Chris Yates is Founder of Rhodium Weekend and partner in Centurica. Chris has spent the last decade and a half as an entrepreneur doing over 50 acquisitions/exits as part of his building his portfolio of digital businesses and investments. He and his companies have advised on over 500 digital business acquisitions totaling over $150 Million. Rhodium Weekend is a community of digital entrepreneurs with members' combined annual revenues over $1 Billion. Centurica is an advisory agency which helps entrepreneurs, companies and private equity firms acquire online businesses in the range of $50,000 to $50 Million.

M25 is an early-stage venture firm based in Chicago, investing solely in companies headquartered in the Midwest. Since launching in 2015, it’s become one of the most active investors in our region. Abhinaya has been involved with M25 Ventures since 2017 and is a champion of startups across the Midwest. When not working with portfolio companies, Abhinaya is active in the startup community through Global Women in VC and blogging about startups.

Michael Zuercher is CEO and cofounder of Prismatic, the dev-first integration platform that enables B2B software companies to more easily build, deploy, and support integrations for their customers. Prior to Prismatic, Michael was CEO of Zuercher Technologies. Michael founded Zuercher in 2003 and scaled it from a bootstrapped tech startup into a national industry disruptor in the public safety software market. To accelerate growth, he led the 2015 sale of Zuercher to a private equity-backed company and grew Zuercher by 5x in three years as a division of that company. He played a key role in the sale of the joint company to Bain Capital in 2018.

Philip Xiao is the co-founder and CEO of Homi, the first-ever mobile video career platform that helps companies scale branding, recruiting, and retention. He started his career on Morgan Stanley’s high-frequency trading desk in Hong Kong, but was inspired to build Homi by the alumni that helped him break into Wall Street. Philip has been featured in Minnesota Business Magazine’s Real Power 50 and Homi was nominated by MinneInno for Startups to Watch in 2020. He graduated from Carleton College with a degree in economics.

Harvest Profit helps farmers make more profitable farm finance and risk management decisions. We currently have 650+ customers in 27 states and 4 provinces that crop 2.5 million+ acres. Built in 2015, our mission is to give you more visibility into the financial side of your farm. Nick has been a part of the Fargo Ag Tech landscape since 2009 and also farms in North Dakota.

Dr. Sherry Walling helps smart people do hard things. Sherry works with leaders and entrepreneurs around the world to tackle the internal and relational challenges that go along with running businesses, leading teams, and disrupting the status quo. Forbes calls her podcast, Zenfounder, one of the 12 Best Podcasts for Entrepreneurs and her book “The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Shit Together” can be found in bookstores around the country.

Walter Portz has been a part of the Sioux Falls Entrepreneurial landscape since 2004 and is the CEO of Helen’s Plan. In 2018, Walter realized that the majority of people, himself included, were not handling death in smart, healthy ways because they were too busy dealing with the logistics of death certificates, bank accounts, and passwords. Helen’s Plan is an online tool named after his mother that he hopes will allow people to bypass the logistical drudgery of death, and instead give them the freedom and peace of mind to properly grieve.

Owner & CEO of Well365. Well365 is an independent, corporate wellness and engagement company. We work with companies of all sizes and in all industries to find opportunities to make employees healthier all while improving engagement, overall culture, productivity, absenteeism and healthcare costs. We provide a suite of services that includes health coaching, an online wellness portal and a number of on-site services. Well365 provides services to clients in over 20 states.

Thadeus Giedd in a shorthand bio: Sioux Falls, SD Native, small business evangelist, community builder, TEDxSiouxFalls organizer and license holder, Brand Manager + Strategist at PINstudios. Husband and #1 fan of Chelea Ann Giedd.

Chelsea Haring (CEO, Sr. Engagement Manager at Hearken) is an experienced executive leader for technology services companies serving public facing industries. In August, 2019, Chelsea was elected to lead the merger between two startup companies, with similar missions Hearken and Switchboard and position the newly merged company for the next phase of sustainable growth as a tech enabled consultancy. Hearken identifies as a Zebra company, and Chelsea was tasked with resourcing the newly merged company in ways that align with Hearken's values and mission. She has a track record of designing and implementing sustainable growth strategies with service minded brands.