Archives: Famous Phis

Dwayne Andreas

Dwayne Orville Andreas is one of the most prominent political campaign donors in the United States, having contributed millions of dollars to Democratic and Republican candidates alike. For twenty-five years, he was in the leadership of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the largest processor of farm commodities in the United States, where he made his fortune.

Andreas worked for a modest, family-owned food-processing firm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. When Cargill bought the Cedar Rapids facility in 1945, Andreas joined the commodity firm, eventually becoming a vice president. Andreas resigned from Cargill in 1952, and continued in the vegetable oil business, eventually as an executive of the Grain Terminal Association.

In 1971 Andreas became Chief Executive Officer of ADM, and is credited with transforming the firm into an industrial powerhouse.

Robert Apatoff

Rob Apatoff has more than 30 years of experience in executive management, strategy, ecommerce and consumer marketing, having worked in diverse industries that include consumer packaged goods, beverage, healthcare, personal lines insurance, as well as floral and gifting.

After more than eight years leading FTD Companies worldwide, Rob informed the board last fall that he would be stepping down as President and CEO at the beginning of 2017. At FTD, he engineered the 2014 acquisition of Provide Commerce from Liberty Interactive, creating the preeminent global floral and gifting company.  The acquisition doubled company revenue to $1.2B while continuing to grow FTD’s industry-leading profitability. Prior to the acquisition, Rob also led the spin of FTD from parent company United Online, making FTD a separate public company in 2013 (NASDAQ/FTD).  Rob expanded FTD’s international presence, strengthened the grip on FTD trademarks worldwide for the first time in 40 years and continued to grow profitability through expansion into new channels and incorporating better operational leverage and practices.

Throughout his career, he has a consistent history of helping to lead companies through tough, competitive markets including the “beer wars” in the ’80s while at Anheuser-Busch, the “shoe wars “in the ’90s while at Reebok, the “insurance wars” in the early 2000s while CMO at Allstate and the e-commerce floral and gift wars while President and CEO of FTD Companies.  In his roles as head of marketing, and later as President and CEO – he forged a consistent track record of capturing consumer imagination and building product demand through sharp customer insights, product and services innovation and creative, integrated marketing.  Rob has been able to optimize enterprise economics, even in the toughest commoditized businesses.  Most importantly, he has used product innovation and differentiation to swim upstream, increasing unit AOVs when competitors continued to drop prices as a big part of their business strategy.  In each role he has built high-performing teams that have been able to achieve success in very competitive industries.

Prior to FTD, Rob served as President and CEO of Rand McNally & Company, after being recruited by private equity group Leonard Green and Partners and successfully led a turn-around of this troubled commercial asset, including modernizing its product portfolio and expanding the company further into digital, mass merchants, and education. In the mass market, Rand McNally doubled its revenue and received unprecedented visibility and support through Rob’s personal involvement with executive management at the largest mass retailers. Rob led the successful sale of Rand for LG&P prior to his departure.

Before joining Rand McNally, Rob was recruited to be the first Chief Marketing Officer in the Allstate Corporation’s history. At Allstate, he directed the company to pursue a more customer-focused strategic path, greatly expanded their strategic marketing to better compete in what had become an ultra-competitive industry, and created Allstate’s first eCRM platform to view Allstate’s customers across the entire portfolio of insurance and financial services. Prior to Allstate, Rob served as Senior Vice President of Marketing for healthcare leader Aetna, Inc.  Rob was instrumental in the Aetna’s acquisition of US Healthcare which accelerated Aetna’s efforts to build a larger managed care footprint. This acquisition allowed Aetna to better communicate the benefits of proactively managed patient care for healthier outcomes and ultimately lower cost to the patient.

Rob began his career in marketing at Quaker Oats, where he worked on a variety of businesses including Quaker Oats, cereals, and pet foods. He was recruited to Anheuser Busch and was quickly promoted to department head of the company’s National Retail Marketing group.  In this role, Rob spearheaded initiatives across all beer brands and new products including the Bud Bowl, Spuds Mackenzie and the Budweiser 3 on 3 tournament, helping build Anheuser Busch’s market share to record levels during his tenure.  Rob was then recruited to Reebok International where, as VP of Marketing, he directed the marketing launch of Reebok’s entry into men’s performance athletics and the launch of the iconic Reebok. Rob left Reebok to join Roy Disney’s Shamrock Partners to help in their turnaround of LA Gear, where he helped create and introduce one of the other enormous successes in the shoe industry, Kids Lighted Shoes.

Rob has served on several public and private Boards, including FTD Companies, Rand McNally, Inc, and Intercontinental Art.  He has also served on the Board of Trustees of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise –now ENACTUS) and the Board of Visitors for DePauw University, his alma mater.  Rob has also been asked to speak on multiple occasions to the graduate schools at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.

Marco Arment

Arment worked as lead developer and chief technology officer (CTO) of the Tumblr microblogging platform and social networking website from its inception in February 2007 until September 2010, when he left to concentrate fully on Instapaper, a tool for saving web pages to read later. Arment announced on April 25, 2013, that he had sold the controlling interest in Instapaper to Betaworks.

Between November 2010 and December 2012, Arment hosted a podcast, Build and Analyze, with Dan Benjamin on 5by5 Studios. More recently, he has hosted two podcasts, Neutral and Accidental Tech Podcast, with John Siracusa and Casey Liss. He also hosts Top Four with his wife Tiffany Arment and Under the Radar with David Smith, both on Relay FM.

In October 2012, Arment released The Magazine, an electronic, biweekly publication. In May 2013, one month after the sale of Instapaper, Arment announced he was selling The Magazine to Glenn Fleishman, its editor.

In July 2013, Marco released Bugshot; an application to quickly mark up screenshots so that beta testers of Overcast could easily send him bug reports. Marco sold Bugshot to Lickability and the app was renamed to Pinpoint.

In July 2014, Arment released Overcast, a podcast application for iOS. The application had been in development since the fall of 2012, and was first publicly announced at the XOXO Festival in October 2013. In 2014 Marco invested $50,000 into Gimlet Media.

On September 16, 2015, Arment released Peace, a Safari content blocker for iOS 9 using the Ghostery database. After Peace had held the top spot on the App Store’s list of paid apps for 36 hours, Arment pulled it from the App Store, stating he didn’t “feel good” with its resounding success. He elaborated, “While [ad blockers] do benefit a ton of people in major ways, they also hurt some, including many who don’t deserve the hit.”

His blog, which he began in December 2006, averages over 500,000 page views per month as of July 2014.

Charlie Bachman

Charles William “Charlie” Bachman III is an American computer scientist, who spent his entire career as an industrial researcher, developer, and manager rather than in academia.

Bachman is particularly known for his work in the early development of database management systems. His techniques of layered architecture include his namesake Bachman diagrams.

Charlie was presented the National Medal of Honor Technology by Barack Obama in November 2014 and the ACM Turing Award in November 1973.

Milo Brisco

Oklahoma native Brisco attended the University of Oklahoma, joined the Jersey organization in Columbia in 1935, and served in a number of management positions with International Petroleum Company Ltd. in Columbia and Peru.

In 1957 he was elected vice president of International Petroleum and transferred to Florida, where he eventually became president. He then moved to the board Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, becoming president of that organization in 1969. Brisco served as director of the American Petroleum Institute, the Economic Development Council of New York, and the Council for Financial Aid to Education. He also served on the advisory committee on business programs of the Brookings Institution and as a trustee of the University of Miami, Florida and received the Distinguished American Award from St. Gregory’s College in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

Macon Brock Jr.

Macon Brock Jr. was Dollar Tree Inc.’s chairman and their co-founder. He parlayed a five-and-dime store into a mega-retailer with a market cap of $7.1 billion.

Mr. Brock Jr., co-founded Dollar Tree Inc. (Dollar Tree Stores Inc.) in 1986 and has been its Chairman since September 2001. He has also served as its Chief Executive Officer from 1993 to 2003 and President from 1986 to 2001. Mr. Brock directs the overall operations of Dollar Tree.

Otto Budig

Otto Budig Jr., served as the President of Bunco Group Inc., a business specializing in transportation, real estate and equipment. In 1994, Otto created the Otto M. Budig Family Foundation, which has since donated $25 million to arts organizations, including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

In 2009, Otto was awarded the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from his Alma Mater, University of Cincinnati.

Ken Calwell

Ken C. Calwell has been the Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of Papa Murphy’s Holdings, Inc. since December 2011. Mr. Calwell has been the President of Papa Murphy’s International, LLC (formerly Papa Murphy’s International Inc.) since June 6, 2011 and also its Chief Executive Officer since December 31, 2011.

Mr. Calwell served as the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Food Innovation Officer of Wendy’s International, Inc., a public company, from July 2008 to June 2011. Mr. Calwell served as an Executive Vice President of Build the Brand at Dominos Pizza Inc., from July 2001 to May 2008 and served as its Chief Marketing Officer until May 2008. Before joining Domino’s Pizza, Inc., Mr. Calwell served as the Vice President of New Product Development at Wendy’s International, Inc. from October 1998 to June 2001. He served as Executive Vice President of Research & Development at Domino’s Pizza.

He joined Papa Murphy’s with over 20 years of leadership experience at large quick service restaurant chains. He served as the Chief Marketing Officer of Wendy’s International where he was accountable for all Brand Marketing, Advertising, New Product Development, Pricing, Field Marketing, and Research and Development. Mr. Calwell served as Vice President of New Product Marketing, Research & Testing of Wendy’s International Inc. from 1998 to June 2001. From 1996 to 1998, Mr. Calwell served as a Senior Director of Marketing–food service for the Frito Lay division of PepsiCo Inc. and from 1988 to 1996, he served in various marketing positions for PepsiCo’s Pizza Hut division, including Senior Director of Marketing from 1995 to 1996 and The Pillsbury Company.

Paul Clark

Mr. Paul Clark was a champion of the development of the agency system in insurance and fostered high standards of performance in all sections of the business.

As a founder of the American College of Life Underwriters and a trustee and officer during its entire 41-year existence, he exercised profound influence in developing professionalism in life insurance. He was instrumental in encouraging Solomon S. Huebner to author the landmark text, Life Insurance.

Recognized as one of the most successful salesmen and general agents in the history of life insurance, Paul Clark rose from agent to chairman of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company in Massachusetts during a life-long career.

Jim Clifton

Jim Clifton is Chairman and CEO of Gallup. Clifton has served as CEO of Gallup, a company based on consulting and analytics, since 1988.

Jim is the author of The Coming Jobs War, co-author of Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder and the creator of “The Gallup Microeconomic Path”, a framework of economics used to increase performance in the workplace.