A stretch of downtown Dallas that once sat divided by a sunken freeway now functions as one of the city’s most popular gathering spots, and much of the credit traces back to a single gift from energy executive Kelcy Warren. In 2012, Warren donated 10 million dollars toward the creation of Klyde Warren Park, a 5.2-acre green space built to […]
Most wealth management firms grow by adding specialists: another tax expert here, another insurance consultant there. Michael Gold takes the opposite approach. The founder and CEO of Gold Family Wealth in Westport, Connecticut, built his practice around what he calls orchestration rather than accumulation of advisors. Instead of expanding a family’s roster of professionals, Michael Gold’s team coordinates the specialists […]
Some business deals happen over months of negotiation. Kelcy Warren‘s purchase of Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy’s natural gas liquids assets happened over a weekend. Facing a narrow window to close the roughly $2 billion transaction in March 2011, Warren convened an emergency board meeting on a Friday night. The board reviewed and approved the deal that evening so Energy Transfer […]
Luciano de Vries has built a portfolio across multiple countries and sectors by applying the same underlying method to each: identify where the real value of a market diverges from the narrative assigned to it, enter before that divergence closes, and hold through the volatility that tends to precede a market catching up to its own fundamentals. Industrial hemp is […]
The agricultural communities of Idaho have produced a distinctive breed of business leader: patient, practical, deeply familiar with the consequences of decisions that play out over years rather than quarters, and possessed of a philosophical humility that comes from operating in close relationship with forces that no human can fully control. Idaho business leader Karl Studer carries this heritage into […]
Kelcy Warren has a gift for explaining complex energy market dynamics in plain language. It is part of what has made him an effective leader of Energy Transfer for decades, and it comes through clearly in how he talks about the fundamentals of pipeline economics. The Two Ways a Pipeliner Makes Money Warren breaks the business model down to two […]
When Judd Zebersky acquired Kellytoy in 2020, he added Squishmallows to the Jazwares portfolio at what would turn out to be exactly the right moment. The huggable plush toys, each with a name, birthday, and backstory, were about to go viral on TikTok. More than 100 million units sold in a single year, with celebrity fans including Lady Gaga and […]
Not many podcast producers turn their expertise into a systematic effort to develop new voices. Greg Soros, podcaster and founder of Austin-based Podcraft Media Lab, has done exactly that, building a mentorship initiative that has sent multiple creators into the industry with real traction. Soros runs the program out of the same operation that serves Fortune 500 clients and major […]
Leading a public company requires a CEO to wear many hats simultaneously. Michael Polk, the former CEO of Newell Brands, knows from experience how much of the job involves keeping investors informed and confident often at the expense of time spent inside the organization. Polk has built a career around transformative leadership at companies of varying sizes, culminating in his […]
One of the most important questions any growing company must answer is how to develop leaders from within rather than relying exclusively on external hiring to fill management roles. Grit Marketing has built a management development pipeline that takes this question seriously, investing in the development of future leaders from their earliest days as sales representatives. Career progression at Grit […]