George Naddaff
George, a serial entrepreneur and recognized visionary, is considered by many to be the Guru of Franchising in America. Mr. Naddaff is frequently featured in leading business publications such as Forbes, Success, Entrepreneur, and The Wall Street Journal.
In 1988, George founded, and until 1993 served as Chairman and CEO of New Boston Chicken, Inc. ("Boston Chicken"), one of the first companies to operate and franchise home meal replacement restaurants specializing in rotisserie-roasted chicken. In 1992, he sold the company to a group of Blockbuster Video executives, and shared in its record setting IPO (143% first-day increase) in 1993. The company is now known as Boston Market.
In addition to Boston Chicken, George has founded several other successful concepts including Mulberry Child Care Centers, which had over 90 company-owned centers when it was sold to Kindercare. George also founded Living and Learning Schools, which operated more than 50 upscale childcare facilities and was sold to Kindercare in 1980. In addition, he founded VR Business Brokers, the nation's largest business brokerage franchise with over 350 offices, which was acquired in 1986 by Christie's, LLP London. In 1984, as director and investor in Sylvan Learning Centers, George helped launch their franchising effort which today has over 900 units. As a principal in Adventures in Advertising, George assisted ownership in the launch of their franchise program which was integral to the sale of the business to Quick Print.
George presents annually to the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) MIT Entrepreneurial Master's Program and he received an all-time high rating of 9.82 of his 22 consecutive year participation. In 2010, he was awarded an honorary recognition for this service.
Today, George is actively involved in exploring new opportunities and speaking engagements, while he works with startups.
Paul Tannenbaum
During his career, Paul has served as CEO, COO and CFO of several private entrepreneurial companies in various industries. In his endeavors, he built loyal, hard-working teams. His experience includes turnaround management, crisis situations, private and bank funding and a public underwriting. During the past 20 years he has been a founder, Director, the President and Chief Executive of the Utility Marketing Corporation (Highline Products) where he was responsible for the overall Company operations with all senior managers and functional disciplines reporting to him-sales, finance, manufacturing, and customer service. The company manufactures fiberglass, polymer concrete, polypropylene, and polyethylene products for electrical utilities, the telephone market, the irrigation industry and the general commercial and industrial markets. During his tenure the company’s product offerings expanded from approximately 30 SKU’s serving solely the electrical market to almost 6,000 serving a variety of markets. He also completed 3 acquisitions and established a new manufacturing plant.
Prior to founding Highline, he co-founded and managed a financial and general management consulting firm that focused primarily on turnarounds and other management issues of companies in various industries; he was a COO/CFO of VR Business Brokers--a franchise company of 350 offices where he executed a significant turnaround leading to a public stock offering; CFO of BBN Computer Corporation, a high tech company; a senior auditor with Arthur Andersen & Company; and the Fiscal Officer at the Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While consulting, he served as an officer of the Federal Court system as a Bankruptcy Trustee and Bankruptcy Examiner in the United States Bankruptcy Court.