Meet the Entrepreneur Coaches

Heather Griffith Barber

Cofounder, Queen of Wraps; Cofounder, Griffco Graphic Solutions; Founder, Achievement Consultants

Heather is a highly-rated speaker and facilitator with 22+ years of experience as an entrepreneur, business owner, college professor, coach and workshop leader. Heather works with individuals, groups, and organizations to amplify their authenticity and empower them to become a better version of themselves.

Areas of expertise: Keynote speaker, leadership, business growth, marketing, business acquisition

Taylor Bench

Managing Director, Summit Venture Studio

Before founding Summit Venture Studio, Taylor Bench was the Director of the New Ventures team at the Technology Venture and Commercialization (TVC – now PIVOT) office at the University of Utah since 2009. Taylor was responsible for managing the equity portfolio of over 110 startups that spun out of the University as well as the Software Development Center (SDC), the grant writing component of TVC, the Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) program and Get Seeded, a student startup funding program.

Tim Cooley

Founder, TLC Collective

Tim Cooley is the author of the #1 best-selling book on raising capital, The Pitch Deck Book: How to Present Your Business and Secure Investors, creator of the PitchUs.io podcast, and consultant at PointB. He is the former Executive Director for Park City Angels. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies as well as 100s of early-stage companies in marketing, sales, product development, fundraising, and operations.

Sarah Duke

Co-Founder, Acrely Farms

Sarah grew up on a family farm in the Midwest and completed her undergrad in agricultural business. After working in large-scale corn and soybean production, she realized her values did not match those of the chemical and GMO companies. She moved to Utah and became involved in organic vegetable production with the International Rescue Committee’s New Roots Program. In 2019, Utah legalized the production of hemp and Sarah obtained a license to grow. Acrely Farms was born in 2020!

Stephanie Geisler

CEO Coach, Vistage Worldwide

Stephanie Geisler is an executive coach for CEOs and other business leaders in Salt Lake City. She has experience as a company founder, growing a startup to $25M annual revenue in the third year. She has owned four different companies, served as chief operations and customer officer at a local tech company, and led the full-time MBA program at the Eccles School for five years. She has expertise in culture-building, executive coaching, strategic planning, employee retention, change management, and product management across many industries including technology, medical, higher education, direct sales, manufacturing, and marketing.

Josh Hadley

CEO, Hadley Designs

Josh Hadley is the founder and CEO of an 8 figure e-commerce business. His career began in a leadership development program at American Airlines. While Josh was employed at American Airlines, he and his wife started a custom wedding invitation business that they worked on together in the evenings. Since then, their business has pivoted into a stationery empire with over 1,300 products. Josh loves working together with his wife in their business as they raise their 3 children.

Chad Jardine

CEO and Founding Partner, CMO Zen

Chad Jardine is the CEO/Founding Partner at CMO Zen, a fractional CMO firm specializing in early-stage companies. He has spent the past 20 years as a marketing executive and CEO building and growing micro-cap companies. Along the way, he earned a BFA from BYU and an MBA from the U of U. He has also been a mentor for startups at VentureCapital.org and Boom Startup. He teaches FINAN 6300 and 6310, two graduate courses in venture capital in the business school at the U.

Alexander Khan

Owner, Coded; Owner, Salt Lake Golf Lounge

Alex Khan is a proud University of Utah alum (’10-’15) and Salt Lake City native. As an early entrepreneurship program student and former university employee, Alex has ventured into entrepreneurship as the owner of Salt Lake Golf Lounge and Coded. Salt Lake Golf Lounge offers a cutting-edge indoor golf experience, while Coded empowers K-12 students with coding skills and provides tech solutions for K-12 schools and businesses.

Areas of expertise: Business development, strategic partnerships, sales management

Katy Luxem

Founder and CEO, Big Dill Pickleball Co.

Katy Luxem has more than 15 years’ experience with eCommerce, as both an Amazon corporate employee in the US and UK and an Amazon consultant (including Panasonic, Honeywell, and Ocean Spray). She founded Big Dill Pickleball Co., a pickleball paddle and gear company focused on the fun, inclusive elements of America’s fastest-growing sport. Her business has been featured in Forbes, The New York Times, USA Today, and others. She is a graduate of the Master of Business Creation at the University of Utah.

Chuck Sharp

CEO Coach, Sharp Analytics

I’ve founded and sold three businesses and currently starting my forth. As Dynata Managing director, I lead a large, global team of market research professionals. As Sharpr founder/CEO, I led the inception to purchase. As Sharp Analytics founder/CEO, I led the inception to purchase. As ValueMags cofounder, I led the inception to exit. I have three crazy/fun kids, an amazing wife, and a love of backcountry skiing and trail running.

Lesli Shooter

Performance & Wellbeing Coach, Exercise & Sports Scientist, Consultant, Tuned to Rise

Lesli is a performance & wellbeing coach, exercise & sports scientist, and consultant with Tuned to Rise. Previously, Lesli has worked with the United States Ski and Snowboard Team, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and Red Bull High Performance helping athletes and coaches achieve their goals. Lesli incorporates mental fitness training and personalizes her coaching to empower others toward discovering their unique, optimal performance and wellbeing.

Areas of expertise: Performance and wellbeing coaching, mental fitness training, project strategy and implementation, sport science testing, physiological monitoring, data analysis and interpretation, training and recovery program design, technical physiology reporting, coordination with stakeholders, and performance physiology application in real world settings

Dylan Turner

Co-Founder and CPO, Doxy.me

Dylan Turner is a co-founder and Head of Product for a global telemedicine called doxy.me. Doxy.me has over 1,000,000 healthcare providers signed up for the service, and these providers have seen over 150 million patients on the platform. Dylan was responsible for scaling the product and operations to support the product over the past 9 years. It has been a great sense of pride to know doxy.me has helped so many people during the global pandemic.

Brent Uberty

Managing Director, BW Productions; CEO, Cinema Forte

Brent started in the media industry in 2013 because he was passionate about telling stories that matter. For the last decade he has been sculpting stories through a lens and developing longstanding relationships with clients in the nonprofit, education, and business sectors. Brent is passionate about small business, serves on multiple community boards, and advocates for the film and video industry to be more inclusive while training the next generation of creative.

Areas of expertise: Video production, photography, marketing, small business

Josh Webber

Co-Founder, Big Red Jelly

“Only entropy comes easy” – Anton Chekhov. In short, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction from building something long-lasting and valuable with people I love. Big Red Jelly represents a team, product, and bundle of world-class services that we built together, and I enjoy seeing it grow and provide value to fellow business owners.

Morgan Williams

CEO, Blendyd Studios

Morgan Williams is CEO of Blendyd Studios, a software development firm revolutionizing driver hiring in the trucking industry. From published genomics researcher, to science teacher, to merchandising analyst, and national education reinvention leader, Morgan’s diverse career has been grounded in disrupting conventional troupes and leading complex business transformations. She is also a philanthropist, speaker, author, and member of the SLC Chamber Board of Governors.