2021 Dealmakers Award Winners

Ilya has changed the way people buy, sell and think about commercial insurance. A startup enthusiast and insurtech pioneer, he is the founder and CEO of Bold Penguin, a rapidly growing tech company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. He started his career on the front lines as an agent and has been on a mission to upgrade the industry through one successful startup after another.

Sheri Chaney Jones is co-founder and CEO of SureImpact and founder of Measurement Resources Company. Sheri’s passion is helping social sector organizations use data to change actions, outcomes and lives. Sheri is the author of the award-winning book, Impact & Excellence published by Jossey-Bass. Sheri has a M.A. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Central Michigan University and a B.S. from The Ohio State University.

As the former CEO of Updox, Mike has a successful track record in helping organizations use technology to transform the way healthcare is delivered. With more than 30 years of leadership with multiple, fast-paced software, behavioral health and HIT companies, he’s fueled by learning about new businesses and partnering with dedicated, passionate people to create sustainable growth.

Paul is the Founder & CEO of Physna. Physna identifies, searches and analyzes physical items and 3D models similarly to how Google searches text. A serial tech entrepreneur with a unique background, Powers is the recipient of many awards including Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2019, and is regularly featured in national and international news discussing the coming reality-based software revolution.

Jeff successfully built more than 10 companies throughout his career – starting in middle school, continuing through college and even while holding a highly-prominent position at a Fortune 100 company. Before graduating from high school, Jeff had already built and launched his first software company: a video platform that grew to more than 100,000 customers. He found additional early success leading his next venture, an online service that monitored and tracked Al-Qaeda communications on the dark web.

Prior to forming Aware, Jeff was most recently responsible for leading all enterprise collaboration at Nationwide Insurance, where he was charged with digitally transforming the way more than 35,000 Nationwide employees do business. His work was also recognized by Forbes, CIO Magazine, Fortune, the Harvard Business Review, Gartner and the Wall Street Journal.

David has more than 45 years of experience in research and development of engines and cooling machines based on the Stirling principle. In this field, he has established himself as preeminent with many publications including a definitive book. David was solicited and brought to the United States in 1979 to work on automotive Stirling engines capable of operating on different fuels. In 1981 he was recruited by Sunpower Inc., in Athens, Ohio to work on a novel version of the Stirling engine. At Sunpower he became Chief Engineer and operated in this capacity until 1995 when he spun off Global Cooling Inc. originally as an IP licensing company. In 2008, David decided to reconstitute Global Cooling as a manufacturer of deep temperature freezers using the Stirling principle. As CTO, David is responsible for maintaining the Company’s intellectual property and technical excellence. In this regard, Global Cooling owns more than 70 patents. In September 2018, David delivered the keynote speech at the International Stirling Engine Conference in Taiwan.