After his retirement from the game, Shaq went into real estate. His business ventures centered primarily in Orlando, Florida, where his projects involve housing development to assist homeowners under the threat of foreclosure. Still a sports icon even after the peak of his career he swanned, Shaq serves as a member of the advisory board for Tout Industries, based in San Francisco, and continues to see to his various sports and business interests.
He's more known throughout the world as the big, hulking giant whose 19-year career as a professional basketball player was one of the most highlighted in sports history. But Shaquille O'Neal, more known just as Shaq, was playing basketball early, and was drafted into the NBA in 1992. Throughout his heyday, Shaq garnered accolades for his performance on the court and in addition, released four rap albums, starred in several films and made his own reality television show. He was also featured on numerous magazine covers and video games.
After his retirement from the game, Shaq went into real estate. His business ventures centered primarily in Orlando, Florida, where his projects involve housing development to assist homeowners under the threat of foreclosure. Still a sports icon even after the peak of his career he swanned, Shaq serves as a member of the advisory board for Tout Industries, based in San Francisco, and continues to see to his various sports and business interests.
0 Comments
A respected New York area attorney, Theodore H. Friedman has more than three decades of experience in the personal injury trial law realm. He has tried more than 200 jury cases and has served counsel in more than 80 published opinions. Mr. Friedman has notably argued cases before the United States Supreme Court and has enjoyed success in the federal court of appeals.
A native New Yorker, Mr. Friedman attended the highly competitive Bronx High School of Science. He achieved an academic scholarship to the University of Michigan and worked his way through college higher. He took a year off from his studies to volunteer on a kibbutz in Israel’s North Galilee, gaining a first-hand perspective on politics and culture of the region. Earning a B.A. in Economics with honors in 1953, Theodore H. Friedman began his career with Goldman Sachs’ arbitrage department. He subsequently earned a James Ames Scholarship to attend Harvard Law School. Mr. Friedman obtained his J.D. in 1956 and pursued prominent trial work involving representation of seamen seeking damages under the Jones Act for injuries sustained while working as crew. Prior to establishing his own private practice, Friedman was a Partner and trial attorney with the prominent New York firm Phillips Nizer, LLP, for a decade. Since the 1970s, he has tried a number of high-profile cases, including representing clients such as the Jimi Hendrix estate, actor George C. Scott, and boxing legend Muhammad Ali. Mr. Friedman has been tried a number of precedent-setting cases, including Nallan v. Helmsley-Spear, Inc. (50 NY2d 507), which established rules pertaining to commercial landlord liability in New York City. Most business success stories begin with an idea, but in this case, the idea was already there. Someone just had to come and make things better. That’s what George Sombonos did with his father’s restaurant in South Africa. He took something that was already enjoying a fair amount of success and made it much better.
Sombonos began working at Dairy Den, which was his father’s restaurant located in Ridgeway, just south of South Africa’s largest city, Johannesburg. He worked there for years earning only very little, but gaining a lot of knowledge and experience in running a restaurant. He flew to the United States in 1972 and that provided the spark for him to want to make his father’s business better. He tasted burgers, chicken and all sorts of fast food menu items looking for that perfect flavor they were missing out on in South Africa. He found what he was looking for in a restaurant that served chicken in Texas. It took a bit of convincing, but the restaurant-owner sold his recipe to Sombonos which made its way to Dairy Den’s kitchen without his father knowing it. This recipe change had a positive impact on the store’s sales, but instead of being rewarded by his father for his initiative, he was even reprimanded. Dairy Den faced competition in the mid-70s in the form of Kentucky Fried Chicken which had finally planted roots in South Africa. Though the father and son team did not see eye to eye on how to run the business, they were able to make it work until the older Sombonos died in 1980. The following year, George Sombonos formed a new company. One of his waiters suggested the name Chicken Licken, and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history. Today, Chicken Licken is the 2nd largest brand in South Africa’s fast food industry. Leveraging more than two decades of military and commercial aviation experience, David Pflieger has led Air Pacific Ltd. as CEO & Managing Director since 2010. Mr. Pflieger accepted his current role with a mandate of cutting corporate costs, revitalizing management, and upgrading fleet capacities. He has engineered a corporate turnaround that has expanded year-over-year revenue by seven percent, while cutting annual costs by eight percent (despite a nearly 30 percent increase in fuel costs). The net result has been more stable overall corporate performance and a significant increase in end-of-year cash balance.
A key aspect of David Pflieger’s restructuring efforts with Air Pacific Ltd. and its subsidiary Pacific Sun has involved developing a new management team. He and his team worked to improve operational efficiency, notably enhancing on-time performance by 15 percent year-over-year. The company’s on-time flight record today is higher than that of competitors Jetstar and Virgin Australia. Mr. Pflieger has also engaged with Air Pacific Ltd. in improving customer satisfaction through launch of a dedicated Guest Service Department. Areas of customer-service focus encompass employee training, website capacities, catering, mishandled baggage, and call center performance. A particular accomplishment has been the seamless transition to a new reservations system, avoiding costly operations interruption. David Pflieger’s sustained efforts on behalf of Fiji’s national carrier have tied him closely to the community he serves. He notably fulfills a government-appointed as Chairman of Tourism Fiji, the nation’s official tourism board. If Glu Mobile has one goal, that would be to make your device glued to your hand because of their great apps and games. Glu Mobile is among the most popular and successful application developing companies today, targeting all types of mobile gamers. They describe themselves as a leading global publisher and developer of “freemium” games for tablets and smartphones of different operating systems. Glu’s portfolio of worth-noting games includes Gun Bros, Samurai vs Zombies, ToyShop Adventures, Blood and Glory, among many others.
Glu was founded in 2001 and has its headquarters in San Francisco, with major offices in Canada, Brazil, China, and Russia. It is currently led by CEO Niccolo de Masi who has a strong background in senior management in the mobile content and gaming industry. Since their games can be downloaded, used and played for free, Glu makes money out of in-app purchases as well as in-game advertising, and various offers. Richard A. Clarke, current chairman of Good Harbor Consulting, LLC, has more credentials to be noted than leading this trusted corporate risk management and strategic planning firm. As one of the pioneers of the information security industry, Clarke deserves to be known further and see why he should be thanked for.
Richard Clarke formerly served as special adviser on cybersecurity to the president of the United States. He has worked for the federal government for more than 30 years, making him become known as the czar of federal cybersecurity. Indeed, he has had a long-spanning career in the federal government, serving democratic and republican administrations. In 2003, this three-decade career came to an end and he faced controversies as he stood before the 9/11 Commission to testify and let the government know of his professional opinions on the incident that shook the whole world. He has also expressed his opinions about the 9/11 tragedy through his book, “Against All Enemies”, criticizing the Bush administration about the war in Iraq which is known to have triggered the tragedy. Furthermore, he spent his last year in the Bush administration as the special adviser for cybersecurity, doing what he could do best to stop what he coined as the “digital Pearl Harbor”. Because of his notable works in cybersecurity both in public and private sectors, he has been considered as one of the earliest pioneers in the said industry and still continues to further advancements and innovations. Currently, as managing partner of Good Harbor Consulting, he helps clients to providing professional advices on a wide range of issues including corporate security risk management, counterterrorism, and information security technology, among others. As he puts it, if one spends more money on coffee than IT security, then he will be hacked -- and he even deserves to be hacked. Tata Motors Ltd. is India’s leading automobile manufacturing company, which has several acquisitions, joint ventures, and its own automobile models. Tata Motors is also known as the first Indian automobile company to be listed in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Over the years, Tata Motors has proven that it can live up to international standards with its acquisitions. It acquired 21% stake of the Spanish Hispano Carrocera in 2005, as well as the second largest truck dealer of Korea, Daewoo Commercial Vehicles Company, the year before that.
One of Tata Motors’ most notable achievements is the Tata Nano, which has been dubbed as the “People’s Car” and the world’s cheapest car. The compact car’s biggest selling point is its extremely affordable price. Although Tata has been hounded by controversies surrounding the Nano, it has continued to manufacture the compact car in different versions (with slight modifications for each). In fact, Tata Motors recently announced that it will be selling the Tata Nano in Indonesia by 2013. There seems to be no slowing down for Tata Motors. International Business Times announced that Tata Motors stocks just went up by 1.95% in pre-market trading. Bottle Rocket is a firm that develops apps for various platforms – iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Android. It was founded by Calvin Carter in 2008. In the 3 years of its existence, Bottle Rocket was able to gain revenue of $6.1 million. According to Carter, Bottle Rocket started out with only 9 apps and without seed capital.
Bottle Rocket’s clients include big names like Discovery Channel, Disney, ESPN, Spin Magazine, History Channel, Food Network, Philips, and PBS. Discovery HD was developed by Bottle Rocket so that users can watch the shows of Discovery Channel in HD glory through their iPad. Apple has already recognized Bottle Rocket three times in the iPad Hall of Fame for three times already for the following – The Civil War Today, SPIN Play, and NPR. NPR also gained recognition as People’s Voice Winner in The Webby Awards by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Bottle Rocket made its way to number three in Fast Tech’s fastest growing technology companies of 2012. Inc. Magazine also put Bottle Rocket in number 62 of the 2012 Inc. 500 list, given their sales growth of 4,064% in three years. Bottle Rocket’s growth in the industry is pretty impressive, and Carter credits this to the focus of Bottle Rocket. They make it clear that they design and develop mobile apps, not full-blown PC apps. This allows them to maximize the full potential of their app developers. It is also this focus that ensures that the little details others overlook are fixed and put into place. In this age, mobile phones and tablets are tools for convenience and function. But Bottle Rocket sees more than that in these gadgets. Mobile phones and tablets create and define lifestyles through the apps that are installed in them. Bottle Rocket has developed more than 80 apps for iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Android. Yes To, Inc. produces various haircare, skincare, and other personal products, all of which are made of natural ingredients. It was founded in 2006 by Ido Leffler and his good friend Lance Kalish. According to Leffler, he was compelled to start his own line of natural products because he wanted inject fun in organic products that are normally considered dull. Yes To was launched in Israel with just 6 products in 16 stores. It eventually expanded to the United States. Now, Yes To is enjoying a steady following in various parts of the globe.
Yes To has four brands – Yes to Carrots, Yes to Cucumbers, Yes to Tomatoes, and Yes to Blueberries. Each brand addresses a specific set of skin problems but one thing is for sure – all of their products are free of parabens, SLS, and petroleum. Yes to Carrots Intense Repair Hand Cream bagged the “Body Bests” award of Natural Health in 2011. All their brands have won at least one award for different products. Yes To, Inc. distributes their products to more than 16,000 stores around the globe, in at least 29 countries. Journelle was founded by Claire Chambers, who is also the current CEO of the company. Chambers had already built a successful career in business consulting but she decided to leave all of that to concentrate on her passion and make a business out of it – lingerie.
Journelle carries more than 50 brands of lingerie in their stores – Elle Macpherson Intimates, Hanky Panky, Pluck a Timpa, etc. Journelle comes from the French word “journellement”, the English equivalent word of which is “daily”. That’s what Journelle is all about. Lingerie is a daily female commodity but in Journelle, shopping for lingerie is an enjoyable experience. Not only are they eye candy pieces, they are also designed for utmost comfort. Journelle is not your typical lingerie section of the department store. The lighting, furniture, color scheme, and the merchandise are all arranged in such a way that it looks like every bit of a manicured parlor or even a cozy dressing room. In one interview by Forbes, Chambers revealed that there was a lot of work to be done even if she had a strong background and a wide network at her disposal. However, she was quick to add that it took almost a year of polishing before she could materialize Journelle. She credits aggressive but intelligent networking for her success, which also entailed hearing out criticisms from some of her contacts. Apparel Magazine recently awarded the Top Innovators award to Journelle. It picked Journelle as a recipient for their use of advanced IT solutions to keep up with the expansion of the company. Journelle continues to expand, as more women seek its extensive selection of lingerie and customer care handled by no less than well-trained experts. In fact, founder and CEO Chambers frequently lends her services as an expert in popular fashion literature like InStyle and Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. |