Kurt Linder Email and Phone Number

Remedy is a tech solution to the under-monetization of fan engagement videos in the music industry. Our technology allows artists and labels to earn more from every video view. My responsibilities, while leveraging my broad functional background, center around finance and strategy. I see my role as making sure that we are pointed in the right direction (clarity and alignment), maintaining proper pace (accountability and responsibility), and that we have enough fuel for the ride.

bmad was founded on the core belief that everyone is valuable, and we are all better when treated as such. It has explored different ways of spreading that message. Its latest iteration is a social appreciation platform called Piccolo. www.piccolo.world

Disciplines: Consulting & Coaching – Leadership, Strategy, and CultureHighlights: Organizations and people who operate from the standpoint of clarity are positioned for excellent performance and maximum impact.If we do one thing, we help leaders be their best. MuddyHudson supports leaders to grow enterprises that function powerfully because they are deeply human and tightly integrated. We believe that people – employees, customers, suppliers, communities, investors – shape every organization and have incredible assets ready to leverage. Lead well and those assets will be leveraged powerfully toward shared values, purpose, and vision. We help bring out those very things and provide support in integrating them throughout your operations.

Disciplines: StrategyHighlights: Strong context for relationship allows potential participants to know how (and whether) to engage.A friend and long-time collaborator was running MuddyHudson Technology (“MHT”) as a company that built web sites utilizing the latest participatory technologies. Together we saw the need for a company that builds enterprises by opening the path for operations to better integrate and for people – comprising markets, workforces, and beyond – to invest themselves in the organization. I was brought into MHT to help shape that change.Many of the people, relationship, and business building ideas honed while creating Firstfruits were joined with MHT ideas on participatory culture and developed into frameworks that grow businesses by building, supporting, and strengthening their operational and human relationships. We tested these on technology clients and it became very clear that we had something on our hands for deeply impacting people and enterprises. MHT was formally transitioned to MuddyHudson at the beginning of 2010.

Disciplines: Strategy, Operations, People, Marketing – significant involvement in all other areas.Highlights: Intentionality regarding relationship is where building deep engagement among participants starts.Fresh off of successful completion of the Sierra Mist project and appointment to a new position in Pepsi-Cola, I was approached by a former JPMorgan colleague with an opportunity to go entrepreneurial. Immediately seeing the concept potential, and being captured by the prospect of building something that deeply reflected my interests and ideas, I knew we had to do it. So, we lead a great team to build Firstfruits Eatery into a launch-ready healthful fast food concept designed to operate in a uniquely integrated, dynamic paradigm of social impact. It started with a commitment to offer consumers the first and best of the land – products that taste great and are good for the body (and environment) – and extended to treating employees, customers, and communities with the first and best of ourselves. The core belief and simple unifying idea was that, by treating people with value, seeds are planted within them to do the same for others.Being at the front end of the market curve, requiring funding for launch, and wanting to roll out additional locations soon after prototyping the first, thorough planning was required. I lead development in the areas of Strategy, Operations, People, and Marketing. Our work resulted in a tightly planned and differentiated concept that was recognized with a fully negotiated, multi-million dollar shareholder agreement with a venture capital fund. That funding commitment was undermined by the deterioration of the financial markets in 2007, and having exhausted our seed funding, we were forced to put the project on the shelf. While deeply disappointed, I quickly came to the realization that the heart of Firstfruits needed to be captured in a way that would extend its impact to many businesses. MuddyHudson is the result.

Disciplines: Strategy focus with emphasis on Marketing and Finance; extensively interacted with all areas of enterprise.Highlights: All areas of enterprise must work seamlessly together for great success; any enterprise is a web of relationships – internal and external; there are patterns of human motivation that greatly influence relationship strength.After a few years at JPMorgan, having honed my ability to look at companies from the 10,000 foot level, I felt a strong draw to get closer to ground level. In Pepsi-Cola’s Strategic Planning group, I had just the opportunity. My role – a unique hybrid of strategy, finance, and marketing – allowed me to utilize my strategic and financial skills to drive highly tangible, consumer-driven results. From new product launches, to breakthrough promotions, to various targeted strategies (geographic, demographic, packaging, and brand), I evaluated business propositions from consumer, customer, company, and competitive perspectives, and coordinated with extensive cross-functional teams to take initiatives to market. Among several award-winning contributions, my most enduring legacy is the nationalization of Sierra Mist, a unique project in the history of Pepsi to convert a two-year old brand with fractured regional distribution to a national brand. I created and lead execution of the plan to convince bottlers to relinquish exclusive, perpetual 7-UP distribution rights in favor of Sierra Mist, obtaining consensus among key organizational opinion makers and securing necessary commitments from senior management along the way.

Disciplines: Finance focus with emphasis on StrategyHighlights: Clear strategy matters; it draws everything else together and makes it clear how others can participate in the business.It’s hard for me to imagine a better way to gain a high-level perspective of business than my time in JPMorgan’s Investment Banking program. With intensive deal flow and a culture of excellence, opportunities and expectations were always great. Analytically, my role required the evaluation of companies’ strategy, cash flows, and capital structure, and extensively employed skills in financial modeling (forecasting, M&A, debt capacity, etc), competitive analysis, and conducting due diligence. The analysis was utilized in recommending investments to internal/external senior investment officers, and while advising clients on choices of financing in the equity, debt, bank, and private capital markets. In my time at JPMorgan, I underwrote, structured, and/or syndicated over $6 billion of capital through 15 transactions across a variety of industries.