[RE]MIX 2021

James L. Anderson ’85

Head of Corporate Communications and Marketing, WarnerMedia

James L. Anderson, with more than 25 years of communications experience, is generating conversations and watercooler moments within the TV and media landscape. Anderson is the head of corporate communications and marketing for WarnerMedia, one of the most powerful portfolios of iconic entertainment, news and sports brands. As a member of the senior leadership team, Anderson has executive oversight of corporate media and talent relations, events, internal communications; and corporate marketing strategies as it relates to reputation, employee engagement, equity and inclusion, and corporate social responsibility. …

Tina Beilinson ’11

Co-Founder & CEO, Seven Starling

Tina is the co-founder and CEO of Seven Starling, virtual group-based care platform for expecting and new parents. She is a strong believer that companies can be a force for good in the world. She was an early employee at Warby Parker, spending nearly 6 years driving large scale initiatives that led the company’s growth between its Series B to Series E. She supported the launch of Warby Parker’s telemedicine product “Prescription Check” as well as the national partnership with UnitedHealthcare. She has a MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Denison University.

Merlin Bell ’15

President and Executive Director of Poplar Institute for Film and Poplar Television & Film

Merlin Bell is a creative professional, who has offered experience working in content management and production leveraging a passion for culture and the arts. He’s Demonstrated astute organizational and communication skills supporting teams in managing multiple, deadline demanding, projects, establishing and executing project plans. He has a BA from Denison University in Theatre and a MA from Fontbonne University in Theatre. He has worked in several nonprofit arts and culture organizations as an actor, creative activist, and educator. A few of the nonprofits that Merlin has worked in and with is the Missouri Historical Society, Contemporary Art Museum (St. Louis), St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, WFYI, Indiana Historical Society and Conner Prairie. Merlin expanded his theatrical experience in 2019 when he moved to Beijing China where he was a drama teacher at Dreamaker Academy. …

Maddie Callander ‘09

VP, Accelerator and Portfolio, Boost VC

Maddie Callander runs the accelerator programs and manages 250+ investments at Boost VC, the pre-seed fund for Sci-Fi tech, co-founded by Adam Draper and Brayton Williams. She loves working with her incredible founders, learning as much as she can every day, and staying curious at all times. As a deep believer in the power of emerging technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Crypto/Blockchain, Space, Robotics, AI, Ocean, Biotech, and Time Travel), Maddie is on a mission to get more women into leadership in early tech sectors.

Prior to joining Boost VC, she built out the private aviation department for the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana, where she managed member air transportation: marketing, …

Lucy Carlisle ’20

Founder / Marketing, The Social Link

Lucy Carlisle, class of 2020, is the Founder of The Social Link, a boutique marketing agency. At Denison, she majored in Communications, which developed her love for aesthetics and storytelling, two of the most powerful ways to breathe life into a brand. After graduating, Lucy started on her entrepreneurial journey with mentorship from the Denison faculty and Red Frame Lab. Lucy’s goal is to bring a brand’s prospective customers on a journey by developing personal connections and sharing stories that captivate and inspire audiences. From conception to execution, Lucy specializes in social media and email marketing, copywriting, graphic design, website design, and branding for small businesses and start ups. The Social Link’s marketing philosophy: each client is unique, which is why we create custom solutions tailored to the needs of …

James Clear ’08

Author and Speaker

James Clear is an author and speaker on habits and decision making. His writing focuses on how to apply the science of habits and behavior change to everyday life. Over one million people read his articles each month on jamesclear.com and more than 400,000 people subscribe to his weekly email newsletter. His work has been featured by The New York Times, CBS This Morning, TIME, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and many other media outlets.  James is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Atomic Habits, which has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide.  You can see more on jamesclear.com.

David Frederiksen ’92

David Frederiksen is the founder and CEO of PatientFocus, a Nashville-based, patient-billing company for healthcare providers. With over twenty years of healthcare experience including strategy consulting; financial analysis; credit underwriting; workouts and restructurings, David has managed projects for multiple entities including hospitals, clinics, physician practices and other healthcare companies across the U.S. David was the Co-founder and COO of Pine Creek Healthcare Capital, LLC, a specialized lender to rural hospitals. At Pine Creek, David developed the first credit underwriting technology accepted by both Fitch and Moody’s for assigning shadow ratings to Critical Access Hospitals. Prior to Pine Creek, David was with Phyve Corporation, a company focused on HIPAA-compliance for healthcare IT companies; and the Medstat Group, a healthcare information subsidiary of Thomson Reuters. …

Becca Gardner ’09

Founder & CEO at ALT Distilling, INC.

Becca grew up on a farm in Kentucky, then attended Denison University where she majored in Anthropology and Women’s Studies. She spent the next 10 years at Monitor Deloitte in New York where she advised clients on corporate and business unit strategy and business model transformation. Becca took a two-year sabbatical from Deloitte to obtain her MBA at NYU Stern, during which she interned with SY Partners and Union Square Hospitality Group. Becca left Deloitte at the end of 2019 to start NKD LDY, INC., now ALT Distilling, INC. When not thinking about non-alc spirits, Becca is generally making art or getting in over her head with home improvement projects. She has maintained a commitment to working with women and children who are victims of domestic and sexual violence and trafficking for the past 15 years.

Rip Gellein ’69

Raymond L. “Rip” Gellein Jr., served as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer for Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Inc. from November 2012 to December 2015.

Prior to his position as Chairman and CEO of Strategic Hotels, he retired from Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide in March of 2008 where he held the position of President, Global Development Group.  In this position, Rip had overall management responsibility for the full range of Starwood’s global real estate-related functions.  The scope of his responsibilities encompassed Starwood’s $8 Billion owned hotel portfolio, all of its development activities, including hotel, resort and residential development; …

Winters Heafey ’14

Assistant Director, Savills Denver

Winters Heafey is an assistant director for Savills Denver office and leads the industrial practice. Prior to entering the real estate profession, Winters served in the 75th Ranger Regiment of the US Army. Winters takes an active interest in community and nonprofit organizations, serving on the Board of Directors for CoreNet Colorado Chapter, Colorado Youth for a Change and is the Board Chair of the Sturm Military Specialty at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology; Sturm Military Specialty. He also serves on the Board of Advisors for Denison University. He was a co-founder of Real Estate Careers for the Armed Forces a registered 501(c)(3), whose mission is to mobilize the real estate community to develop a sustainable program to hire veterans and their families within the commercial real estate industry.

David Howitt ’90

Founder & CEO of Meriwether Group

David M. Howitt, founder & CEO of Meriwether Group, and author of Heed Your Call, is an inspiring thought leader and guiding mentor in the world of commerce. He is an accomplished entrepreneur and published author with over twenty years of experience providing business strategy and brand counsel to startups and Fortune 100 companies.

Through a unique brand ethos and delivery system, he and Meriwether Group provide strategic vision and support to entrepreneurs, disruptive, authentic, and iconic brands, and provide counsel, operational support, and advisory services for the next wave of innovative consumer-focused companies.

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Terry Jones ‘70

Founder of Travelocity and co-founder of Kayak.com

Best known for founding Travelocity.com and serving as founding Chairman of Kayak.com, Terry Jones has become a powerful voice in the world of entrepreneurship through his numerous speaking engagements and the publication of his books, ON Innovation and Disruption OFF. His career path has established him as a thought leader on innovation in our post covid and increasingly digital world.

A graduate of Denison University in Granville, Ohio, Jones, began his career as a travel agent, spent 24 years at American Airlines in marketing and information technology, capping his career as Chief Information Officer of its SABRE division. …

Richard (Rick) Kienzle ’85

Founder and Managing Partner at Steep & Deep Ventures

A Medical Device Executive and Board of Directors with 30 years experience at a variety of Medical Device and Orthopedic companies, multi-national enterprises to start-ups.  Including; Globus Medical (GMED, NYSE – 4.8B), Synthes (now a J&J Subsidiary), US Surgical Corp, Trice Ortho, Synergy Bio-Medical and Medicrea  International.  Currently Mr. Kienzle is the Founder and Managing Partner at Steep & Deep Ventures, a private boutique VC/PE group specializing in nascent and early commercial stage Orthopedic and Medical Device Technologies.  Concurrently he is an active investor / consultant to the SDV portfolio companies. Prior to this, Mr. Kienzle was co-founder of Globus Medical, and served as the Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing. …

Darren Lachtman ’04

Co-Founder of Brat TV

Darren Lachtman is the co-founder of Brat TV, the leading Gen-Z digital network. Brat launched in 2017 and has built a loyal audience of over 65 million unique  viewers. Previously, he founded Niche, a marketing technology company that provides creators with the ability to grow, understand, and activate their social presence across all networks. Niche was acquired by Twitter in 2015 and Darren served as the global director, continuing to lead the Niche team around the world. Darren also is managing partner of early stage venture capital firm, Niche Capital investing in over 50 companies in the last 5 years. Darren currently sits on the boards of the Ad Council and World of Children and holds degrees from Denison and Northwestern University.

David Lucchino ’91

Co-Founder, President and CEO, Frequency Therapeutics

David has played an integral role in launching, building and operating several successful companies in the life sciences. In 2014, he, along with Robert S. Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other co-founders, started Frequency Therapeutics with the goal of developing regenerative medicines based on discoveries related to activating progenitor cells.

Before Frequency, David was President and Chief Executive Officer of Entrega Bio, a PureTech Health-founded biotechnology company focused on oral drug delivery technology. Prior to that, David co-founded, also with Dr. Langer, Semprus BioSciences. …

Joe Maxwell ’90

Managing Partner at FINTOP Capital

Joe Maxwell is the Managing Partner at FINTOP Capital. Prior to founding FINTOP Capital in 2016, Joe was at IPreo Inc. where he led the Private Capital Markets, acquiring Clear Momentum Inc. in December 2015 and ILevel Inc. in August 2015. Prior to its 2014 acquisition by Ipreo, Joe was Chairman and CEO of Shareholder InSite. He was also the founder and CEO of CapControls, Inc., and founder, CEO and Chairman of Investment Scorecard, Inc. Investment Scorecard sold to Informa PLC in April 2007.

Joe is a current and was past Board Member: Investment Scorecard, Mobular Technologies, Interactive Advisory Solutions, Independence Trust Company, Beacon Technologies, Fabsol, Shareholder InSite, Wealth Access, CloudBeds, …

Katie McKenna ’04

Founder, Katie McKenna Speaking and Coaching

Katie McKenna is a professional speaker, leadership coach and bestselling author, living in Vermont. People often say, “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.” Katie actually was. On a sunny morning bike ride in Brooklyn, 24-year-old Katie McKenna was forever changed when she was run over by an 18-wheeler. Being crushed under a massive semi wasn’t something Katie should have survived. After 10 hours of emergency surgery, she woke to find herself in a body and a life that would never be the same. What began as a journal entry on a borrowed laptop during her extended hospital stay, became the best-selling memoir, How to Get Run Over by a Truck. Katie now travels the country, speaking to a vast array of audiences on how to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles with resilience, hope, humor and gratitude. …

Emily Merrell ’09

Founder and Business Coach at Six Degrees Society ; Co-Founder of Ready Set Coach Program ; Podcast host of The Sixth Degree Podcast

Emily Merrell is the Founder and Business Coach at Six Degrees Society, Co-Founder of Ready Set Coach Program and Podcast host of The Sixth Degree Podcast. She has supported thousands of ambitious women to get what they want in their personal and professional lives. SDS members often achieve their first paying clients, land a new job and a mentor by utilizing Emily’s expert knowledge shared through signature connection events, sold out masterminds and 1:1 coaching. Emily’s expertise has been applauded and featured by Refinery29, Girlboss, Forbes and Huffington Post. She is based in San Francisco and in her spare time you can find her adventuring to wine country, running with her husband or planning her next taco night.

Alison Nissen ’89

President, Revel Coach

Alison Nissen is on a mission to help entrepreneurs and authors grow their businesses and sell more books by amplifying their public presence. As a speaker and award-winning author, she helps others develop their personal platforms through storytelling. Alison and her sister Marcy Stoudt ‘94 co-founded Revel Coach, a consulting platform that empowers individuals to put their dreams into action. Alison graduated from Denison in 1989, holds a Masters in Literature from Norwich University, and is a humanities professor with Southeastern University. Follow her Tales from the Laundry Room @ alisonnissen.com or listen to an It’s Better Together with Revel Coach+ podcast conversation.

Liz Pryor ’02

Co-Founder and CEO, Chill Pop

Liz Pryor is Co-Founder/CEO of Chill Pop, a premium frozen novelty known for its unique, distinct flavor offerings. From humble beginnings, with Liz hustling to sell fruit pops out of push cart all around town, to landing regional placement in Whole Foods Market, Chill Pop has been recognized as an innovative and emerging brand, now found on grocery shelves throughout the country. The product has also been highlighted in Oprah’s O Magazine, Parents, and Inc.  Early in her career, Liz held executive level roles in nonprofit and athletic administrations. It was her own athletic background and passion for health and wellness that led her to further study at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. …

Paige Robnett ’14

CEO & Founder | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Consultant, Robnett Consulting LLC

Paige Robnett is a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) Consultant known for turning ideas into action. Paige’s expertise lies in solving complex problems, building bridges across difference and leading large-scale organizational change. A project manager at heart, Paige leverages systems and structures to disrupt the status quo. Her infectious enthusiasm and compassionate approach with clients allows her to authentically connect with leaders, while holding them accountable.

In her most recent role, Paige directed DEI initiatives for Rock Ventures, a portfolio of more than 100 companies in the technology, professional services, sports and charitable giving industries, impacting more than 30,000 employees. She leveraged DEI best practices to advise senior leaders, …

Warner Siebert ’05

SVP Sales & Marketing at Cut+Dry

Warner is an entrepreneur and seasoned sales and marketing leader in the food, beverage, and hospitality industries. Warner started his career in sales at iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel) and then went on to start a marketing technology agency, called Branded Evolution. In 2011, he became Co-Founder & CEO of a restaurant technology company, BuzzTable, which was backed by Microsoft Ventures and eventually acquired by Sysco Foodservice in 2013. Warner developed a scalable, virtual sales model that brought Sysco’s roll-up of restaurant technology companies, CAKE, to profitability by accelerating sales from $750K to $40M in under 4 years. He then joined Sysco’s internal tech division, Sysco LABS, and implemented digital go-to-market strategies for Sysco’s core business, including the deployment of an eCommerce ordering platform that now processed more than $15B in transaction volume. …

Marcy Stoudt ’94

CEO, Revel Coach

There is no better time than NOW for women to be successful as entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and mothers. Marcy and her sister, Alison, co-founded Revel Coach designed to create a community of women who want to inspire and be inspired. For the past 25 years, Marcy has worked with hundreds of executives. Her coaching practice works with leaders who desire success an executive and a mother. Typically within 18 months of maternity leave, her clients explore solutions for an authentic approach to living life with confidence and joy. Marcy is also the founder of the Executive Mom Nest, which is designed to be a Virtual Wellness & Development Center for working moms. Marcy is inspired by the strengths, loyalty, leadership, bravery, and kindness in all kids of moms.

Jack Tankersley ’72

Founder and Managing Director, Meritage Funds

Jack is a co-founder of Meritage Funds with 40 years of experience as a private equity investor, having raised, invested and managed more than $1.0 billion of capital during his career.  Jack is responsible for a number of highly successful investments in companies such as Crown Castle and Brooks Fiber Properties.  Prior to Meritage, he co-founded Centennial Funds in 1981 and served as its CEO and/or CIO until 1997.  He serves or has served as a director of numerous Centennial and Meritage portfolio companies, both public and private.

Jack is a member of the Board of Trustees of Denison University and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. …

Nick Yehle ’20

Co-Founder, JoGo Straw

Nick co-founded Everywhere Joe, a lifestyle brand with the mission to “share simple, flavorful, and sustainable ways to experience coffee and tea – whether you are working at the office or hanging from the side of a mountain” during his junior year at Denison. Wearing many hats as one of two employees of Everywhere Joe, Nick mainly focuses on the financial, operations, logistics, and manufacturing side of the business. Everywhere Joe’s first product “JoGo Straw” was launched in April 2021 with a Kickstarter campaign, and the product will be available in a wide variety of online and retail stores by the end of 2021.