2022 Speaker Recap
Davis Smith
CEO of Cotopaxi
Davis is the founder and CEO of Cotopaxi, an adventure lifestyle brand with a humanitarian mission, that is backed by Bain Capital. He is a member of the United Nations Foundation's "Global Leadership Council" and a Presidential Leadership Scholar. Davis was Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s “CEO of the Year”, is an EY Entrepreneur of the Year, and previously started Brazil’s "Startup of the Year."
Davis holds an MBA from the Wharton School, an MA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA from Brigham Young University. Davis is an adventurer who has floated down the Amazon on a self-made raft, kayaked from Cuba to Florida, and explored North Korea. Davis grew up in Latin America and currently lives in Utah with his wife Asialene and their four children.
Sam Taggart
CEO of D2D Experts
Sam Taggart, founder of The D2D Association, D2DCon, Speaker, Author of ABC$ of Closing, Podcaster, and CEO of The D2D Experts. Built a multiple-seven-figure consulting firm in under three years. Consulted over 250 businesses nationwide creating, implementing, and growing door-to-door programs. After selling over 400 personal alarm accounts, leading him to be #1 at Vivint, and being the former VP of Solcius, he felt compelled to create something greater. Sam has a strong passion for influencing and leading others.
Sam’s mission is to unify, uplevel, and bring honor and integrity to the D2D industry. He spends a lot of time on empowering youth through his education and training program “Streets Smarts” teaching them how to learn communication and hustle at a young age. Founded two successful tech platforms, Recruit-O-Matic and Vanilla Message and is an avid Real Estate and Crypto Investor.
Sam is full of energy and his motto is “FULL SEND” as he continues to try and challenge himself in all aspects of life: running Ironman marathons, music, traveling, and learning new skills.
Beau Bennett
Director of Operations, Interweave Solutions
He is deeply passionate for building sustainable & impactful businesses which originates from this saying, "having a head for business and a heart for the world." He was the only student from UVU to take an active role at the 2019 United Nations Conference. After building a successful and thriving business in Congo he found his love to helping people all over the world start and grow their own business.
Kamden LaHargoue
CEO Nu Dawn Ecommerce
Started off his career at Utah Valley University. Kamden has had great success in consulting many different businesses and how to scale. He started Nu Dawn Ecom Jan of 2020 after he saw a need from individuals wanted to scale on Amazon & Facebook. He focuses on top-tier listing optimizations, fully managed PPC campaigns, Amazon SEO, info-graphics/product photography, competitor analysis and deep keyword research.
Scott Porter
FOUNDER | CEO OF San Diablo Churros
Scott is a brand experience expert. He is the Founder & CEO of San Diablo Churros, Speaker, Author and Podcaster.
He is on a quest through Tacoincidence of finding the best tacos. This is a unique podcast of doing a Podcast over the love of Tacos.
He is an expert around culture, brand experience, and experience design. We are excited to have him come and speak with us at the conference.
Brenda Anderson
FOUNDER | CEO OF JiPe
Jipe’s founder, Brenda Anderson, is one of the less than five percent of female Utah CEOs. She lives her life unafraid to uncover and execute ideas that change the way we think—while bringing creative ease to the way we live our lives in a world centered on technology. As a strong, ambitious, single mom of two teenage boys, she saw a need for an app that made searching for an entry-level job easy and familiar, especially for the Gen Z population.
Before starting Jipe, Brenda spent nearly ten years at MarketStar in several Marketing and Business Development positions. She was primarily responsible for managing the MarketStar corporate brand and created, developed, and implemented their employer brand strategy.
After surviving and recovering from brain surgery in 2018, Brenda took steps toward her goal of building Jipe one step at a time. Today she is proudly showcasing Jipe to both job seekers and businesses. The reviews are in: Jipe is needed and relevant, and it is creating a stir in the job search industry.
With its innovative interface, Jipe is able to connect employers with strong talent and job seekers with great career opportunities. Brenda has delivered entry-level jobs to the fingertips of entry-level job searchers in an easy, fast, and effective way!
Chari Pack
FOUNDER | CEO OF Persnickty Prints
In 2006, she bought a digital camera and learned photoshop where she created 12×12 scrapbook pages of my boys. Unhappy with the 12×12 prints, I set out to find a way to print better quality at a lower price than Costco, and Persnickety Prints was born.
She was scrappy and resourceful, taking out an auto loan against my car and maxing out credit cards that I would quickly pay off, Persnickety Prints and Persnickety Box are both self-funded, debt-free companies.
Her childhood is documented on VHS tapes that she can’t watch.
She's passionate about storytelling with photos and the archival process necessary for them to last. We convert your digital image and process it like film (yes, we have a darkroom) by embedding the image into silver halide paper (no ink!) that is fade, scratch, and water-resistant, lasting 100+ years. Technology evolves quickly. Like those VHS tapes, I’m not certain we’ll be able to read a JPEG in 20 years.
Erik Little
Founder of The Tribe and The Tribe Corporate
He runs The Tribe and The Tribe Corporate. His production of DJ shows is incredible. He runs events like a professional. Hire him! You won’t regret it!He had events that brought @liljon to perform at Provo Towne Centre and also @cheatcodes He has 1,000’s of people attend his events he puts on.
Here are a few of the events he’s put on.
Freedom Frenzy
UVNY
Terror in the Mall
Summer Kickoff Party
Gatsby Tour
Big Summer Bash
Come and watch him tell his story of how he got started to his pitfalls to his greatest successes! Watch out world he’s just getting started!!
Savannah Ogden
CEO of Sunny Side Stitch Co.
Created in 2021, Sunny Side Stitch Co. specializes in hand embroidery and design. Each product is handmade with happiness and precision. Savannah's positivity to brighten the world and make it a better place radiates. Soon after creating her business Savannah and one of her friends created a Facebook group called "The Art of Embroidery" and grew it too over 10,000 members in little over a year. Savannah firmly believes in community over competition. There is always room for more artists. She is excited to share how changing the narrative in her head has allowed her to find success in business and get her dream car! (A Krypton Green Lotus Elise)
Clayton Stark
CEO of Summit Auto Lab
He also runs a Youtube channel that has over 160,000 subscribers. If you haven't checked out his Youtube channel you should! It's one that you will enjoy watching him.
Also he owns a political nonprofit organization called Automotive Association. Recently they have worked to change the tint laws in Utah. This is very exciting in the car community!
Spencer Arnsten
Founder of Building BETA
Spencer Arntsen Founder of BETA Spencer started his career teaching youth how to find their voice in media production, before falling in love with the punk rock idealism of startups.
He pursued a graduate degree and bully expertise in product and go-to-market strategy validation (basically he talks about new ideas with potential customers).
After years working with a wide array of startups, Spencer has come full circle and is once again teaching youth how to find their voice, this time as they build their first companies.
Bennett Maxwell
CEO and Founder of Dirty Dough
A natural salesman, Bennett Maxwell has been making use of this gift since he was stopped from selling candy bars in elementary school.
Through his life-long entrepreneurial experience, Bennett has learned that success comes from surrounding yourself with other do-ers and is a member of the Forbes Business Council, Apex Executives and The Power Room. You might even say that from a business perspective, Bennett is one tough cookie. Professionally, Bennett has built successful sales teams in various industries while also building his real estate portfolio to now 20+ tenants, leading from the front by earning the title of top sales rep regularly. Co-founding Switch to Solar with his brother allowed Bennett to flex his business building acumen and achieve a successful exit 18 short months later. Knowing that entrepreneurial ventures only succeed with a purpose, and having to work in the business instead of on the business can mask that goal, Bennett believes that building a business should mean eventually working yourself out of a job.
Beyond working with purpose, businesses should also be heart-centered, which is why he bought Dirty Dough, a single location cookie company. Bennett saw the company’s potential to address self-image issues contributing to mental health problems in kids and teens. The name Dirty Dough refers to the inside of the cookie being "dirty" with more goodies and fillings than any other cookie. A Dirty Dough cookie is messy and imperfect, exactly how they were meant to be.
Our cookies embody our life motto––“it’s what on the inside that counts!”. The rapid growth under Bennett’s leadership led to franchising over 100 stores in 8 months, allowing him to found Cookies for a Cause, a non-profit focused on mental health education in K-12 schools. At Dirty Dough, Bennett works to spread the message of proudly owning who you are, imperfections and all. He stands for authenticity and self acceptance, encouraging others to come as they are, knowing that just like these cookies, what really matters is on the inside.
Carolynn Williams
Founder and CEO of Orange Soul
Carolynn Morris is a Keynote Speaker, Communication Consultant, Life Coach, and Travel Connoisseur. She is passionate about authentic connection and believes that all relationships, whether professional or personal, are created, maintained, or destroyed by communication.
After a few career paths in the financial, human capital, and legal industries, she quit her corporate track to focus on empowering the youth to become strong leaders, confident souls, and becoming their own heros.
She studied communications at Utah State University and received her Master’s of Strategic Communication at Westminster.
Keith Huang
Founder and CEO of Sentient Academy
Keith Huang is an enterprise value creator. He leverages his extensive understanding of business operations, accounting, finance, and technology, to drive profit and growth with a focus on executive decision-making processes.
He has developed high-return-yielding solutions across industries from casinos, hotels, restaurants, bars, spa, events, entertainments, golf, health staffing, subprime leasing, SaaS and now EdTech of his own.
