Committee

Matt is co-founder and Managing Partner of 12 South Capital Partners. He brings experience in sales, operations, strategy, and finance.

Prior to founding 12 South Capital Partners, Matt worked at MVision Private Equity Advisers, Ltd based in London. At MVision, Matt managed multiple private equity fundraisings, ranging from 250 million - 4.0 billion Euros. In addition, he covered investor relationships across continental Europe and the Middle East.

Matt has consulting experience in multiple industries. He worked for Schlumberger Business Consulting on oil & gas projects across the Middle East and for Netflix, serving as Chief Military Advisor to Brad Pitt for the satirical film War Machine (2017).

Previously, Matt spent over six years as a U.S. Army Officer, serving multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. In his last role, he was the deputy operations officer for a 450-person air cavalry squadron that provided reconnaissance and security for coalition troops spread across Southern Afghanistan.

Matt earned his M.B.A from London Business School and his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Kari Warberg Block is the founder and Chief Love Bug at Earthkind, a retail platform for plant-based premium insect & rodent control solutions with superior efficacy, safety, and convenience. Kari is author of Gathering Around The Table For Purpose Driven Change Through Business, was named EY Entrepreneurial Winning Woman, SBA Small Business Nat’l Runner up, and has served on NWBC advisory board to the White House, SBA, and Congress.

Mike Bork has over 23 years of experience in HR and Human Capital Strategies as both an entrepreneur and an advisor to business owners. As a thought leader in his field, Mike has earned many awards, and has worked with clients in over 30 different states and multiple industries, ranging from young start-up companies to multi-million-dollar corporations. Mike's primary focus is allowing business owners to remain focused on their core competency by allowing them to attract and retain top talent without the headaches of running a full HR department. Mike has lived in Charlotte area since 2010 with his wife, three daughters and 2 dogs (Romeo & Taco).

Matt is a sales-oriented CEO with expertise in acquiring and transforming family-owned manufacturing companies. He drives growth through digital marketing, operational improvements, and fostering cultures of success. He recently sold LB Plastics to AZEK (NYSE: AZEK), a market leader in outdoor building products. Previously, he led a $1B division at Lowe’s Home Improvement and worked in leveraged buyouts and M&A advisory.

Mark DeMarcus is a Senior Vice President and Regional Manager for Business Banking for First National Bank’s Charlotte Region. In this role, Mark leads the business unit in providing companies across a variety of industries with industry-leading suite of business products and services, such as tailored cash flow solutions, capital financing options, to support growth of mid-sized companies throughout the Greater Charlotte area.

Hailey Foreman is a Vice President at Wheelhouse 360, a strategic investment fund which invests in growth stage consumer brands at the intersection of content, community, and culture. Hailey is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, executing, and monitoring investments across their portfolio. Prior to Wheelhouse, Hailey was an Associate at Lindsay Goldberg and an investment banking Analyst at Lazard.

Louis Foreman is founder and Chief Executive of Enventys Partners, an integrated product design and engineering firm. Over the past 20 years Louis has created 9 successful start-ups and has been directly responsible for the creation of over 20 others. He is the inventor of 10 registered US Patents, and his firm is responsible for the development and filing of well over 600 more.

Louis is an adjunct professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, at Queens University and an adjunct professor and the Entrepreneur in Residence at The McColl School of Business. Louis serves on the Board of Directors of the James Dyson Foundation, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), New Dominion Bank, the Intellectual Property Owners Educational Foundation (IPOEF) and is Chairman of the National SBDC Advisory Board.

Louis served for 7 years on the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, including the last two years as Chairman.

Juan Garzón joins Innovate Charlotte with more than 6 years of entrepreneurial ecosystem building experience in the region. Prior to accepting this position, he was the head of ecosystem development for American Inno and general manager for Charlotte Inno (formerly StartCharlotte, which he founded). Juan’s experience includes nonprofit and private business leadership including as director of PitchBreakfast and principal of the communications consulting firm Garzon Company. He has also served as a coach and mentor to numerous startups and nonprofits. Juan is a graduate of Johnson & Wales University Charlotte, where he majored in marketing and served as student body president.

Dale Gillmore is the Founder & CEO of Quest. He brings over 25 years of M&A and family office experience, working closely with privately held business owners. He is a licensed CPA in NC and Michigan, passed the Series SIE, Series 3, 63, 79 & 82 exams and is a FINRA member. Dale has a passion for helping children and in 2010 he founded the Make an Impact Foundation.

Ray is a partner at Axum Capital Partners, a private equity group based in Charlotte. Previously, he served as a professor at Duke's Fuqua School of Business, the head of the merger and acquisition group of First Union Securities (now Wells Fargo & Co.), a managing director of the M&A Group of The First Boston Corp. (now Credit Suisse Group) in New York, N.Y. and practiced law with Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York, N.Y., where he worked on the IPO of Intel Corp., represented Chemical Bank (now JPMorganChase) and was involved in multidistrict litigation on behalf of IBM.

Levar Haffoney is the founder and Managing Partner of Vedere Capital Group (VCG), a private investment firm. He is responsible for all aspects of strategy, deal sourcing, due diligence, negotiations, financing, and post-acquisition management.

Mr. Haffoney is a board member with ArtsATL and chairs the Resource Development Committee. He is also the former board Chair with Spectrum Health Services, Inc., a federally qualified health center, based in Philadelphia.

Mr. Haffoney began his career in financial services. He earned a B.S. in Business, Management, and Economics from the State University of New York and an M.B.A. from the Eastern University College of Business and Leadership.

Sean Healy is a VP at Keswick Partners, responsible for sourcing new investment opportunities and conducting preliminary diligence for potential investments. Prior to Keswick, Sean was head of origination for a family office, led his own search fund, and also served in various strategy and management consulting-related roles for companies spanning all stages of the business lifecycle. Sean served as an Officer in the US Army and remains a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Reserves today.

Cliff is co-founder, managing director and general partner at Cultivation Capital. The firm was named the most active venture capital firm in the Midwest by Pitchbook, and a top 10 leading firm by Crunchbase. Previously, he was founder and president of Foot Healers and the Professor of Practice and Academic Director for Entrepreneurship at the Olin Business School at Washington University, where he was named one of the Top 100 Entrepreneurship Professors in the World.

Brad Jones is Executive Vice President of Carolina Commercial Banking, overseeing FNB’s multiple markets in North Carolina and South Carolina. In addition to his home market in Charlotte, Jones manages the execution of FNB’s Commercial Banking sales model throughout its Eastern North Carolina, Piedmont, Raleigh-Durham and South Carolina Regions. The Regional Presidents serving these markets report to Jones, who also maintains his previous position as Regional Market Executive and President of the Charlotte Region. He joined FNB in 2019 with more than 30 years of extensive financial services experience, including leadership roles with BBVA, Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

Jones received his Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Master of Business Administration from the University of North Florida. Heavily involved in the local community, Jones has served as a board member for the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, Junior Achievement of Central Carolinas, UNC Chapel Hill Board of Visitors, Charlotte Sports Foundation, Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, NC Motorsports Association and Charlotte International Advisory Council.

David co-founded Peak 10 in March of 2000. Aligning an expert leadership team, he built one of the industry's most admired companies in the data center and cloud infrastructure industry – consistently producing impressive, consistent year over year financial performance and growth. David led the company for 17 years as CEO and Chairman building Peak 10 to be the leader in hybrid data center operations, hosting and managed services east of the Mississippi. Flexential, a national, hybrid colocation, hosting, network and managed service data center company resulted from the late 2017 combination of two market leading data center companies, ViaWest headquartered in Denver, and Peak 10, headquartered in Charlotte. This combination created the largest national hybrid, facilities-based, hosting services company in the United States, currently with 3.2 million square feet of data center space, 37 data centers and 19 markets.

David holds a B.A. degree in Economics from the University of Virginia and completed the Executive Development Business Program at George Washington University. In addition to his responsibilities on the Flexential Board of Directors David serves on the board of directors of RadixBay (enterprise software development and support), chairman of TechWorks of Gaston County, NC. David is an advisory board member for McCarthy Capital, a private equity firm in Omaha, NE, a member of Morris, Manning & Minor, LLP’s Tech Advisory Council (Atlanta, GA), advisory board of Tech Leaders Forum of Charlotte.

Active on non-profit boards, he serves on the of directors, and was formerly chairman of the Steele Creek YMCA. He served for 6 years on the Board of Trustees of Queens University in Charlotte and is a board member of Innovate Charlotte, a public-private fund fueling entrepreneurial growth in the Charlotte region. David is a mentor with TECH Alpharetta, in Atlanta.

At Gridiron Capital, Sean focuses on developing new business partnerships, marketing, communicating with business owners, and managing investment sourcing and exit planning. Prior to joining Gridiron Capital, Sean served as vice president at BB&T Capital Markets in Richmond, Virginia. His responsibilities at BB&T included executing mergers and acquisitions advisory for middle-market businesses, as well as establishing and strengthening business development relationships with middle-market investors. Earlier in his career, Sean worked at Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.

Lee is managing partner of Smart Business Network Inc., a national events, media and marketing company founded in 1989, primarily responsible for expanding the company’s Aspire deal-making conference throughout the U.S. He plays a key role in establishing corporate policies and developing long-term strategy and growth plans. Previously, he founded and chaired the Growth Group at national law firm Arter & Hadden LLP (now Tucker, Ellis & West), which focused on working with middle-market and high-growth technology companies. 

Managing Partner @ Home Technology Ventures. Making homes more affordable, sustainable, accessible and desirable through innovation. Former founder and managing director of Lowe's Ventures. BS in Finance and MBA from University of Florida.

Matt founded Plumb Line Capital Partners, LLC (PLCP) and serves as Managing Partner. PLCP works with a number of long term focused investors / family offices investing, advising, operating, and helping to grow family / founder / entrepreneur owned companies. PLCP structures these deals as "direct deals" in order to bring in the most strategic investors, board members, industry experts, etc. to accelerate the growth / scale the operations of the company. PLCP works in board member / strategic / operational partnership roles to these operating companies.

Additionally, Matt is Managing Partner of Abatemaster, a leader in environmental services including asbestos surveys, inspections, & abatement, lead based paint removal, mold remediation, soda blasting, and demolition services in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia for 25 years.

He has previous experience working as a private equity investor at investment firms that focused on investments in family, founder, entrepreneur, and management team owned companies where he was actively engaged as a board member in the strategy and operations of portfolio companies. Previously, he worked as an investment banker where he provided public and private companies with mergers and acquisitions and debt and equity capital raising advice.

Jason Lloyd is a Market Executive at JPMorgan Chase, responsible for delivering financial solutions to sponsor-backed companies in North Carolina and South Carolina. He brings over 30 years of experience in capital markets, business development, client management, and banking fundamentals to this role.

Keith Luedeman is founder and former CEO of goodmortgage.com, an award winning internet mortgage lender. Keith led goodmortgage.com to be recognized for many successes including Best Place to Work for Mid-Size Companies and Online Lender of the Year by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Under Keith's guidance, goodmortgage.com was named to the Inc. 5000 five times, earning it a place on the Inc. 5000 Honor Roll.

Earning individual awards along the way, such as NCTA Tech Exec of the Year, Keith developed a reputation as a passionate entrepreneur who shares his business wisdom as Board Chair of Innovate Charlotte, Board Chair of the Queens University Entrepreneurial Leadership Circle Advisory Board, an active investor in the Charlotte Region and a mentor to startups.

Dr. Brian Morin is the CEO and Co-Founder of Soteria Battery Innovation Group, a company dedicated to solving the problem of lithium-ion battery fires. Soteria has technology that can reduce the number of fires by >90%, and leads a consortium of companies dedicated to battery safety, including members such as Mercedes, General Motors, Lenovo, DuPont, Jaguar Land Rover and more.

Charlie Orr is a Director with Reynolda Equity Partners focused on origination, development and execution of thematic investment campaigns, and build out of Reynolda's Operating Advisor network. Reynolda Equity Partners is a partnership-oriented private equity investor dedicated to providing patient capital to support and supplement the vision of the owners and management teams of strong performing businesses across the lower middle market.

Barrett has 20+ years experience in business development, brand strategy, and business consulting. He has strategically advised brands such as Lowe’s, Wendy’s, Xbox, Hanes, Virgin, Mizuno, and NASCAR. Throughout that time he has helped to launch new ideas, new technologies, industry firsts, as well as several new brands and companies. Barrett currently works for Dualboot Partners, which is a fullstack software development firm, where Barrett is handling business development and strategic efforts with both startups and larger enterprise clients. He is also working to impact and continue the momentum of the startup ecosystem and serves as a mentor for startups in accelerator programs in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Richmond.

As a job recruiting agency based in Richmond, Lingo Staffing works closely with businesses and associates nationwide from our eleven locations throughout the U.S. Our focus is on administrative, light industrial, and professional jobs. Our services include temporary and temporary-to-hire staffing, direct hire, payrolling and on-site staffing. Any of these services can be customized to your needs.

Derek has worked for large organizations between the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, and KeyBank. After gaining an appreciation for the staffing industry, he joined TalentLaunch, a network of independently operated staffing companies. Derek oversaw the corporate support functions of the then $125M organization as their Chief Operating Officer.

In 2019, he started an EOS practice. Derek has been able to make a meaningful difference by helping business owners get what they want from their business. His unique style brings his own experience as an Integrator of a rapidly growing organization and now as an entrepreneur himself, he sees the complexity that even small organizations can quickly become immersed in.

After five years running his EOS practice, in January 2024, Derek took on another new challenge by joining Lingo Staffing full time as CEO, while maintaining a small EOS practice to continue helping local small businesses. In his role as CEO, Derek has full day to day responsibilities of the entire organization focusing on overall growth and profitability of the company.

Co-founder of Packard Place, RevTechLabs, and RevTechLabs Capital. Member of Charlotte Angel Fund and Venture South investing groups. RevTechLabs also produces the Fintech Generations and Venture 135 Conferences in Charlotte

Daniel Steyn serves as the Chief Development Officer at Sales Xceleration, where he also co-heads the company's Private Equity practice. Before joining Sales Xceleration, Daniel was a key member of the leadership team for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, where he focused on driving market expansion and growth strategies.

Sales Xceleration helps PE Firms and their PortCo's create repeatable, scalable, profitable revenue growth by implementing and executing a defined sales strategy, process and methodology. With over 6k client engagements, and increasing client revenue by an average of 32% in the first year, Sales Xceleration’s results speak for themselves.

Aquil Stinson is a Director at Lafayette Square on the origination team covering the mid-Atlantic. Lafayette Square is a private credit fund providing growth debt capital for middle market companies. Previously, he worked for JP Morgan Chase in their middle market banking group covering Charlotte. He also spent time at Goldman, Sachs in the investment banking group trading fixed income securities for 4.5 years. Aquil is an Entrepeneur and has been an owner/operator for a logistics company.

Eric Thome is the Vice President of Talent and Operations at Broadtree Partners. Eric has a background as an entrepreneur that successfully acquired a company, as well as a consultant and angel investor.

Mr. Watson has over 40 years of experience within the hospitality and lodging industry and has been directly involved in more than 50 hotels as a managing partner and advisor in the development, ownership, and operation of branded hotels primarily with Marriott. He has worked with numerous investors both public and private. Currently, the company sold two hotels in August.

Grace was immersed in the world of entrepreneurship through her family's 4th-generation business, Weisiger Group, from a very young age. Founded in 1926 by her great-grandfather as a Caterpillar dealership, the company has evolved into a diverse holding company with interests in construction and material handling equipment, real estate, and technology. These early experiences, from exploring the equipment yard to interacting with employees and customers, laid the foundation for her future career.

She began forging her own entrepreneurial path with technology company, Bumble Inc., months before the launch in 2014. Throughout her tenure, the company became one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the US, culminating in a successful IPO in 2021 with a $7.6B market cap.

Grace then pursued her MBA at The Wharton School which ultimately led to the creation of Willow Hill, a private investment vehicle. At Willow Hill, Grace brings a unique blend of entrepreneurial heritage and tech industry experience to her role as a dealmaker and business leader.

Dan Woodley is a Managing Director in Cushman & Wakefield’s Charlotte office and focuses on providing real estate consulting, brokerage services, and lease negotiation strategies for corporate office space users.

Dan works with a variety of office space users, including legal, technology and professional service firms, to navigate the real estate landscape in Charlotte and across the United States.

A former college baseball player, Dan’s clients appreciate the competitive edge he brings to each transaction and cite his honesty, process-driven negotiation skills and solution-oriented approach.