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Jeff Lipscomb and the business of staying
He joined GS&F in 1985, became a co-owner, and spent decades building client relationships. His Nashville story turns on a quieter advertising skill: knowing what to carry forward, and when to hand it over.
John Ribble and the work after the deal
He spent years advising on acquisitions, then stepped into the businesses behind them. At Kinetix Health Group, John Ribble’s next chapter is about getting two established teams to work as one.
Kriste Goad and the Business of Starting Over
She trained to report other people’s stories. Then a lost job, an agency of her own and a difficult rebuild gave the Nashville founder a story she could no longer cover from a distance.
Inova sells payroll. The prize is getting your time back.
A payroll change after 27 years reveals Inova’s real proposition: fewer repeated tasks, connected business systems, and someone familiar when the numbers need attention.
JumpCrew grew by giving up its first good idea
The Nashville company traded social media management for the harder business of turning interest into sales. Its lesson: the handoff between marketing and sales deserves a business of its own.
Built wants to shorten the distance between work and money
A construction project can move faster than its paperwork. Built connects lenders, builders and the documents between them - and its most revealing lesson is that even a spreadsheet deserves a little respect.
Relode bets the next hire is someone you already know
A healthcare recruiter built on paid introductions has grown into a hands-on staffing partner. Its most useful lesson: a bigger candidate list means little if nobody can turn it into a hire.
Tom Dent Built a Career Around the Space Between the Hospital and Home
Across four decades, the Nashville executive has returned to one stubborn question: how do you make a complicated system feel local, legible and close at hand? His answer has been a career of partnerships, patient storefronts and quiet infrastructure.
Henry Chassaignac Built a Career by Making Creative Work Accountable
The copywriter who opened Zehnder's Nashville office now runs the employee-owned agency. His career is a study in joining a good line with a hard number.
The Agency That Learned to Work From 23 Feet of Aluminum
Publicity For Good grew up in an Airstream, survived a one-day revenue collapse, and turned purpose-driven PR into a production system measured in placements, podcasts, and proof.
The Ad Agency That Refused to Be Bought
When holding companies came calling, GS&F chose a stranger buyer: its own staff. The result is a 48-year-old Nashville shop where the people making the work also own the consequences.
The Agency That Put a Calculator in the Creative Department
Lewis spent 75 years learning that the argument between beautiful advertising and measurable growth is a false one. Its best work begins where a client’s first plan stopped working.
The Campaign Never Ended. It Just Moved Into the Boardroom.
BHA Strategy borrowed the machinery of a political campaign - intelligence, narrative, coalition and cadence - and rebuilt it for organizations whose growth depends on what government does next.
The Publicist Who Learned to Sell the Applause
Paul Wilmot Communications spent nearly three decades putting fashion in the right room. Its harder trick was learning that, now, the room must also have a checkout button.
The Marketing Agency That Refused to Grow Like One
Green Apple Strategy found its edge by keeping the trunk small and growing an orchard around it. The result is a Nashville agency designed to change shape before its clients have to.
The Ingram Group and the Problem Behind the Problem
A Nashville consultancy built its business on a campaign habit: diagnose the real obstacle, map the people who can move it, and only then decide whether the answer is lobbying, communications, coalition-building - or something else.
The Accidental Publicist Who Built an Agency Around Being Useful
R Public Relations began as a way for a single mother to make work fit her life. A decade later, its most useful idea is still disarmingly small: know the client, know the journalist, and never confuse sending a pitch with earning attention.
Lovell Communications Writes the Message Before the Crisis Writes It for You
For nearly four decades, the Nashville firm has worked in the narrow gap between a health care organization’s decision and everyone else’s reaction. Its real product is not publicity. It is sequence, judgment and a plan for the question nobody wants to hear.
Luke Combs Took the Long Way to Wembley
He learned guitar at 21, left college with 21 credit hours to go, and built a country career one crowded room at a time. The remarkable part is not simply the stadiums. It is how little distance he puts between the stadium singer and the fellow who once worked the door.
JJS Consulting Group and the hidden work behind “just an email”
A company announcement looks simple from the inbox. JJS Consulting Group sells the planning, writing and follow-through that happen before anyone clicks Send.
Monica Eads Makes the Big Room Move
Her job lives in the gap between a leader's ambition and a team's Monday morning. After two decades of making plans hold, Monica Eads is taking that operating instinct on a 100-kilometer walk across Spain.
Robin Sykes Still Counts in Bear Bucks
Before she led global brand and growth at Securly, Robin Sykes ran an elementary school's reward economy with hand-cut paper. Her career is a lesson in carrying classroom evidence into the boardroom.
John Dyke Bet His Life Savings on Ugly Tomatoes
Before Nashville had a local-food boom, a former medical salesman opened a neighborhood grocery and learned the business one farmer, one customer and one costly mistake at a time. Twenty-five years later, he still stocks the produce aisle.
Matthew Bush Put the Robot in the Welder's Hands
A factory operator turned founder spent a decade removing code, complexity and ceremony from collaborative robots. Now, as Hirebotics' CEO, Matthew Bush is betting that the future of automation belongs to the people who already know the work.
Riley Lovingood Has Built a Career Around the Snap
The former Tennessee long snapper now runs PAYRA, a Nashville fintech built for businesses that cannot pause to replace the systems keeping their money moving.
Sogol Sepehri Works the Seams of the System
The physician-executive moved from Austin hospital medicine to a national role translating clinical judgment across operations, documentation and revenue - the quiet seams where modern healthcare either connects or frays.
The Grocer Who Bet His Life Savings on a Building Older Than the Supermarket
John Dyke grew up raising tobacco and heirloom tomatoes, then poured his life savings into a natural grocery in a building that predated the modern supermarket. Twenty-five years later, The Turnip Truck is four stores, one juice bar, and a running argument for shopping like your neighbors are farmers - because his are.
The Private Equity Firm That Would Rather Walk the Shop Floor
LFM Capital built a $1 billion-plus investing platform around an unfashionable conviction: the best way to understand a factory is to have run one. Its engineers-turned-investors bring capital, operating muscle and a respect for the companies they buy.
The Company Private Equity Calls When the Clock Is Ticking
BluWave built an invite-only network of vetted specialists and matches buyout firms with the exact consultant, interim CFO, or diligence team they need - usually inside a day, usually for free.
The Quiet Fund That Turned Tennessee Into a Startup State
For more than a decade, a small Nashville nonprofit has been doing the unglamorous work of turning Tennessee ideas into fundable companies. Here is how LaunchTN built a statewide engine out of capital, connections, and commercialization.