Join us for fireside chats with leaders in emotional intelligence, leadership, and team scholarship, along with alumni and New Haven entrepreneurs, as part of How to Build Your Startup with a Strong Founding Team, a new series from CITY. These fireside chats are open to the public; each chat will be followed by a complementary, cohort-based growth workshop for students working on startups, social ventures, and innovative projects. Learn more about the program here, and join the kickoff event on January 31 to sign up for the workshop cohort.

2/12: Communication, Emotions, and Self-Reflection with Bob Casey (Founder and CEO, YouRenew)

Bob Casey (Yale '11, Morse College) started his first business, YouRenew, with a classmate during his sophomore year. YouRenew began as a platform for consumers and corporate clients to trade in used electronic devices (iPhones, tablets, laptops) and evolved over time into a trade-in platform for wireless retailers to use at point of sale. YouRenew was acquired in 2012 by Clover Technologies, where Bob spent three years as a VP, continuing to grow YouRenew's product offering. Bob then received his MBA from Harvard, and became CEO of Mindflash, a learning management software company. Mindflash was recently acquired by a San Francisco based private equity firm, and Bob is now a partner at the Investment Group of Santa Barbara, where he focuses on investing in enterprise software companies.

2/28: Self-Disclosure and Effective Feedback with Kat Kuzmakis (Founder and CEO, SimplyVital Health)

Kat Kuzmeskas, MPH is the CEO and Co-Founder of SimplyVital Health - builders of the only healthcare-safe Blockchain protocol Health Nexus. Built out of her own needs as a hospital administrator at Yale New Haven, the open-source Health Nexus protocol and all the dApps that can be built on it for free address a growing, pervasive, trillion dollar global market need in healthcare around secure access to healthcare data. Kat’s previous roles at Yale New Haven and the state’s largest community health center in Connecticut focused on leveraging clinical and financial analytics to increase market share, which is why she and her team are positioned to understand the practical implementation of blockchain in healthcare, driving its adoption globally. When you think of fundamental blockchain protocols think: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Health Nexus.

3/7: Using and Losing Influence with Victor Wong (Founder and CEO, Thunder)

Victor Wong is the co-founder of Thunder, an experience cloud for brands to personalize, optimize, and connect ad experiences cross-channel. Victor has served as co-chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Local Committee. He has been a guest lecturer and speaker at NYU, Yale School of Management, DMEXCO, MediaPost and Ad:Tech. He has guest written for Techcrunch, AdAge and Forbes.

3/28: Connecting Across Differences with Heidi Brooks and Laurie Santos (Yale University)

Heidi Brooks teaches and advises on the subject of everyday leadership: the everyday micro-moments of impact that shape our lived experiences. Creating more courageous communities — especially within organizations — is a particular passion of hers. Dr. Brooks specializes in large-scale culture change projects focused on individual and collective leadership effectiveness in organizations. Interpersonal Dynamics, the MBA elective she has taught for 15 years, is one of the courses most in demand at Yale School of Management. Recently, Dr. Brooks pioneered the Everyday Leadership course at SOM, where she first taught the Principles of Everyday Leadership. She has also taught Emotional Intelligence, Power & Politics, Managing Teams and Groups, and Coaching Skills for Managers. Dr. Brooks received her doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. A life-long experiential learner, you can find her as a student in classrooms as far-ranging as improvisational theater and immersion language lessons.

Laurie Santos is Professor of Psychology and Head of Silliman College, Yale University. Expert on human cognition and the cognitive biases that impede better choices. New course, Psychology and the Good Life, teaches students how the science of psychology can provide important hints about how to make wiser choices and live a life that’s happier and more fulfilling. Course recently became Yale’s most popular course in over 300 years, with almost one in four students at Yale enrolled. Course has been featured in numerous news outlets, including the New York Times, NBC Nightly News, the Today Show, GQ Magazine, Slate and O! Magazine. Winner of numerous awards both for science and teaching; recently voted as one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” young minds; named in Time Magazine as a “Leading Campus Celebrity”.

4/8: Risk and Resilience for Founders with Tony Lillios (Founder, Speck Products, and Integral Coach)

Tony Lillios is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded and grew several companies, most notably the international mobile case and accessory company, Speck Products. Speck was one of the fastest growing private companies in the US for several years and was sold to Samsonite in 2014. As an 8-time Ironman and a seasoned open water swimmer, he became the first swimmer to complete a round-trip swim across the deep cold waters of Crater Lake. In 2011, Tony led an expedition across the country of Bhutan, seeking a deeper first-hand account of the country’s policy of Gross National Happiness which is the subject of the film, Crossing Bhutan. Today, Tony brings forth his diverse background as a business and personal Integral Coach who is passionate about bringing transformational tools to larger audiences.