Bill Kilday’s new book Never Lost Again released on May 29, 2018. It chronicles the early beginnings of the digital mapping and gaming industry which gave birth to Google Maps, Google Earth, Pokemon Go, and more. His book tells the story of Google Earth, including his involvement with UT grad John Hanke who co-founded the firm Keyhole and later led Google’s GEO division. Bill has been a participant and witness to the amazing growth of the industry and the evolution of Google in Austin, of which we was one of the instigators. His company is currently working on Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Bill received his MBA degree in 1994 from Texas McCombs. Learn more about Bill’s Book at Harper Collins.
Month: May 2018
The Austin Business Journal (ABJ) profiled Texas McCombs MBA alumna Alissa Bayer, CEO, owner, and founder of Milk and Honey Day Spa and Salon. ABJ says Alissa, “has her sights on turning Milk + Honey into one of the largest spa brands in Texas — and next, the country.”
MBA alumni Brent Looby, Judson Kauffman, and Ryan Campbell (pictured left to right) started Desert Door, which distills sotol, a desert plant spirit first fermented by Native Americans in Texas over 7,000 years ago. The business builds on the tradition of West Texans making the spirit for the last 250 years.
The idea for the company was developed in an MBA entrepreneurship course. Kauffman, Campbell, and Looby came together for a group project and realized their business idea had real-world potential. In addition to their MBA experience, the trio credits their military experience as helping their business venture.
“The military spends a lot of resources teaching things like time management, stress tolerance, organization, and discipline — all of these are critical for any entrepreneur to be successful,” says Kauffman. “We are certain that without our military experience Desert Door would not be what it is today.” Kauffman was a Navy SEAL, Ryan Campbell was in the U.S. Army, and Brent Looby was in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Desert Door has a distillery in Driftwood, which is the first distillery outside of Mexico to make the liquor from sotol since Prohibition. “We’ve been very fortunate to be able to show our business and offer some guidance to aspiring veteran entrepreneurs,” Kauffman says. “We believe that we’re resurrecting something that Texas history almost forgot.” Read the full story in CultureMap.
Mason Rathe, MBA ’18, joined LiveOak Venture Partners as a senior associate where he will focus on executing new investments and supporting the firm’s growing portfolio. LiveOak Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm based in Austin, Texas.
Mason Rathe interned at LiveOak from the beginning of 2018 while completing his MBA at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. Prior to business school, Mason was in the Technology and Life Sciences division of Comerica Bank, where he underwrote over $350M in capital commitments to early stage companies. Prior to Comerica, Mason led business development for US Capital Partners. During his MBA, Mason began a weekly newsletter that chronicled key developments in Austin’s startup environment and grew virally to thousands of subscribers.
“Mason has already shown terrific value add as an intern at the firm and demonstrated strong leadership in nurturing the local startup environment with his newsletter. These team expansions underscore our intense focus on the Texas venture opportunity and the support of local entrepreneurs with resources to scale their business and reach their full potential,” added Venu Shamapant, founding partner at LiveOak Venture Partners. Read more
The San Antonio Business Journal (SABJ) featured MBA alumnus Bryan Grundhoefer, President of WellMed Medical Management, as a Health Care Hero.
Momentum Glass named John Shaddix, MBA ’12, as its Chief Financial Officer where he will manage business operations, financial planning and analysis, corporate development, and support performance improvement efforts across the company. Prior to joining Momentum, Shaddix was a Principal with the Houston office of The Boston Consulting Group. He graduated with honors from The University of Texas at Austin with a BA in Economics and an MBA from the McCombs School of Business.
Omar Maalouf, CEO of Momentum Glass, remarked, “We mean it when we say ‘Momentum only hires the best’ – and John is no exception. In short order, he’s proven to be an indispensable member of the team.” Read more
WP Engine promoted Tina Dobie, BBA ’92 and MBA ’99, to the newly created position of Chief Customer Officer (CCO). Dobie joined WP Engine in 2013 and since that time has built a world-class customer experience organization focused on supporting WP Engine’s 80,000+ customers in over 135 countries while optimizing internal operations for scalability, growth, and productivity. Under her leadership, the WP Engine customer experience organization has won five Stevie® Awards, the world’s premier business awards. Reflective of this excellence, the WP Engine customer experience team maintains a world-class Net Promoter Score of 82.
As CCO, Dobie leads a team of 200 people located around the world. In her expanded charter, Dobie will lead the strategic vision for how WP Engine continues to be inspired and fueled by the voice of our customers.
“One of our core values is ‘Customer Inspired’, a value that Tina lives and breathes everyday,” said Heather J. Brunner, Chairwoman and CEO of WP Engine. “I’m thrilled to expand her role by announcing her promotion to Chief Customer Officer and to acknowledge her creation and advancement of a globally recognized, operationally excellent, customer experience team. As WP Engine builds and integrates more solution offerings, her charter and teams will continue to rise to deliver increasing customer experience and expertise.”
Prior to joining WP Engine, Dobie was a client services executive at Bazaarvoice, an Austin, TX SaaS company that turns social media into social commerce for global brands. She is a proud Longhorn, having earned her BBA and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. Read more.
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