $20M while building a sustainable, operating business. We finally wrap up with what it was like growing up in Detroit, and who Chris Waldron really is.