Category: Business Leader

James Dondero: More Than A Business Man

James Dondero is an alternative credit manager who began his journey in the financial world when he started to study at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce. At this university is where James would acquire his Bachelor of Science degrees in both accounting and finance, giving him the educational experience he needed to jump into his first position in the industry of finance with JP Morgan Chase & Company in 1984. Visit his website at jamesdondero.com. James went on to create a financial training program that would prove to be so successful that it would land him a coveted position with American Express. Between the years of 1985 and 1989, Mr. Dondero would be responsible for the management of fixed income funds, which summed up to the total of one billion dollars, for American Express. James accepted the position of Chief Investment Officer after the job was offered to him by the GIC Subsidiary of Protective Life, where they grew to become a two billion dollar success story with the assistance and guidance of Mr. Dondero. Read more about James Dondero on Bloomberg.com.

After several years of success working in the financial industry, James decided it was time to establish an investment firm of his own, and so Highland Capital Management opened up its headquarters in Mr. Dondero’s beloved city of Dallas, Texas. James Dondero was not building his empire for selfish purposes. However, he was making his company on the hopes that he would be able to give back to his community so that it might project into the future positively. Giving back is what James Dondero has done for the past several years, and there are several recent examples of his immense generosity. The Dallas Zoo recently received a one million dollar donation from Highland Capital Management so that they could begin work on their once-favorite hippo habitat. Along with the help of several other local philanthropists to the Dallas area, Dondero and the others were able to come up with the necessary fourteen million dollars required to bring the habitat back to the Zoo. Now, Adhama and Boipelo, two young hippo’s, can call the Dallas Zoo home thanks to philanthropists like James Dondero and his team at Highland Capital Management.

View: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/james-dondero

From Living in a Car to Successful Real Estate Investor: Nick Vertucci Shares his Success Story

Nick Vertucci, CEO of Real Estate Academy, has overcome adversity to become a successful entrepreneur. In his newly released book, Seven Figure Decisions: Having the Balls to Succeed, Vertucci reflects on his humble beginnings when his family struggled financially growing up after the loss of his father. As a young adult, he then ended up living in his car before starting his very first business selling computer parts. Nick Vertucci did not let these challenges hold him back, instead, he took initiative and began his career on his terms.

Seven Figure Decisions: Having the Balls to Succeed is part memoir and part guidebook. In the book, Vertucci shares his greatest failures and biggest wins. He gives readers practical advice and direction in real estate investments. Through hard-earned experience, Nick Vertucci gained priceless knowledge about the real estate industry, house flipping, and, most importantly, how to make a profit.

Helping other people succeed is important to Vertucci, that is one of the reasons he began the Nick Vertucci Real Estate Academy in 2013. Through his company, Vertucci is able to empower the next generation of real estate investors by sharing trade secrets, helpful advice, and steps to becoming a successful entrepreneur by flipping houses. He offers workshops providing valuable information to individuals that are interested in real estate investment.

He came from a humble beginning and faced adversity, but Nick Vertucci took charge of his future and became a successful entrepreneur. After learning the ins and outs of the real estate investment industry Vertucci penned his first book Seven Figure Decisions: Having the Balls to Succeed where he shared the details of his past learning experiences and gave essential advice for new investors on their own entrepreneurial journey. Vertucci’s hard work certainly paid off.

Jed McCaleb Gives Lecture and Answers Questions in the Middle East

During the Tel Aviv Fintech Week, Jed McCaleb was a part of “An Evening with Stellar and eToro.”

Jed McCaleb is the current CTO of Stellar, a blockchain organization that was founded as a non-profit originally. He is also one of the founders of the company. The goal of Stellar is to bring financial options to people all over the world. They have partnered with over a dozen other companies in order to provide cheaper, faster international transactions.

Yoni Assia, who is the current CEO of EToro was also in attendance, working alongside McCaleb to deliver the presentation.

The discussion at the lecture was all about the future of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Jed McCaleb began the segment by discussing exactly what happens inside the Stellar protocol. He explained that what separates Stellar from other blockchain is that every digital dollar represents a real one.

“That’s what Stellar does,” McCaleb said. “We have a Stellar consensus protocol. It’s an extremely expensive process.”

McCaleb also compared the blockchain industry to the .com bubble burst in the early 2000s. No one was able to predict that certain websites would become so popular that they would put other websites out of commission. McCaleb believes the same thing will happen to blockchain: one blockchain could potentially be the only one standing.

Jed McCaleb also talked about how he wanted to give a lot of people free Stellar currency, but their system isn’t quite ready for such a wide-reaching transaction such as that. “We’ve been hiring like crazy over the last 2 months,” McCaleb explained. “We’ll be announcing something huge real soon.”

McCaleb and Assia also took questions from the audience, answering everything from Stellar’s partnership with IBM to the process of tying digital tokens to physical cash.

McCaleb told the audience that Stellar is in the middle of being decentralized and centralized. Stellar is able to work closely with IBM because IBM already has strong relationships with banks all over the world. A partnership with a company just made sense, according to McCaleb.

The audience member that asked about the relationship between digital tokens and physical assets got a simple answer. “Just like with gold and real estate: it’s the same,” McCaleb explained. “We back the tokens with actual assets.”

Michael Burwell Takes Over As CFO Of Willis Towers Watson

 

Willis Towers Watson recently underwent a number of changes when they decided to appoint a new CFO within the company. Michael Burwell, a well-renowned professional within the financial industry, was chosen to take up this position and was set to replace the previous CFO of the company, Roger Millay. The retirement took place in 2017, and within a short span of time, Burwell was asked to take over this new position within the company.

 

Burwell’s career spans over an incredibly extended period, during which he has provided his services to a wide range of corporate and clients. He has worked with several well-known names and has worked in several higher up positions within the companies that he has worked at. The contribution that Michael Burwell has been doing towards the companies that he worked at has been incredibly significant, which is why he was chosen to take over the position as the CFO of Willis Towers Watson.

 

The entry to the position of CFO was well accepted by all of the leading members at Willis Watson Towers. The CEO of the company was the first to come forward and talk about how honored he was to have someone like Michael Burwell working for the company. He stated that he saw a positive outlook towards the company, now that Burwell as taken up the position of CFO. He also said that Burwell’s experience within the field is something that the company is going to benefit from incredibly and is something that will overall work for the improvement of the work that Willis Towers Watson does.

 

Seeing this warm of a welcome into the company, Burwell decided to put forward a response to the CEO and the kind words that were said about him. He stated that he was honored to have the opportunity to take up this role within Willis Towers Watson and was sure that he would be able to contribute positively to the company. He also stated that from his experience, he knows the substantial impact that Willis Towers Watson has on the financial field and knew that he would be able to add to the success that the company has been seeing. Refer to This Article to learn more.

 

With the addition of Burwell, the board at Willis Towers Watson look forward to the changes that Burwell can bring to the company and the direction that the company moves in as he takes over.

 

Related Article: https://www.reinsurancene.ws/willis-towers-watson-hires-cfo-replacement-burwell-pwc/

 

 

The Brains behind OSI group- Sheldon Lavin

Sheldon Lavin is currently the Chief Executive Officer and chairperson of the OSI group of companies, which is are privately owned companies known for meat processing that services the retail and food service industries. Their headquarters are in Aurora, Illinois but they have branches in at least seventeen countries around the globe. Since 1970, Sheldon has been working with OSI Group when it was still known as Otto & Sons. He was appointed as the partner in 1975 and became dedicated to his work full time. Sheldon is the man behind the expansion of the company from a small Chicago-based operation to other parts of the country and worldwide. It is quite evident from the acquisition of Baho Food in Germany and Flagship Europe, Sheldon Lavin is moving forward to expand the presence of OSI Group in every part of Europe.

Under the leadership of Sheldon Lavin OSI food solutions, Spain added a high capacity chicken production line to its existing operation in Toledo on August 2017 and it cost them 17 million Euros. The quantity and quality of chicken products have doubled 12,000 tons. Twenty new jobs have been created which has been of great benefit to the locals. They have a new surveillance and firefighting system that is part of improving the security of the plant. It is not surprising since in August 2006 OSI Group acquired Amick Farms to expand their meat-processing base. In 2016, OSI Group also bought the former Tyson plant in Chicago that has helped in increasing its branches in North American production activities. Also, they opened a plant in California to process and distribute beans, rice and tofu products.

Sheldon Lavin believes in giving back to the society, and that is why he is involved with many charities like Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago, Evans Scholarship Fund, Ronald McDonald House Charities, and Jewish United Fund among others as a board of trustees. The Global Visionary Award was awarded to Sheldon Lavin on 20th February 2016, by India’s Vision World Academy in India. It was the fifth time that the Academy held the ceremony to honor different people for their extraordinary work. The award recognizes people in various sectors that have accomplished their dreams through perseverance and had a vision of the more prominent picture they want to achieve. Apart from Sheldon winning several awards, OSI Group has received other distinct awards such as the Globe of Honor Award that was awarded by the British Safety Council. The award recognized organizations that had developed creative means of curbing environmental pollution. Forbes ranked OSI Group top 100 as the 66th company in the food and beverage market. According to his interview with CEOCFO magazine, Sheldon’s vision is to grow the company to be an excellent food processing enterprise.

Sheldon Lavin’s Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/public/Sheldon-Lavin

Mike Baur Has New Vision For Start Ups

You can clearly look at Switzerland and see a country that knows a little bit about how to foster a great business climate. It’s one of the wealthiest countries in terms of per capita income and it frequently attracts the interest of companies from across the world. They all want to enjoy the benefits of the Swiss way of doing things. Mike Baur has positioned himself as a great entrepreneur and he has a focus on making sure people are able to fully enjoy building startups in Switzerland. The process to create a startup is somewhat challenging, but with the right people supporting an entrepreneur anyone can see success.

 

Mike Baur has put all of his energy into the Swiss Startup Factory. This company serves as an incubator for new businesses and makes sure the start ups have all of the tools necessary to thrive. It isn’t always easy to get ahead and make sure you have a business built to succeed, but someone like Baur is able to understand what will work and what will not to a degree that the average person can’t. He’s taking that talent and using it to foster a better world for Switzerland and those abroad who want to do business in Switzerland. His experience in this area has made him highly valued by people who want to see what Swiss entrepreneurial spirit is all about.

 

You can clearly see in the work of Mike Baur that he knows what he’s doing and he has a vision he wants to see realized. People who work in the venture capital industry are often some of the most daring and bold leaders you’ll every meet. It’s no surprise that Mike Baur himself is a perfect mold for this and wants to do what he can to enact his precise vision. That’s what made the vision of Mike Baur so ambitious in the beginning and it’s only proving to be better with each year he is in the start up game. The Swiss Start Up Company is going to become an even greater firm as it grows and fosters even more business opportunities, but there needs to be something done to make sure others out there are able to fully appreciate what Switzerland has to offer for themselves. Entrepreneurs are the reason we have many of the things that we see around us. Helping them out is one of the most noble things anyone can do.

Adam Milstein: Condemning the Alliance of Anti-Semitics

Adam Milstein is a Jewish businessman and writer, and he keeps on updating his website dedicated to the Jewish People. One of the most recent articles that he has written for the website was about the global alliance against the Jewish people and the State of Israel. He discussed in his articles how the radical organizations are grouping to attack them. The radical left, the radical right, and the radical Muslims are all displaying hatred towards the Jewish People, and according to Adam Milstein, the attacks against his people keep on increasing each year, and he wanted to put an end to it. The Anti-Semitic sentiment is very strong, and he does not have any idea why the people are being persecuted for the actions of his government.

Adam Milstein added that the unholy alliance between the radical Muslim groups and the radical left are growing strongly, especially in Europe and North America. It is a common practice for radical Muslims to persecute homosexuals and dismiss the rights of women and the minorities, which should sound unappealing to the radical left, but lo and behold, they decided to join alliances just to attack the Jewish people. Adam Milstein theorized that the alliance between the radical Muslims and the radical left exists because the far left thought of the Muslims as a single body, which is not the case. There are different groups of Muslims around the world, and for the radical left, they looked at them as a single body oppressed by the West. These groups are becoming a huge threat towards the people of Israel, and the government must do something to protect everyone from their growing influence.

For the far left groups, Israel is a white-supremacist oppressor who has targeted Muslims for years, and some groups are blaming the country for all of the problems in the Middle East. Radical Muslims have also joined the fight against Israel, and they are conducting several marches and political rallies condemning the Jewish State. Adam Milstein is calling upon the alliances of Israel, and he is pleading that they also move to stop these groups from spreading their false beliefs.

https://www.jta.org/author/adam-milstein

Omar Boraie is a Great Builder

Omar Boraie has acted as a loving surrogate father for the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey. This city has been left for dead by many people who have gone before him. It was widely thought that there was no way that New Brunswick would be able to turn around and thrive as a place where people wanted to live. However, after four decades of hard labor, Omar Boraie has been able to turn the city around.

According to WSJ, Omar Boraie has used his real estate company in order to revive the city of New Brunswick. Omar Boraie came up with the dream of turning around the city after visiting Europe and seeing the magnificent cities there. He knew that New Brunswick could be just as influential as Munich or Paris or London. He learned that those cities became as influential as they are because of four factors. The first factor was that each city was a thriving place for family communities. The second factor was that each city had a stable job market. The third factor was that each city had a united coalition who made it their primary goal to make their city great. The fourth factor was a growing middle class that strengthened the blood of the city.

Omar Boraie felt that if he could implement these factors into the city of New Brunswick, that the city would naturally grow to flourish. Omar Boraie began working at making the community more family oriented. He reached out and worked with nonprofits, outreaches, and churches the make this happen. He agreed that if they would plan and run events, he would donate the necessary funds to make the event happen.

Omar Boraie began working at making jobs more stable New Brunswick. He knew that people would leave the area if they cannot find a job. He also knew the converse was true, if the area had jobs, people would come. In order to make the area more stable for work, Omar Boraie convinced the largest corporations to stay in open more factories.

Omar Boraie then used his strong network to build the necessary coalition that would make New Brunswick the primary goal in their vision. This coalition included people such as the president of the University, the Mayor, and state Senators. You can search on Yahoo to see more.

Lastly, Omar Boraie brought back the middle class by offering high class real estate to them for very affordable prices.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/realestate/at-two-extremes-of-a-housing-market.html

Dallas Area Names You Should Know: James Dondero

Highland Capital Management has become one of the most well-respected and profitable investment firms in Dallas. They currently have over $13 billion in managed assets and can even boast a $2.3 billion healthcare fund practice. Many of the reasons for Highland’s success can be owed to the innovative investment strategies of its President and CEO, James Dondero.

Dondero got his start in finance at American Express as a corporate bond analyst. There he was given the opportunity to manage a fund, and he quickly grew it to over $1 billion in assets. At the same time, Dondero was accepted into the JP Morgan Guaranty Training program, one of the most prestigious financial programs offered in the 1980s. With his knowledge gained from American Express, as well as his new knowledge from the training program, Dondero was ready to take the investment world by storm. He was made Chief Investment Officer at Protective Life, and then he founded his own company, Highland Capital Management, in 1993. Read this article at barrons.com.

James Dondero started his own business at a relatively young age, only 10 years after leaving college. However, he made up for this young age with a host of business acumen and the resources to make just about anything possible. James Dondero decided to start more funds in emerging markets, something other, more traditional, fund managers were wary of doing. He also started several funds focused on collateralized loan obligations, something that created a very low-cost return for investors. After several years of challenging the investment strategies of old, Dondero broke through and made his company successful. Read more about James at Crunchbase.

Now Highland offers all kinds of mutual funds, ETFs, and CLOs. They have clients that are funds of funds, public and private pensions, governments, financial institutions, corporate investors, and individual investors. Even with all of this new-found success, Dondero and his team still contribute millions of dollars to the local community. Highland donates to the Tower Scholars Program at SMU, Education is Freedom, the Perot Museum of Natural Science, and many more institutions. The company has even donated over $5 million to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Institute since 2012. Overall, Dondero and Highland Capital Management fully intend to continue their success and bring notoriety to the Dallas area.

Read: https://www.nexbank.com/james-dondero.htm

A Look Into The Education and Career Life of Rick Smith

A. Smith, aka Rick Smith is one of the most passionate men about the prison technology industry. He has a career, in the technology industry, spanning over 4 decades. He is one of the meticulous men where the industry is concerned and this has built him a global reputation as being the best man in the industry. Rick Smith is a very learned professional, whose educational background has worked to getting him to where he is today. He holds an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is also a graduate of the Buffalo’s State University of New York, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. In addition, CEO Smith holds two Master’s Degrees; one in Business Administration from University of Rochester’s Simon School and the other in Mathematics from Brockport’s State University of New York.

His education background paved way for him to quickly rise in the corporate world. He started out in Global Crossing, which was at the time known as Frontier Corp. Rick Smith was with the company from the year 1972 to the year 1998. Initially, he was employed as the controller, but by the end of his tenure he had risen to top levels of the company’s management. Towards the end of his tenure at Frontier Corp, Rick Smith was appointed as the Vice President of Financial Management.

When Rick Smith left Frontier Corp, he joined Eschelon Telecom Inc. as the Chief Financial Officer. A year later, he was promoted to serve as the Chief Operations Officers. In the year 2000, he also received another promotion that made him the President of the company. Another three years and he was appointed CEO. During his times at Eschelon, he managed to grow the company’s revenues from $30 million to over $350 million. He also successfully led the company into a profitable IPO, in the year 2005.

In the year 2007, Rick Smith left Eschelon. The following year he joined Securus as its CEO and President. This was after the then chairman of the board suggested him as the best fit for the job. In the year 2009, he was again appointed by the board to serve as its chairman.

For the 15 years that Rick Smith has been working in Securus Technologies, the company has grown to be the leader in its industry. Not only has he managed to reduce the price of their products, but has also managed to increase the value of the products. He has invested hundreds of millions to innovation of new technological packages that makes the life of prisoners easier.