Meet Our Partners
Matthew Battaglia
Matthew is a seasoned finance professional, with 10 years of experience at both Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, & Gartner Inc., a publicly traded, international company with over $4B in annual revenues.
Most recently, Matthew spent 2+ years as the financial planning & analysis lead for Bridgewater's largest department, where his responsibilities included P&L management, budgeting, & strategic planning. He partnered with senior leaders across the organization to formulate an operational plan & the associated budget required to execute.
While at Gartner, Matthew was a key member of the finance organization, receiving the 2016 Gartner CFO Award of Excellence. Matthew championed numerous data-driven exercises, which included kickstarting the workforce planning initiative, strategizing for the company’s long-term human capital management & real estate portfolio growth needs. He also was a key member of the integration team for a $3B acquisition, where he focused on office lease integration decisions as well as personnel re-organizations.
Matthew graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Yale University, where he also played football. He is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
Adam Hallet
Adam Hallet is a business transformation expert who has more than 20 years of quality, business transformation, and business performance improvement leadership in both financial services and manufacturing. He has experience across several industries, including financial services and healthcare. While at ING Retirement Services, Hallet was a Vice President and Master Black Belt responsible for the deployment of Lean Six Sigma, built continuous improvement team from zero employees to over 40 professionals and delivered over $100M in benefits over five years (5 times their cost). Prior to his work at ING, Hallet realized nearly $25M in organizational savings in only 2 years at the Hartford Insurance Company. He was the recipient of The Hartford’s Chairman Award in 2012 for his team’s transformational work.
Robert Sires
Robert Sires is an entrepreneur, investor, and founder/majority owner of several major corporations. Currently, he serves as Founder and CEO of TRS Capital, a partnership that invests in promising companies and helps them succeed; Founder and CEO of U.S. Meltblown, an American manufacturer of the critical filter medium used in PPE; Partner in Maion Business Solutions, a management consulting company; Co-founder and CEO of Movita, an organic women’s vitamin manufacturer; Owner of Cable Tie Express, a world market provider of cable ties and related accessories; Partner in Roman Capital, an investment firm; CFO of #BeApp, a streaming platform for live music; and Co-owner/Board Member of 2aDays, a web-based resource to help high school student-athletes undergoing the collegiate sports recruiting process make educated decisions about their college choice. Additionally, he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of West Florida.
Robert is also an early investor in several ventures, including Wheels Up, Chopt, Verde Life, Brad’s Kale Chips, and Swoonery.com. His primary strength is his ability to set and deliver on successful strategies through proper use of human and financial capital.
In November 2020, Robert sold American Elite Molding, America’s leading manufacturer of nylon cable ties, which he founded in Crestview, FL in 2004. He established a complete manufacturing operation that runs 24/7/365 and employs 175 people, growing from 4,000 to 75,000 square feet in just over a decade. The company enjoyed 15 straight years of double digit growth under Robert’s leadership and was producing more than 1.5 billion cable ties a year (all in the U.S.) with $35 million in sales at the time of the sale.
Robert is also former President and board member of Unipharm, Inc., a U.S.-based vitamin and supplement manufacturer that holds the #1 market share in Russia, Poland, and Ukraine. He joined the company in 2008, and under his leadership sales doubled, earnings quadrupled, administrative costs were reduced by more than $5 million annually, and gross margins increased by more than 5 percent.
Previously, Robert served as Vice President of Operations/Finance at Leeds and Northrup, an international manufacturing operation, where he successfully oversaw 150 staff members and coordination of a $50M company restructuring of the manufacturing and financial organizations. After that, he became President of Leach Holding, responsible for operations in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico, and guided the company to becoming profitable for the first time in 4 years.
Sal Webber
Sal brings over 20 years of Process Improvement and Customer Experience Design as an executive who solves tough business problems in Contact Centers, Financial Services, Software, Manufacturing, Telecom, and Cloud Based Technologies.
He is currently serving as President/COO of Community Labs, a non-profit start-up focused on keeping San Antonio open through fast turn-around PCR COVID testing for schools and the general public. Sal is also a partner in Maion Business Solutions, a boutique consulting firm that provides process design and improvement services for small and large businesses. Prior to Sal’s entrepreneurial endeavors, he spent 23 years in executive roles for Intuit, TIAA, Symantec, Rackspace, and Andeavor.
Sal has a wealth of experience across multiple disciplines and has contributed to many successes. Examples include leading a decommissioned gear project that reduced downtime from 77 days to under 7 days, enabling the client to reduce inventory by $20M; and reducing an insurance payout claim process from 15 days to less than 24 hours while improving employee engagement by 30% and reducing NIGO by 80%.
Sal holds a BS in Nuclear Engineering from North Carolina State University and enjoys pursuing his passion for racing with the Sports Car Club of America when time permits.
Meet Our Advisors
William Hensler
Business Experience
• VP Intuit Supply Chain, VP Quality for Intuit and President of Intuit Payroll
• COO, Ashford.com
• General Manager, Compaq Small Business Unit
• Vice President Qualtec, Director of Quality and Plant Manager Florida Power and Light
Process Improvement Experience
• Director of Quality for the first company outside Japan to win the Deming Prize
• Author of Design for Six Sigma/Design for Customer Delight
• Led Quality/Lean Six Sigma implementation for: Florida Power and Light, Compaq Commercial Products Group, Ashford.com, Intuit
• Training and Consulting Experience with leading organizations including GE, ING, AlliedSignal, Chase Bank, Becton Dickinson, US Air Force, Deere, Pacific Bell, USPS, Bell Atlantic, Move, Inc, ING Direct, First Chicago NBD, eBay, PayPal, Twitter, Rackspace, Symantec, Intuit….
Notable Results:
• Led a company wide effort to increase utilization of production equipment to provide 800 million dollars in savings
• Improved Data Center reliability by 50% without spending money on new technology
• Reduced backorders by 90% for an online retailer while achieving world class order fulfillment and customer satisfaction
• Launched a new product line and achieved a sales rate of over $500 million per year within 12 months