Faculty

Chris Jarvis is an applied mathematician and entrepreneurial strategist. Before selling his financial firm, Chris helped thousands of successful professionals and advised multiple billionaire families. Since the sale, Chris has focused on helping others find unique paths to unconventional success.

Chris has written fifteen books, including bestseller 6 Secrets to Leveraging Success: A Guide for Entrepreneurs, Family Offices and Their Trusted Advisors. Chris has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Business Journal and been published in over 50 professional journals. Jarvis has been a guest on Bloomberg Television’s Personal Finance and been interviewed on A&E and Bravo.

Chris has lectured on entrepreneurship at the University of Rhode Island, the Anderson School (UCLA), and MIT’s Venture Café chapter. He proudly sits on the advisory board of the prestigious IC2 Institute of the University of Texas-Austin Dean’s Advisory Council for the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. Chris also sits on the boards of the National Coalition for Safe Schools, Streamline Miami and Angel City Sports.

As of 2020, Chris has partnered with his mentor Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul). With the Canfield Training Group, Jarvis is bringing transformational solutions to entrepreneurs, academic institutions and executives.

Jarvis earned an MBA in entrepreneurial studies and finance from The Anderson School at UCLA. He graduated from the Honors Program at the University of Rhode Island with a B.S. in applied mathematics. Chris grew up in Rhode Island and now lives in Southlake, Texas with his wife Heather and their three children.
Longer biography can be found at https://thechrisjarvis.com/about-chris/

Rick Petry currently serves as assistant director of career and professional development. Rick leads Mitchell Hamline’s initiative to have as many students as possible complete a Legal Residency—a semester working full time at a firm, business, courthouse, or other legal setting prior to graduation. In addition to be an assistant director of career and professional development, Rick also serves as an adjunct professor teaching torts and advance litigation skills. Rick is also an author and expert in human performance excellence, leadership development, and helping organizations develop high performing cultures.

Rick joined Mitchell Hamline after representing individuals and companies for nearly 20 years in criminal defense, personal injury, commercial litigation, and real estate matters as a trial attorney.

http://rickpetryspeaks.com/about-us/

In the early 1990s, Gordon Logan recognized the huge potential, and relative lack of competition, in the men’s and boys’ haircut market. To take advantage of this, Logan assembled a top management team and developed the unique Sport Clips Haircuts concept, which included groundbreaking new haircutting systems, operating procedures and marketing programs designed to fully capitalize on this large, underserved market.

With many years of franchising experience, Logan was able to design the concept and get it up-and-running within a remarkably short time, and Sport Clips’ rapid, yet controlled growth, has become a textbook example of how to do things right.

Prior to opening the prototype Sport Clips in 1993, Gordon Logan owned and operated salons throughout Texas. He served as President of the International SalonSpa Business Network (ISBN, the trade association for chains and franchises representing over 20,000 salons) from 2008 to 2012 and remains on the Board of Directors. Since 2011, he has served on the VFW Foundation Board, which directs the charitable efforts of the VFW for active duty service men and women and veterans.

He was elected to the board of the International Franchise Association (IFA) in 2013 and currently serves as Chairman of the VetFran Mentor Program for veterans and as an IFA VetFran committee member. He also served on the Board of Visitors for Southwestern University from 2010 to 2013.

Prior to becoming a salon owner, Logan served as an Aircraft Commander in the U.S. Air Force (1969 – 1976), after which he worked as a financial planning and control consultant with Price Waterhouse & Co. in Houston, Texas (1976 – 1980). He is a graduate of MIT (BS, ’68), and The Wharton School of Business, at the University of Pennsylvania (MBA with Honors, ’76). He is also a retired CPA in the State of Texas.

Shannon is an Operational Turnaround Consultant in Financial Services, as well as, author, coach, mentor, and speaker. Using her collaborative hands on approach and coaching skills she enhances her clients experience of what success means for them. This allows her clients to achieve their aspirations for their business and achieve their vision no matter how large or small they may be. 

To reach out to Shannon you can contact her through http://www.empoweringconnections.co.uk or email Shannon directly at [email protected]

Ramon and the rest of the Peralta Design team benefit from his 20+ years of experience developing corporate identity and creating B2B and B2C marketing material and UI/UX design. He listens to clients and leads the creative team in establishing a unique visual identity for each program, designed to not only complement the client’s brand but also to impact its target demo.

Ramon developed a passion for innovation after serving as Senior Art Director on the original start-up team behind Priceline.com (Captain Kirk, anyone?). Most importantly, he ensures that the desired ‘look & feel’ of every program is migrated consistently across the entire campaign, whether in a poster, a smart phone app, an interactive activity, or a website. https://peraltadesign.com/our-team/

Wendy Witt, JD is the founder of Million Dollar Attorney®, a private consulting firm designed to help lawyers prosper. Her mission is to tilt the legal universe toward wellness. She is a Master Law Firm Business Strategist who helps solo and small law firm owners build million-dollar law firms that give them the life they love.

She partners with lawyers to map out their customized path and then guides those attorneys along their customized path to the life they love with the law firm that will serve and support that life creating more income, time, freedom, impact, and joy.

Wendy is a former 15-year trusts and estates attorney who helped families with estates up to $500 million, an ABA published article author, and former national attorney organization senior executive.

Her guidance has been published by Forbes, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Huffington Post, Experts Institute, Solo Practice University, Wealth Counsel, Interactive Legal, Pennsylvania Bar Institute, Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Lawyer, Allegheny County Bar Association, Women in the Law committee, and Attorneys.org among others. She’s a frequent speaker/trainer and is a summa cum laude graduate of Susquehanna University and a cum laude graduate of The Dickinson School of Law.

Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn, MillionDollarAttorney.com, and [email protected]

Mohanjit Jolly is a founding Partner at Iron Pillar, an India-focused venture growth fund. He has over 20 years of operating and global venture capital experience. Before joining Iron Pillar, Mohanjit was Managing Director at DFJ where he established and managed DFJ’s India office between 2007 and 2012 before returning to Silicon Valley.

Prior to DFJ, Mohanjit was a Managing Director at Garage Technology Ventures, a $20 million seed and early stage venture capital fund. Mohanjit also served as a Vice President at Garage.com where he raised in excess of US$150 million for 25 early stage technology companies. Prior to Garage, Mohanjit was part of the strategic planning group at Mattel where he helped launch the Mattel / Intel joint venture, Intel Play. He also spent several years in both engineering and business development roles with Itek Optical Systems, a manufacturer of reconnaissance systems.

Mohanjit earned his MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA, and has a BS and MS in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. Mohanjit is an advisor to The Unreasonable Group, Women’s Startup Lab, Pearson and Accenture Open Innovation Group.

Dan Stanley brings a wealth of insurance knowledge and experience to the Giraffe University team. Over 25 years of working for Insurance Companies, Distribution companies and running a successful Advisory Firm in Dallas working specifically with Family Offices.

Dan has a unique expertise in practice management and with his underwriting background, he has negotiated some of the largest insurance transactions in the country. Dan was worked with leaders of industry, actors, professional athletes and is considered one of the most influential underwriters in our business.

Dan is currently the Vice President of Operations at Lion Street, where he oversees all life operations.

Early in his career, Ron became fascinated with how and why people make mistakes. In the halls of academia, many often suggest that mistakes are due to failures of intelligence. In other words, when someone makes a mistake, it is because he or she wasn’t smart enough to get the right answer. Ironically, Ron’s work demonstrates that this thinking too is a mistake, or at least very short-sighted.

History is, of course, about people and events. Because people are highly imperfect, it should be no surprise that history is littered with examples of human error ranging from scientists to military leaders to government leaders to business leaders to investors. But why do people make mistakes, particularly mistakes of judgment? In Ron’s words, “Not all mistakes are interesting of course, but when the following three conditions are met, pay close attention: when the person in question is smart, well-informed, and has a vested interest in the outcome. When mistakes are made by those satisfying these three conditions, then, and only then, do you begin to learn something about the human condition. Fortunately, if you look closely, you can find rich, wonderful examples in every field.”

The approach Ron developed is called 5-Points. This is where Ron, in his own way, has learned how to be a giraffe – he sees differently thanks to his sophisticated 5-points approach. Each of the five components of five points approach is a distinct school of thought with a variety of unique tools. They are as follows:

• Fundamentals
• History
• Policy
• Agency Costs
• Behavioral

Fundamentals relates to the state of the art within a given body of knowledge. In the case of Einstein, his understanding of Fundamentals relates to physics broadly and cosmology in particular. In the case of Ron’s professional work, his fundamentals are the operation of companies, currencies and markets. History relates to our understanding of past events that can offer lessons about human nature and the human condition helping us make wiser choices today. Policy relates to how the government creates or alters the rules of the game. Changes in policy can and do have an enormous impact on human events in business, and markets, not to mention a wide range of other areas of life. Agency Costs relates to the conflicting incentives and payoffs for various parties within a given value chain. Lastly, behavioral is a study of the systematic ways in which we humans make mistakes, be they cognitive, psychological or emotional.

Ron pioneered this technique and he successfully applies it to businesses, currencies, and markets. As a thought leader in the world of finance, Ron demonstrates countless real world applications of his approach, rendering uncommon insight into the inner workings of people and markets.

Ron is the founder and CEO of Five Points Wealth where he deploys the 5-Points technique in his day-to-day activities in managing money for his high net worth investor clients. Before that, Ron was Director of Economics & Alternative Assets at the CFA Institute, where he published research on a wide array of financial topics including economics, monetary policy, currencies, global macro, behavioral finance, fixed income and alternative investments, such as gold and bitcoin (among other things). Previously, he served as Senior Vice President and Director of Large-cap Equity Products for BB&T Asset Management, where he led a team of research analysts, 300 regional portfolio managers, client service specialists, and marketing staff. He also served as a Senior Vice President and Lead Portfolio Manager of large-cap equity products at Mesirow Financial. Academically, Ron earned a BA degree in economics from Brown University and his MBA in finance from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. Ron also earned his CFA charter in 2001. As a contributing author to the CFA Institute Blog, he has contributed more than 200 articles.

From his earliest days teaching inner-city high school students how to discover their potential and succeed no matter what their circumstances — to becoming a world-renowned transformational speaker and trainer who has conducted more than 2,500 workshops and events all over the world — Jack Canfield has devoted his life and career to helping others achieve their personal definition of success and create lives of greater joy, meaning, and fulfillment.

• Founder of the billion-dollar Chicken Soup for the Soul™ publishing empire
• Multiple New York Times bestselling author of —The Success Principles, The Power of Focus, The Aladdin Factor, Dare to Win, The Key to Living the Law of Attraction, Living the Success Principles, Coaching for Breakthrough Success, and more.
• 2.5 million subscribers and followers on social media
• Sold 500+ million books worldwide
• Featured guest on 1,000+ TV and radio shows
• Has trained 2,900+ Canfield Success Principles Trainers in 107 countries
• Founded the Transformational Leadership Council
• Inducted into the National Speakers Associations “Speakers Hall of Fame”
• Is a Harvard graduate with a Master’s degree in Psychological Education

In 2015, Success Magazine named Jack Canfield one of it’s “Top 25 Most Influential” leaders in the personal development field, along with other world-famous names such as Oprah Winfrey, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Steve Harvey, Robert Kiyosaki, Tony Robbins, Sheryl Sandberg and more.

He has also been a featured guest on 1,000+ radio and television programs, national magazines, popular blogs, and award-winning podcasts.