EXECUTIVE TEAM

CO-FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN
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Grant Cardone is a New York Times Bestselling Author, the #1 sales trainer in the world, and an internationally renowned speaker on leadership, real estate investing, entrepreneurship, social media, and finance.
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Grant urges his followers and clients to make success their duty, responsibility, obligation, and to rise above outdated, unworkable middle class myths and limitations in order to achieve true freedom for themselves and their families.
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His straight-shooting viewpoints on leadership, the economy, small business, retail sales, employment, and headlines have made him a valuable resource for media seeking commentary and insights on real topics that matter.
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Beginning with his bestselling book The 10X Rule in 2011, Grant then launched the 10X Growth Conference beginning in 2017. This 3-day event has quickly become the world’s largest business and entrepreneur conference. His 3rd annual event drew in over over 35,000 people with some of the most prestigious speakers in the business world.
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Grant created the 10X Growth Conference to be a place where people come to learn strategies from the most successful entrepreneurs in the world to 10X Your Business, 10X Your Income and 10X Your Life. 

CO-FOUNDER, CEO & MANAGING PARTNER
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Brandon Dawson is a scaling and turn around expert, serial entrepreneur, and real estate investor who has a passion for helping business owners and their teams amplify their vision and impact through belief, strategy, execution and team alignment. It is Brandon’s mission is to help business owners and entrepreneurs maximize their value and quality of life through the attainment of personal, professional, and financial goals.

HIGHLIGHTS

Owner/Partner in $100MM in commercial real estate.
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Founded first business at the age of 26, taking the company public at 29 as one of the youngest people to ring the bell on the American Stock Exchange (1998).
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Founded and self-funded Audigy Group with $500K, taking on zero debt, no outside capital, growing annual revenues to over $35M through organic growth.
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Exited company at 77X EBITDA for $151M.
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Distributed 40% of proceeds to equity stakeholder and company employees.
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Co-founded Cardone Ventures with Grant Cardone in 2019 in order to maximize his impact around providing scaling expertise to business owners across multiple industries.
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Private equity, M&A and public company experience.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

2-time Ernst & Young Entrepreneur-of-the-Year Semifinalist.
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5-time INC 500 & 5000 Fastest Growing Company Award recipient.
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2-time INC National Hire Power Award recipient.
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5-time Portland Business Journal Fastest Growing Company Award recipient.
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3-time Oregon Top Workplaces Award recipient.

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EVP, Finance

Jeff Jessen is a financial executive with a diverse experience in all aspects of building businesses. 

He specializes in creating and executing strategies to deliver exponential (10X) growth and maximize the valuation upon exit to companies between $2m and $500m in revenue. 

His experience includes private equity and MNA and spans many industries including healthcare, information technology and software development, professional services, construction, and real estate.   

Jeff joined Cardone Ventures in mid 2020.  Prior to that, he was with MINCA, a portfolio management company with $500m in assets under management, starting in 2009. 

At MINCA, he held various roles, including Chief Financial Officer, Controller, Managing Director, and Board of Directors Member, Treasurer, and Secretary. 

Before MINCA, Jeff was with The Siegfried Group, starting in 2005, where he performed advisory services for clients, including PricewaterhouseCoopers.  Jeff started his career with Moss Adams in their corporate office in Seattle, WA rising to Manager from 2000 to 2004. 

He has a bachelor's degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in Accounting from the University of Washington, Foster School of Business.

EVP & CMO

Buck Wise is a master of marketing and innovation, with experience spanning across media, content development, sales and distribution.

Recognizing Buck’s unparalleled ability to help individuals and business owners attain their personal, professional, and financial goals through digital ingenuity, Cardone Ventures brought Buck on in September 2019. As Chief Marketing Officer.

Buck’s focus is planning, developing, implementing and monitoring the overall business sales and marketing strategy for Cardone Ventures and its clients. 
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Leading global teams responsible for driving innovation for brands such as Google, Starbucks, and Nike, Buck’s career experience as an executive within the world’s largest advertising group (WPP) consistently benefits Cardone Ventures clients.

His dexterity in digital, AI, voice, data and technology partnership consulting, education and connection help business owners solidify their marketing strategies.

Before joining WPP, Buck co-founded his own full-service digital agency whose clients included Chevrolet, Valvoline, Major League Baseball, and the North American International Auto Show. It’s his shared experience as an entrepreneur that makes him a unique asset in his role of CMO.

EVP OF OPERATIONS
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Natalie Workman is a leader and expert in developing teams and people. She has interviewed, hired, trained and managed hundreds of employees; thus, allowing her an expansive knowledge on how to build and scale teams.

Natalie believes in the power of aligning people with business goals through operational and financial integration. She's devoted to showing business owners how to create a culture that engages employees while simultaneously ensuring the business mission, values, and goals are shared and aligned.

The foundation for Natalie's ability to execute is her desire to continually apply her insights gained through both her work experience and formal education. Her studies at  London School of Economics focused on Organizational Development and Macroeconomics.

Since then, Natalie has been building a strong following with the nation's most business savvy executives. A strong prowess for leadership and expertise in communication, process optimization with measurable returns on investment, Natalie's ability to identify and execute strategic business priorities has led to her role as Vice President of Operations for Cardone Ventures.

She also has a podcast, WorkWoman, a no-nonsense guide for ambitious women in the the workplace.

VP, LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
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Heather joined Brandon at Audigy Group in 2009 as a learning and development professional. She helped build and deploy their proprietary sales process, focused on best practice approaches to building customer relationships for effective conversion and quality retention, providing consultative contract services to hundreds of private practice owners and their teams. In 2013, she helped create a shared service model focused on content development and deployment for Audigy Group, Audigy Medical and Stratus Dental.

‍Heather assisted Brandon with organizational development and operations implementation for Stratus Dental from 2015 - 2016. She moved to CallSource in 2017 as the Vice President of Healthcare Sales for the audiology and dental industries and has since rejoined forces with Brandon in 2019 as a Certified Behavioral Consultant, with a specializations in learning, development, leadership and operations.

EVP, STRATEGIC TRANSFORMATION & PARTNERSHIPS
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Dwayne Baker is a leader at helping clients develop and execute strategies to transform their businesses and create long term value for their customers, employees and shareholders.
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He excels at helping our partners assess their current capabilities relative to future aspirations, clarify strategic priorities, and build a concrete action plan to achieve the next level of success.
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Dwayne brings market leading business insights to Cardone Ventures having served over a dozen Fortune 100 companies in technology, healthcare, financial services and consumer products during his 13 years in EY’s business consulting practice.