Season 4, #5- Be Curiously Different
The Founders Sandbox
What happens when you’re tasked with reinventing an economy—and later find yourself building investment systems in countries where the rulebook doesn’t exist? That’s the story of Thomas Nastas, this month’s guest on the Founder’s Sandbox. His journey from Michigan’s automotive belt to the front lines of the former USSR is a masterclass in resilience, creativity, and leadership under pressure. In this episode, host Brenda McCabe interviews Thomas Nastas, a seasoned board director with over 30 years of experience in international markets. They discuss Thomas's journey from...
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Season 4, #4 - Chris Daden Scaling for work 4.0
The Founders Sandbox
In this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, host Brenda McCabe sits down with Chris Daden, CTO of Criteria Corp, to explore what it takes to scale purpose-driven businesses in the era of Work 4.0. Chris shares his fascinating origin story—starting with a childhood shaped by tech-savvy parents and leading to multiple exits, international teams, and leadership at a global talent success platform. He breaks down how Criteria uses science and AI to remove bias from hiring, why soft skills matter more than ever, and how to future-proof your workforce in an AI-augmented world. Learn about his...
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Season 4, #3 - Growth Gears for Scaling
The Founders Sandbox
On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda McCabe sits down with Jen Apy, Area Managing Partner and Chief Marketing Officer at Chief Outsiders, to explore how scaling companies can unlock growth through fractional marketing leadership. Jen shares insights from her 30+ years of marketing experience—spanning Mattel, Adobe, Intuit, and now Chief Outsiders—and introduces listeners to the Growth Gears framework: a strategic methodology designed to help small and mid-sized companies grow efficiently and sustainably. Jen and Brenda also dive into key trends such as the rise of “flash...
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Season 4, #2 - Sustainable Impact Through Family Play
The Founders Sandbox
On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Anbern R. Guarrine: a partner of The Guarrine Group (tGG), a global training company based in Illinois. tGG has facilitated team building, leadership, and organizational development workshops around the world for over 30 years. tGG partners with excellent facilitators who help groups have FUN, which is a hallmark of tGG Anbern R. Guarrine calls herself a "Facilitator of Family Play." By facilitating games, she helps participants gain insights about their strengths, their relationships with peers, and how they can use their skills to...
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Season 4, # 1. Purpose: Ethos in Employee Benefits
The Founders Sandbox
On this episode of "The Founder's Sandbox", Brenda speaks with Donovan Ryckis; CEO of Ethos Benefits, the nation’s leading fiduciary benefits consultant in mid- -large market employers. Ethos Benefits was founded in 2016, after a chance request from a client of Donovan when he operated as a financial advisor--the client was faced with an increase in the companies’ health insurance bill for the companies’ employee plan that would have had a financial burden that threatened the sustainability of the company. ‘Ethos’ represents the guiding principle, character, or...
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Season 3, #14 - Scaling the Co-founder Relationship
The Founders Sandbox
Tim He checks many boxes as a guest on the Founders Sandbox- a 3x founder, now advisor, professor, creator, writer and coffee snob. Tim’s newsletter, "Cherrytree", allowed him to keep teaching entrepreneurship while the pandemic closed the classroom. By providing a newsletter, Cherrytree now offers consulting and coaching to cofounders. In Tim's own words; "I want to actually change how people become cofounders. And then how they stay cofounders." It is a tough decision to “divorce a co founder” and we find on this episode with Tim He sound advice on getting the pre nuptials in place for...
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Season 3, #13- Scaling AI with Ruthless Compassion
The Founders Sandbox
On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with David Hirschfeld, owner of 18 year old business , that boasts a hyperexceptional development team building high “ticket” products in the B2B space. They speak about ways in which AI is a gamechanger, how Tekyz backs their work for clients with relentless pursuit of quality, and how Tekyz practices ruthless compassion,to protect the company and enable it to grow Having collaborated with over 90 startups, he developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company...
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Season 3, #12 - Purpose: Preserving Family Wealth
The Founders Sandbox
On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Alexa Steinberg – a corporate and transactional attorney for middle-market companies and entrepreneurs. Acting as outside general counsel, Alexa represents privately held companies in a wide range of general corporate and transactional matters, including entity formation, structuring, and commercial transactions. With a focus on mergers and acquisitions, she offers clients guidance on structuring deals and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Brenda and Alexa discuss her journey from working at a small,...
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Season 3, #11 - Purpose: Bridging Gaps for Better Governance
The Founders Sandbox
On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Dr. Keith Dorsey – Keith is joining to announce the launch of his book on May 6, 2025 “The Boardroom Journey Practical Guidance for Women to Secure a Seat at the Table”. Dr. Keith D. Dorsey is an internationally recognized governance expert and NACD Directorship 100™ honoree who equips senior leaders with proven strategies to secure and excel in board roles. With over 25 years of corporate leadership experience and active board service spanning private, municipal, university, and nonprofit sectors, he delivers engaging...
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Season 3, #10 - Resilience: Human Rights in Fashion and Entertainment
The Founders Sandbox
On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Shivani Honwad – founder of her own law firm, who specializes in immigration and business law for the creative industries. Shivani is a business and immigration lawyer, and trailblazer in supporting the Freelance and Free Act, as well as a professor at LA campus teaching Entrepreneurship for creatives. “I could not keep hearing it and not do anything about it” Shivani says, speaking about immigration as a major issue for freelance fashion workers. Shivani set out to get smarter. Ten 10 years later, The Law...
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Transcript:
00:43
Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. This is Brenda McCabe and I'm joining you actually from Spain, where I'll be for a couple of weeks. This is my back to school message oh for the listeners of the Founders Sandbox. The back to school for me was actually going back to the first
01:12
episode of the Founders Sandbox, which is my intro to the Founders Sandbox. I was delighted to really see a year into the Founders Sandbox that I continued to be on point with the three tenants of the type of work I do with company owners as they build a scalable, resilient and purpose driven company.
01:41
There's three tenants are fit for purpose, really working towards your true north. What makes you get up in the morning, it's really building this purposeful driven company. The second tenant is poised for growth. It's about scalability. And only if you have the lights on, the refrigerator full, can you keep on point and build that scale into your
02:10
your company. And the third is that of resilience that's working with the resources that you have with an agility and adaptability in accordance with the stage of growth. Let's talk a little bit about Fit for Purpose, Purpose Driven. ah The reading I've done over the summer, and I read a lot and share some of the books and quotes. A lot of my guests on the Founder Sandbox share books that they've also
02:39
been inspired with by. My leadership style is one inspired by the servant leadership uh term, which was coined by Robert Greenleaf back in the 70s. I was first introduced to him during grad school. And the servant leader model for me is if one is successful as a servant leader, he or she will be able to answer
03:08
Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And in addition to my reading of the servant leadership book back in, I read it in I guess 2000, it was a book that was written in 1970, Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf.
03:38
I was delighted to also see that in recent research oh by McKinsey Company, the search for purpose at work, and that what really discovered after interviewing the new cohort of employees coming into McKinsey Company, that purpose is very personal and companies can play a critical role.
04:07
and how one expresses their purpose. But the search for purpose at work and purpose being personal, I would wage that the sum of individual purposes may create great enterprises. And I would argue that the corporations that use a servant leadership model, as inspired by Robert Greenleaf, will be attracting the talent
04:36
of the workforce today. So signing off and I'm thankful for you to join me in the second season of the Founder's Sandbox. Thank you.