The CEO Series

Hosted by William Salvi, The CEO Series is an Emmy-winning original series produced by Salvi. Each episode profiles a business leader and their respective business. The series provides a humanizing look into the CEOs personal story, mindset and their business and industry.You’ll hear inside stories across a wide range of industries — from athletics and entertainment to hospitality, technology, and consumer goods.These stories are an audio-extract from a video, to find the full video, please visit our YouTube page: www.youtube.com/@TheCEOSeries

The CEO Series is a business podcast hosted by Will Salvi, with 33 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Will Salvi hosts The CEO Series, a business show with 33 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  The CEO Series

  Spin Master Co-Founder Ronnen Harary on Paw Patrol, Bakugan, and Betting on Yourself Young

  Sep 17, 20261h 32m

  In this episode of The CEO Series, Will sits down with Spin Master co-founder and chairman Ronnen Harary. Ronnen walks through the early days of the company, including Earth Buddy, Devil Sticks, and Air Hogs. He also gets into the boom and bust of Bakugan, when sales went from $450 million to a billion and back again. He points to hubris as the real cause and explains how that period led directly to Paw Patrol. He tells the full story of Paw Patrol's inception. He talks about writing his book, No Experience Necessary, and opens up about his dysgraphia, growing up with emotional neglect, and the gifts that came with both. He also covers why he prefers running a public company to a private one, the decision to step down as co-CEO in 2021, the sabbatical that took him from Cape Town to Nairobi, what tariffs did to the toy industry last year, and why physical toys are growing rather than shrinking in an AI world. He closes on the perception of wealth and business leaders, why he finds the billionaire framing distasteful, his views on monopolies and free markets, voting with your wallet, and the simplest way to get equity in anything.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The CEO Series

  Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest on the Netflix documentary, the cheating scandal and 10M daily users

  Sep 8, 20261h 34m

  In this episode of The CEO Series, Will sits down with Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest. Erik walks through the early days of Chess.com and the two chess businesses he ran before it. He talks about the company's slow, steady growth for over a decade, the surge that came with COVID and Queen's Gambit, and the playbook they built afterward for getting chess into the cultural conversation. He also covers the second spike in 2023, driven by the Hans Niemann lawsuit, short form video, and chess taking off in schools. He talks about his role as CEO, why he still does it after 20 years, and his view on capitalism, the negative perception of CEOs, and how he tries to make that change inside his own company first. He also gets into the cheating controversy involving Hans Niemann and Magnus Carlsen, the report Chess.com published, and how he feels he was portrayed in the Netflix documentary.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The CEO Series

  How this investment banker became CEO of a Whiskey brand at 33 | WhistlePig CEO Alex Roberts

  Sep 1, 20261h 31m

  In this episode of The CEO Series, Will travels to Vermont to sit down with Alex Roberts, CEO of WhistlePig Whiskey, at the WhistlePig farm. Alex explains how he went from working as a 24-year-old investment banking analyst on a potential sale of WhistlePig to being offered the CFO job himself. He talks about entering the company with no operating experience, dealing with imposter syndrome and the blunt feedback from his CEO that forced him to rethink how he was adding value. Eight years later, Alex became CEO. He walks through the transition from CFO to CEO, why he restructured the company within his first weeks in the role and what he has learned about making difficult decisions, building an executive team and more. Alex also breaks down how WhistlePig grew roughly 5x during his time with the company, what it actually takes to grow a premium whiskey brand and why bartenders have played such an important role in WhistlePig's strategy. They get into declining alcohol consumption, Gen Z, marijuana, affordability, AI eliminating jobs, tariffs and why Alex believes being a private company gives WhistlePig an advantage. After the conversation, Will tours the farm and distillery and meets the pigs and Highland cows.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The CEO Series

  Mid-Day Squares Co-Founder Jake Karls on How They Built a $38 Million Brand by Being Themselves

  Aug 20, 20261h 34m

  In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Jake Karls, co-founder and Chief Rainmaker of Mid-Day Squares. Jake walks through the early version of the business which was three people making 50 to 100 bars a day in a condo kitchen and hand delivering samples with a Polaroid and a handwritten note. He explains how they raised money and built their own manufacturer. Jake talks about why he doesn't believe he is a good manager, his burnout, pitching to Wall Street in shorts and a buttoned down shirt and why after 8 years he still does therapy with his co-founders. He also gets into what it actually takes to get a CPG product into stores, from showing up to trade shows and road shows to using storytelling and social media to drive sales.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The CEO Series

  HexClad CEO Danny Winer on building a billion-dollar brand after 50

  Aug 6, 20261h 25m

  In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Danny Winer, co-founder and CEO of HexClad. Danny traces his path from studying theater and film at NYU and moving to Los Angeles with $2,000 and three suitcases, to a car accident at 28 that broke his back, shattered his right leg, and left him six figures in debt with no ability to work. He rebuilt by selling cookware at trade shows, then lost his first company, Juicepresso, in September 2016 at age 50. What became HexClad started in the basement hallway of a trade show in Guangzhou, where Danny spotted hexagons lasered onto a Korean barbecue plate and found the rare thing nobody finds at those shows: the actual inventor, holding a book of 13 patents. They talk about the handshake deal that gave an unknown American company US exclusivity, why every investor turned him down for refusing to sell into retail, the emptied retirement accounts and rolling stack of credit cards, and the single Costco test store that saved the company when it was months from going out of business. They also get into celebrity partnerships. Gordon Ramsay found HexClad by following them on Instagram, and Danny explains what his business manager meant by "you're going to get more than you bargained for," why Gordon is on weekly calls looking at numbers rather than just filming ads, and what happens when he does not like a product. Plus becoming the official cookware of the New York Yankees, the F1 work, and how a conversation with Jimmy Iovine turned a martini shaker into a collaboration with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on The CEO Series. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.