For the 26th episode of On the Come Up, I was honored to be joined by Ms. Milagros Barsallo, who currently serves as the Director of Community Engagement for the Denver Mayor’s Office. Her career began at Cornell University, where she studied Government and International Relations. After college, her first role was as a bilingual third and fourth grade teacher through Teach For America in Colorado, working to support underserved students. Afterwards, seeing the persistent barriers between families and the education system, she founded RISE Colorado in 2012. The mission of RISE Colorado is to bridge gaps between underserved families and public schools by promoting educational equity and community organizing. Over the years, Millie has expanded her work to include civic leadership consulting and international education, including a Fulbright fellowship in Panama. Today, she leads efforts to foster inclusive community engagement and shape equitable city development initiatives in Denver.

For my first guest outside of Forbes 30 Under 30, I was fortunate to be joined by Mr Peter Hazlehurst. The CEO and founder of Synctera, a platform that provides the technology infrastructure, compliance tools, and banking partner connections to enable FinTech companies and other businesses to build and launch financial products like bank accounts, debit cards, and lending services. Originally from Australia, Mr Hazlehurst landed in North Carolina in the early ‘90s, where he started his career at Phoenix International. It’s hard to imagine a time before mobile email, and in part we have Mr Hazlehurst to thank for that: His startup Eizel innovated the mail system that would be acquired and rolled out by Nokia. His next move was to Yodlee, where he served as Chief Product Officer from ‘04-’11, overseeing some of the company’s most successful rollouts and transitions. Next, he went to Google, where he pulled another trick out of his hat: serving in several high-level positions (including CEO of Google Payments), he oversaw the development of tap-pay, perhaps the most ubiquitous form of payment used today. A digression from his fintech sojourn, his next stop was at Postmates, where he threw the company into the spotlight, growing the company 5%-10% weekly. I start to feel like a broken record, but I think he must have a Tony Stark Laboratory somewhere – After Postmates and a couple other startups, he went to Uber. Most people think of Uber as the modern-taxi service, but that’s because they take for granted all the work that goes on behind the scenes. Case in point the “transactional-less transaction” at the end of every ride, thanks to the extraordinary Uber Money payments team. Today he serves as CEO of Synctera, the glue between banks and fintechs. I don’t know the future of innovations, but I do know where I’ll find them: behind Mr Hazlehurst.

For the twenty-fourth episode of One the Come Up, I had the fortune of speaking with Mrs Karoliina Kauhanen – twice. Unfortunately (or, maybe, fortunately) the first go around had issues with the recording (and prompted new measures on my part), so I had the pleasure of a second interview. Mrs Kauhanen joined me all the way from Finland, where her career began at Humak University of Applied Sciences and the University of the Arts Helsinki, where she obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Arts and Events Management. During this time, she worked at the Classic Floorball Academy [Floorball is Finland’s most popular sport], where she was introduced to international affairs and marketing. Here, she oversaw an historic floorball match between Singapore and Finland. Commu was founded in 2019 on the eve of the pandemic – perfect timing for good deeds. The objective of the app is to connect those who need help and those who want to help. It was the first time Mrs Kauhanen and her co-founders started a company, and there were definitely some learning curves. Through fundraising and a rock band (Yes, they have an official rock band!!), they spread across the world – and rapidly. The first time I spoke with Mrs Kauhanen, two months ago, they were in three countries. Between then and now, they have proliferated to Portugal, the UK, and Asia, and even have some users here in America. I don’t propose to tell the future, but if I can apply one takeaway from my conversation with Mrs Kauhanen, is that we are all human. And we will always be humans.

The Podcast is back!! After a little hiatus (Thank you AP Exams ;), I was excited to debut the podcast again with Mr Steel! Starting his career at UCLA, where he majored in Sociology, Mr Steel started his first company (GoGuardian) in a different direction. After his friend’s backpack was stolen (and in it was his personal computer), Mr Steel decided to create a Chromebook tracker to recover the device in case of a robbery. Posting it to the Chrome Store, it quickly generated traction. Listening to his customers, his prowess soon expanded and he began creating other features mostly by the request of school teachers. And so GoGuardian was born, and with it a crazy ride. After scaling his idea to a billion dollar company, he took a prolonged vacation for several years, going on many adventures and learning a lot. Now starting with a new program, he’s decided to impart his knowledge onto the next generation of entrepreneurs. CoDream is an incubator in Hawaii that might change the traditional startup ecosystem. I was especially excited to catch him at the moment I did, as CoDream is in its infancy. Looking back on my own break from the podcast, and picking it up again, I realize that no matter how many answers you may have, you will always have more questions.

Joining me all the way from Hong Kong, as my first guest from Asia Forbes, for the twenty-second episode of “One the Come Up” I was excited to have Mr Youssef El Kaddioui as my guest. The CEO and Founder of Scalelab, a venture-building studio and lead generation agency based out of Hong Kong, Mr Youssef began his career at Rouen Business School. Here he acquired his Masters degree, before going to Zhejiang University and Wharton to further his studies. Immediately after college, he began working for Google in Dublin as an Associate Account Strategist. After that, he worked at Mettā, a global entrepreneurs’ club and innovation platform designed to connect startups, corporates, and investors under one community-driven space. Realizing through his experience working with startups that resource availability doesn’t equate to growth, Mr Youssef founded Scalelab in 2019 to help businesses with the most important aspect of their growth: customer acquisition. You can have the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then nobody’s going to buy it. Scalelab was started to help businesses with their outbound functions. Having raised over $1 billion, Scalelab also acts as a seed accelerator for companies – to help them fund, connect, and scale their products. In 2022, Scalelab released Scaleslist – of which Mr Youssef is the CEO –, a B2B lead generation plugin that automates cold outreach, Linkedin outreach, and customer acquisition. Sometimes what we want the most is the most difficult thing to come by, and growth definitely fits this description. Linear functions grow in straight lines, quadratic functions grow to the power of two, and exponential functions grow infinitely. While in these cases the future is easy to predict, business in the real world is never straightforward. But one thing I do know, though, is that there will be a lot of growth in Mr Youssef’s future.

For episode twenty-one of “One the Come Up,” I was honored to have Mr Ernest Owens as my guest. What’s to say about him – what’s not to say about him? – where to even start – where will it end? – fortunately the story’s been given to me, for I’m no writer, myself. A Renaissance Man is the only character in my story, but I have quite the story to tell. I suppose the best way to tell a story is to tell it from the beginning – for that’s how it was told to me. Born in Chicago, raised in Houston, went to UPenn in Philly, USC in LA, and back at it in Philly – The City that Never Sleeps I’m sorry you’ve been slept on, you’ve really missed out. Editor at large, professor distinct; entrepreneur and consultant and author as well; Oxford Debater and critic and expert in all – the stage has been set. Did I forget to mention he’s part of the Emmys and Grammys, as well? One man has one name, but he can live a thousand different lives. Mr Owens has done it all. He started his career at Philadelphia Magazine, where his stories were as large and diverse as the streets of the city themselves. A one man corporation, Ernest Media Empire was founded shortly thereafter to expand his operations and contributions to those he could help. In 2023 he published his first book, The Case for Cancel Culture, which has become a success story in and of itself. What might be a conflict of interest, he also has his own podcast, Ernestly Speaking, where he covers everything from the Grammys to politics to global events. I don’t know what else to write – I don’t know where else he’ll go. I know that it seemed like his story could have any more chapters – I know I’m still reading it. I don’t know the future pages that he’ll write, but if historians create the past, I’m excited for the future that he’ll create for himself.

For episode number 20 – wow! That’s a lot of episodes – I was honored to have Ms. Tsolova as my guest – the CEO and Founder of JAMBA, a company that provides educational and employment opportunities for those with disabilities in Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Starting in high school where she volunteered at an orphanage, Ms Tsolova has always had a passion for meaningful causes. She obtained her education from the University of National and World Economy for her Bachelor’s and TU Wien and the Vienna School of International Studies for her Master’s. It was also during this time that she started her first company, a software development and graphic design studio. Several years later, she met her current co-founder and future partner at a volunteering event and soon afterward they started an advertising agency together. Combining their entrepreneurial and societal passions, they were the only advertising agency with a cause: to help the NGO sector and the CSR functions of the largest companies in Bulgaria. It was with this company that Ms Tsolova saw the untapped potential of those with disabilities, and it was from here that she founded JAMBA. The founding process is never easy, and oftentimes, ironically, the more good you want to do, the more difficult it is to do it. The idea of a social enterprise was entirely new in Bulgaria, and was met with a lot of resistance. But Ms Tsolova’s perseverance garnered her the trust of those she was trying to help, and after a while things started to snowball. JAMBA is now in three different countries, and has helped thousands of people find meaningful employment. Additionally, Ms Tsolova has an interest in international politics and was a Youth delegate for the Council of Europe. The future is always difficult to determine, but I guess that doesn’t matter when the foundation is built on such empowering and compassionate causes as JAMBA and by people like Ms Tsolova – you know the future is bound to be good.

For the nineteenth episode of “One the Come UP,” I was joined by Ms Stephanie Michelsen – the CEO and Founder of Jellatech, a biotechnology company based out of Raleigh, North Carolina that seeks to create highly valuable proteins in a scalable, efficient, and sustainable way. Her career began in Denmark, where she attended the University of Copenhagen, and then the University of Denmark. It was also during this time that she partook in a scholarship where she interned at biotech startups in the Bay Area for 6 months. After realizing most biotech companies were focused on recreating animal agriculture, she decided to flip the script – what would happen if animal agriculture disappeared? Like the collagen and gelatin they seek to produce, Jellatech is pioneering the biotechnology industry. Starting in 2020, it was only two years later that they created their first full length, triple helical, and functional collagen. Building on that success, earlier this year they were able to produce a second supply of Type 1 human collagen. Their process involves the extraction of a single cell from a tissue, which they immortalize to create billions of cells and generations. They take this cell bank to the collagen production phase, where they extract and purify a small sample of collagen. It sounds like science fiction, but in a few weeks as of February 28, 2025, it will be a commercially scalable technology.