The Accent Podcast

Keith Teare is a serial entrepreneur, who has built two $1 billion dollar companies, helped to raise a billion dollar VC fund, and was in the founding team of TechCrunch.  Born in the UK, he learned how to code at an early age, and later started his first tech company. If you think it sounds familiar, you are wrong: Keith ran the company to pay for his passion - political activism.  We covered many subjects: from the class-conscious United Kingdom to blockchain, from bootstrapped companies to

Javier Mendez is the founder and head coach of American Kickboxing Academy, the leading Mixed Martial Arts teams/schools in the world.  Throughout his spectacular career he has won world championships himself, and raised numerous world champions in both Kickboxing and MMA.  Javier's notable students include Daniel Cormier (UFC Heavy- and Light-Heavyweight champion), Cain Velasquez (former UFC Heavy weight champion), Khabib Nurmagomedov (UFC Lightweight champion), Luke Rockhold (former UFC

data-pm-slice="1 1 []">Tom Kalinske is Chairman of Doodles, one of the many Ed-Tech ventures he has been involved in.  Throughout his fascinating career, Tom has built several multi-million dollar Ed-Tech companies, changed the video gaming industry as the CEO of SEGA America, revived Barbie doll and created He-Man and The Masters of the Universe animation series as the CEO of Mattel. Each of Tom’s business endeavors could have been a bestselling book; and the fact that he had so many of them

Heidi Ridley is CEO of Rosenberg Equity, one of the premiere quantitative investment management firms with $22 billion in assets under management.   Her life story is fascinating: she was born in Iran; her family lost everything during the Iranian Revolution, had to leave the country to an start everything from scratch in the US. On top of this, Heidi's personal career path is truly remarkable - from her job as a restaurant manager, to the CEO of the most male-dominated filed (quantitative

PJ Pereira is a Co-Founder and a Creative Chairman of Pereira O’Dell, one of the leading advertising firms. Over its relatively short history, Pereira O'Dell won every major industry award, including countless Cannes Lions and Emmy Award. In his native Brazil, PJ is known as the author of the best-selling book, Gods of Both Worlds.  His life story is inspiring, his view of the advertising business is unique, his passion for martial arts is contagious, and his love for his family is limitless.

Michael Hoffmann is a Co-Founder & President of one of the best-known placement advisory firms - Probitas Partners. Since inception in 2001, Probitas Partners has raised nearly 90 funds and over $68 Billion for both established and emerging investment managers.   Michael's knowledge of the alternative asset management space, in particular private equity and real assets, makes his view on the today's trends especially valuable. Whether you are a top PE firm raising your 10th fund or a newly

Thomas Weisel is the founder of Montgomery Securities, an iconic boutique investment bank that was sold to a predecessor of today's Bank of America.  Upon exiting Montgomery Securities, he started another investment bank, Thomas Weisel Partners, which was later sold to Stifel Financial, where Thomas currently is a Co-Chairman.  His success stories in business, in sport, in art, and other areas of life have one theme in common - he pushes himself extremely hard to become very competent in the