Mark Turner - Former Chair of WSFS Bank
BILT215
Over 25 years at WSFS Mark and his team grew WSFS 10 times in asset size, 20 times in revenue and profit, and 30 times in market value. Mark guided WSFS from a market value of approximately $100 million to over $3 billion on the NASDAQ exchange, outperforming the shareholder returns of peers and broader indexes by a factor of many times.m. Listen up as Mark shares highlights from his long, storied career and his new book, "The Path to Sustained Excellence."
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Dr. Mike Daley - Founder of OrthogenRX
BILT215
Dr Mike Daley has a big personality to go along with his big company exit. But his seeming overnight success was years in the making. He spent decades assembling advanced degrees and making money for Big Pharma before deciding at the ripe age of 62 to become an entrepreneur and launch his company Orthogenrx. Dr Daley literally liquidated his retirement plans, raised a few million from investors and bet the farm on importing an injection for knee pain already used widely overseas. Seizing the opportunity to exploit a rarely used FDA process loophole he was able to fast track the approvals and...
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Dan Dimitri - Founder/CEO of PharmaForce
BILT215
After spending 20+ years as a project manager for giants Kaiser Permanente and McKesson he paused to find a problem that he could solve with a new business. He took a deep dive into interviewing clients to find aches and pains that he could capitalize on. After much research and a chance encounter with an investor-backer he launched PharmaForce with the mission to deliver flexible technology solutions for pharmacies, providers and patients demanding greater transparency and lower costs. After a mere 7 years he recently had a very successful exit to a PE firm. Tune in to hear Dan’s story on...
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Sylvester Mobley — Founder and CEO of Coded by Kids
BILT215
Sylvester Mobley is the Founder and CEO of the youth tech education non-profit, Coded by Kids. Through his organization he works to increase access to tech education opportunities for those who are underrepresented in tech, especially children of color. Under his leadership, Coded by Kids has grown from serving fewer than 15 children in a rec center to serving more than 500 students per week. Tech has a lot of great benefits but there are still groups of people being locked out of it.
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Felicite Moorman — CEO of STRATIS IoT
BILT215
Felicite Moorman is the CEO and co-Founder of STRATIS IoT, the only Sidewalk to Sofa® Intelligent Building Solution built for Multifamily and Student Housing. STRATIS helps create smart apartments and intelligent buildings built for the complexities of split multi-family and student housing. Serving over 325,000 apartments in the US, and over 18,000 internationally, STRATIS is poised for more growth in the future.
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Mahe Bayireddi — Co-Founder and CEO of Phenom People
BILT215
Mahe Bayireddi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Phenom People, a global HR technology company with a mission to help 1 billion people find the right job. With over 200 million people using the product in 140 countries, including 50 of the Fortune 500 companies, Mahe is well on his way to achieving his goal of revolutionizing the talent life cycle through technologies, specifically AI.
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Nader Elm — Co-Founder and CEO of Exyn Technologies
BILT215
Nader Elm is the Co-Founder and CEO of Exyn Technologies, a commercialization of the technology spun out of GRASP Labs (General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania). Since its founding in 2014, Exyn has become the world leader in autonomous data acquisition using drone technology.
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Bill Yoh — Co-Owner of Day and Zimmermann, Author, Chairman of Yoh Group
BILT215
Bill Yoh is the youngest of five children born to Spike Yoh. Bill's grandfather, Harold, helped build the Philadelphia-based business that is now in its 5th generation, Day & Zimmermann. Founded in 1901 as a fledgling staffing company for engineers, it has grown into a massive organization of 45,000 employees globally and nearly $3 billion in revenue, making it one of the biggest privately held companies in the US and the world.
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Mike Hagan — Founder, Operator, Investor and CEO of Hawk Capital
BILT215
Mike Hagan is a founder, operator and wildly successful investor in a variety of companies. He has repeatedly proven his ability to create or invest in a company, scale it and successfully exit. His venture was the B2B procurement WebHost VerticalNet, which hit a market capital peak of $11 billion. Unfortunately, Vertical Net ended in flames like many other dot.com companies at the turn of the millennium.
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Bob Moore — Serial Entrepreneur and CEO of Crossbeam
BILT215
Bob Moore is a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience, who started his first business venture when he was at Princeton. In the early 2000s, as online poker was becoming popular, Bob jumped on an observation he made to create the Mooraculator to computerize what his peers were calculating in their heads to level the playing field for others who wanted to make money playing poker.
info_outlineTom Knox has been an illustrious leader and pioneer in Philadelphia for over 50 years. He grew up in public housing in Philadelphia, worked through high school, and entered the Navy at 16 where he eventually attained his GED. In the mid 1980s, he worked with Preferred Benefits, & Preferred Care under the Thomas Knox Consulting umbrella. He also served as the CEO of Fidelity Mutual, and in the early 2000s, as CEO of UnitedHealthcare in Pennsylvania. He also built up his political career over the years, serving as Deputy Mayor under Ed Rendell, in the 1990s, and again in 2008 in his bid for governor, and in 2015 for mayor. Tom’s most recent venture is Homestead Smart Health Plans, which operates on a unique model that is disrupting the industry. Tune in to find out more about Tom’s achievements, how he made it all happen, and his advice for leaders today.
Key Takeaways:
[:02] Kevin does a speed round with Tom.
[2:12] What is Tom's background?
[4:29] Kevin gives a brief overview of Tom's career.
[5:59] How did Tom stumble into the banking and insurance industries?
[8:39] Some of the work Tom did in his career was around fixing broken companies and things. How did he get into that?
[10:52] Tom shares some of his experience with Preferred Benefits and Preferred Care under the Tom Knox Consulting umbrella.
[16:23] Ultimately, Preferred Benefits was sold to Ocwen.
[17:47] Tom explains how the healthcare arm of his business, Preferred Care, expanded and evolved over time.
[23:05] What was Tom's experience with Crusader Bank?
[25:02] How did Tom grow his bank from $29 million in assets to $500 million in assets over 6 years?
[29:19] Royal Bank eventually bought over Crusader Bank. What caused Tom to sell at that time?
[30:36] Tom served as Deputy Mayor under Ed Rendell. What was his position, and what did he do?
[35:30] Tom explains how he was able to make so many changes in such a short amount of time.
[36:13] Kevin and Tom discuss what happened with Fidelity Mutual.
[40:35] 1999, Tom bought Maryland Fidelity, which was eventually bought by United Healthcare.
[44:47] Tom eventually chose to leave United Healthcare to join the mayoral race. What attracted him about the mayoral race?
[47:23] Tom announced his decision to run for governor in 2008.
[48:36] How did Tom get involved in the rubber gaskets industry in China in 2011?
[49:56] In 2017, Tom launched Homestead Smart Health Plans where he now serves Founder and Chairman. He explains more about the different components of the health plans.
[54:49] What is stop loss?
[57:28] What is the typical profile of a company or employer that uses these plans?
[58:41] Who are some competitors to Tom's model?
[59:40] How much effort has Tom had to put into educating the market?
[1:00:42] What impact could a single payer system have on Tom's company, and is it likely to happen?
[1:02:02] What are Tom's biggest fears and greatest hopes for the benefits industry?
[1:03:45] What is Tom's leadership style?
[1:05:57] Who were some big influences in Tom's life?
[1:07:58] Who are some leaders that Tom admires today?
[1:09:27] If Tom were mayor, what would he change about the city immediately?
[1:11:45] What advice would Tom give his younger self?
Links:
Tom Knox on LinkedIn
Preferred Benefits Group
Ed Rendell
Fidelity Mutual
Fidelity Insurance
UnitedHealthcare of Pennsylvania
Homestead Smart Health Plans
Ocwen
Sunrise Banks
Progress Bank
Ron Kaplan