CEO EXPERIENCE SERIES
THE CEO EXPERIENCE SERIES IS AN INVITATION ONLY GATHERING IN SANTA BARBARA, WHERE WE INTERVIEW THE AREA’S MOST ACCOMPLISHED, THOUGHTFUL, HUMBLE, AND EXPERIENCED LEADERS.
Our goal is to offer the Santa Barbara business community a place to learn from the best organization leaders around. We want to help distill the kind of wisdom that you can only get from those that have gone through the tough quest of building a successful business.
We host leadership chats about every two months at the Impact Hub Santa Barbara (event information below). The gatherings offer rich learning opportunities as well as a chance to catch up with old friends and meet some new people.
This is not an event for business leaders looking for sunny views of entrepreneurship and how it’s all about following your passion. The CEO Leadership Series meets the need of executives and aspiring entrepreneurs by sharing perspectives that are battle hardened and applicable to the challenges they face. For our audience, inspiration comes from relating to the sacrifices and the ups-and-downs behind every “success story.”
WHO WE ARE
The CEO Experience Series interviews are led by Kit Cooper, an entrepreneur who now calls Santa Barbara home.
Kit has spent the last fifteen years of his career working with private equity sponsors to build great companies, both as a founder & ceo and as a managing partner at Newco Talent.
Kit brings an operator's perspective to search, helping Newco Talent calibrate quickly and empathize better with investors and executives. Through a top heavy approach to search, Newco Talent effectively de-risks operating plans for sponsors and portfolio companies through a focus on executive team build out.
Kit Cooper | LinkedIn
Kit co-founded Hispanic Teleservices Corporation when he was 26. He and his business partner Alberto Fernandez started the company while earning their MBAs at Georgetown. They raised private equity capital from JP Morgan Partners and CVC Latin America and grew this "press 2 for Spanish" niche leader into a 3,000 employee business, eventually selling the company to Carlyle Group in 2005.
In 2008, he founded a 501c3 called the Quality of Life Project, which provides life best practices content to people around the world. Kit has interviewed well-known folks like Richard Branson, Kelly Slater, Gary Player, Tony Hsieh and Tom Skerritt, as well as less-known but equally interesting individuals like Solly Amon, who runs a popular fish market in Seattle.
In 2010, Kit founded Granada Corp, a leading virtual customer support business where he served as CEO and non-executive chairman. Granada was sold in December 2017.
Today, Kit is Managing Partner at Newco Talent, a PE-focused talent firm driving value creation across the entire investment cycle. The firm introduces investors and CEOs to five star executives who execute on deal origination, due diligence, and operating plan execution initiatives. As former operators, Newco Talent calibrates quickly and bring a top heavy approach to research, executive outreach, executive engagement and project management.
Our events are generously underwritten by the following leading providers in the central coast region
Bartlett Pringle & Wolf, American Riviera Bank, Alamar Capital, and Fauver, Large, Archbald & Spray, LLP.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Ivan is an investor, entrepreneur and operator with unique domain expertise in start up scaling, machine learning and software product development. He spends his time these days as a venture capital investor and occasionally as operator, having stepped into an interim CEO role at a portfolio company since joining ScOp VC. Earlier in his career, Ivan spent 10 years overseeing engineering at Graphiq, a Santa Barbara-based software business, which brought to market some of the most innovative machine learning software, leading to a company sale Amazon. At Graphiq they developed some of the most advanced natural language generation and understanding technology and their system now powers the majority of Alexa’s interaction capabilities. He stayed on a GM at Amazon where he continued to work on groundbreaking natural language technologies. Besides driving value creation at portfolio companies, Ivan spends a lot of time thinking about how to turn complex data into rich experiences/products. Ivan is a thought leader in AI and brings fresh perspectives on the applications and impacts we will encounter in the future. Originally from Argentina, Ivan now calls Santa Barbara home.
PAST EVENTS
Click on CEO for details.
