Andrew McConnell

Alively

As the Co-Founder and CEO, I lead a groundbreaking initiative in "Healthspan," representing a new approach to enhancing and prolonging the quality of the years each of us have. Our mission is to empower individuals to enjoy more years that are more fulfilling by providing access to curated resources and guidance tailored to their unique journeys.

We are redefining the approach to thriving throughout life, addressing all key pillars, specifically: fitness, nutrition, sleep & recovery, mindset & stress management, and social connection & purpose.

Key facets of my role are:

•	Taking a Healthspan-Centric Approach: Creating a platform that supports all aspects of living with vitality. We understand that true well-being is multi-dimensional and encompasses all aspects of a fulfilling life.

•	Championing a Comprehensive Life Model: Promoting a nuanced understanding of a fulfilling life. Our company challenges conventional narratives, advocating for an approach that nurtures all aspects of an individual's life.

•	Developing a Collaborative Ecosystem: Actively seeking partnerships and collaborations aligned with our comprehensive vision. By bringing together experts from diverse domains, we aim to create a rich, multidisciplinary resource network for our users.

•	Fostering a Purpose-Driven Culture: A commitment to cultivating a culture where every team member thrives. I am deeply involved in identifying and attracting team members who are not just skilled but are genuinely driven to make a difference in the world of health and well-being.

While our work is currently in a phase of strategic development, our ambition is to redefine the landscape of well-being with a clear focus on Healthspan. We are not merely creating another new product or service; we are spearheading a movement toward a future where every individual can relish a longer, more vibrant, and fulfilling life.

Make every day Alively day.

Co-Founder and CEO

TravelNet Solutions

In my capacity as an Advisor to TravelNet Solutions post-acquisition of Rented, I have been instrumental in steering the seamless integration of Rented’s team and operations into the TravelNet framework. My role encompasses managing the transition process, ensuring continuity, and aligning the newly combined strengths of both entities to optimize overall performance and market impact.

Key aspects of my advisory role include:

•	Strategic Integration Management: Guided the strategic integration of Rented into TravelNet Solutions, focusing on harmonizing processes, cultures, and goals. My efforts have been pivotal in preserving the essence of Rented’s innovative approach while leveraging TravelNet’s resources and market presence to create a unified, stronger entity.

•	Corporate Development Support: Actively involved in corporate development activities, I provide insights and strategic guidance to support TravelNet’s growth and expansion plans. My role involves identifying opportunities, advising on potential partnerships, and contributing to strategic decision-making processes.

•	Strategic Initiatives and Advisory: Continuously engaged in advising on various strategic initiatives for TravelNet Solutions. My expertise in the short-term rental industry and experience in scaling businesses are instrumental in shaping the company’s strategic direction and response to evolving market dynamics.

•	Industry Trends and Developments: As an industry expert, I keep a pulse on the latest trends and developments in the travel and short-term rental sectors. My advisory role includes providing TravelNet with foresight and strategic recommendations to stay ahead in a rapidly changing industry landscape.

Serving as an Advisor to TravelNet Solutions allows me to leverage my experience and insights gained from founding and growing Rented, contributing to the broader vision and success of TravelNet in the evolving travel industry.

Advisor

Techstars

As a mentor for Techstars, I help guide and nurture the next generation of entrepreneurs, particularly those dedicated to environmental sustainability and social entrepreneurship. This program, a beacon of innovation and community impact, aligns with my passion for leveraging business as a catalyst for positive change.

Key contributions and program highlights include:

•	Empowering Entrepreneurs: I provide hands-on mentorship to startups, sharing insights from my extensive experience in entrepreneurship and business strategy. My focus is on helping these emerging leaders refine their business models, enhance their market strategies, and scale their operations sustainably.

•	Fostering Social Impact: The accelerator is committed to driving significant community impact through innovative solutions. I contribute to this mission by mentoring companies that are not just commercially viable but also socially responsible, aligning with Cox Enterprises' vision of using business as a force for good.

•	Access to Resources: A key aspect of the program is facilitating access to funding and critical resources. My role involves connecting startups with potential investors and industry experts, thereby opening doors to opportunities that can accelerate their growth and impact.

•	Building a Sustainable Future: By focusing on startups in the environmental sustainability and social entrepreneurship sectors, the accelerator and my mentorship efforts contribute to creating a more sustainable and equitable future, aligning with global efforts to address pressing environmental and social challenges.

Volunteering as a mentor for Techstars Atlanta is an enriching experience that allows me to give back to the entrepreneurial community, fostering a new wave of businesses that prioritize both profit and purpose.

Mentor

Rented

As the founder of Rented, I spearheaded the development of a cutting-edge pricing engine and comprehensive managed services for the short-term rental industry. Our solutions were designed to optimize revenue for our clients, leveraging advanced analytics and market insights to deliver unparalleled financial returns.

Key achievements include:

•	Innovative Pricing Engine: Developed a state-of-the-art pricing engine that transformed the revenue management landscape in the short-term rental sector. This tool enabled clients to dynamically adjust pricing based on real-time market data, significantly boosting their profitability.

•	Managed Services Impact: Beyond the pricing engine, we provided comprehensive managed services that ensured maximum impact for our clients. Our approach combined strategic pricing with hands-on management, resulting in optimized operations and enhanced revenue streams.

•	Exceptional ROI for Clients: Our clients experienced a remarkable return on investment, with an average of $11 in net incremental new revenue for every $1 spent with us. This outstanding performance underscored the effectiveness of our pricing strategies and managed services.

•	Acquisition and Industry Expansion: In 2022, Rented was acquired by TravelNet Solutions, Inc., a strategic move that enabled us to better serve the enterprise tier of the short-term rental management industry. This acquisition marked a significant milestone in our journey, expanding our reach and reinforcing our position as an industry innovator.

Founding and leading Rented was a journey marked by technological innovation, strategic growth, and a relentless focus on client value. This experience solidified my expertise in developing and scaling high-impact solutions in the competitive short-term rental market.

CEO (acq. by TravelNet Solutions)

VacationFutures

As the founder of VacationFutures, I created the first and largest online marketplace tailored to pairing asset owners with professional managers for the short-term rental industry. This innovative platform revolutionized the way vacation rental homeowners connect with local professional vacation rental managers, streamlining the process and maximizing profitability for both parties.

Key achievements include:

•	Innovative Market Leadership: Developed and launched a groundbreaking marketplace model, filling a significant gap in the short-term rental industry. This platform provided an unprecedented solution, simplifying and enhancing the rental process for homeowners and managers alike.

•	Exponential Revenue Growth: Under my leadership, VacationFutures experienced a meteoric rise in revenue, doubling each month at its peak. Over a span of three years, we achieved a 51-fold increase in revenue, a testament to the platform's value proposition and market fit.

•	Industry Recognition and Rankings: Our rapid growth and innovative business model earned VacationFutures a prestigious spot as the second fastest-growing travel company in the Inc. 500 list. Additionally, we were honored as the fourth fastest-growing company of any kind in the Financial Times ranking of the Americas’ fastest-growing companies in 2021.

•	Impact on the Travel Industry: The success of VacationFutures not only demonstrated the viability of our unique marketplace but also set new standards in the short-term rental sector. Our approach provided a scalable, efficient, and profitable model for vacation rental management, contributing significantly to the evolution of the industry.

Founding and growing VacationFutures was a journey of entrepreneurial innovation, strategic execution, and industry leadership. This experience solidified my expertise in identifying market opportunities, creating disruptive business models, and scaling companies rapidly in competitive landscapes.

Founder & CEO

Axiom

In my role as Director, Solutions Design, I led the strategic development and implementation of outsourced legal solutions for a global clientele, primarily within the financial and energy sectors. My focus was on transforming the operational efficiency and performance of in-house legal teams through meticulously designed, bespoke solutions.

Key achievements include:

•	Strategic Diagnostics and Solution Design: Conducted comprehensive diagnostics of in-house legal teams to pinpoint strengths, gaps, and critical pain points. Collaborated closely with clients to tailor solutions that precisely addressed their unique business needs, ensuring alignment with their strategic objectives.

•	Revenue Growth and Business Expansion: Played a pivotal role in scaling the service line from $4 million to $20 million in revenue within its second year. This rapid growth was a testament to the effectiveness of the solutions provided and my ability to understand and meet the evolving needs of our clients.

•	Operational Excellence: Managed end-to-end processes for launching new outsourced teams, including recruitment, location procurement, and training. My hands-on approach ensured that each team was optimally positioned to deliver high-quality services from day one.

•	Project Management and Continuous Improvement: Oversaw the project management of Axiom’s outsourced teams, maintaining a focus on seamless operations and continuous efficiency enhancements. My leadership in this area ensured that our teams consistently delivered value, driving client satisfaction and fostering long-term partnerships.

This role required a blend of strategic insight, operational acumen, and client-focused innovation. It was instrumental in solidifying my expertise in designing and implementing high-impact legal solutions for complex, global organizations.

Director, Solutions Design, Managed Services

McKinsey & Co.

As an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, I led diverse, cross-functional teams in delivering high-impact solutions to a global clientele, including some of the world's foremost corporations and government entities. My role centered on navigating the intricate nexus of strategy formulation and organizational design, ensuring that our clients' strategic visions were seamlessly translated into actionable, structured plans.

Key highlights of my tenure include:

•	Strategic Leadership: Spearheaded multifaceted projects, steering clients through critical transitions and transformations. My approach combined analytical rigor with a deep understanding of organizational dynamics, enabling clients to achieve strategic alignment and operational excellence.

•	Global Perspective: Collaborated with an array of international clients, gaining unique insights into various industries and organizational cultures. This experience honed my ability to adapt strategies to diverse contexts, ensuring relevance and efficacy in different market environments.

•	Client Impact: Consistently delivered tailored solutions that addressed complex challenges at the intersection of strategy and structure. My focus on aligning organizational architecture with strategic objectives led to measurable improvements in efficiency, agility, and overall performance for our clients.

•	Team Development: Mentored and developed team members, fostering a culture of excellence and continuous learning. My commitment to nurturing talent resulted in high-performing teams capable of tackling the most demanding projects with creativity and precision.

This role at McKinsey & Company was instrumental in shaping my expertise in strategic consulting, reinforcing my ability to drive meaningful change in challenging and varied environments.

Engagement Manager

Ashe, Rafuse & Hill, LLP

Summer Associate

Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP

Merrill Lynch

Summer Intern

I'm an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and TEDx speaker dedicated to learning, and sharing that learning for the benefit of others. My journey is fueled by an insatiable curiosity and a relentless drive to learn, grow, and execute innovative ideas.

With a track record of rapidly assimilating complex information and turning insights into action, I've successfully navigated multiple entrepreneurial ventures. My approach combines a deep commitment to health and well-being with a pragmatic, results-oriented mindset.

Beyond my professional endeavors, I'm a lifelong learner and an advocate for maintaining a dynamic equilibrium in health, family life, and personal growth. My mission is to inspire and empower others to achieve their best selves, both personally and professionally. 

Let's connect and explore how we can make a meaningful impact together.

Gamma Force

At Gamma Force, we build innovative technology capabilities and risk-based security programs and help organizations with their tech and information security strategies by serving in advisory, board, or executive roles such as CISO and CTO.

An excerpt of clients include:

ScriptDrop
Enlace Health
Atropos Health
AmplifyBio

Founder

Rev1 Ventures

I mentor high-tech startups regarding process improvement, growth management, and technology. I also serve as an advisor to entrepreneurs in the Concept to Customer (previously known as Customer Learning Lab and Concept Academy) and Customer to Capital programs.

Mentor and Advisor

Venture Capital

I serve as an advisor for startups, growth companies, venture capital, accelerators, and others in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and I help with due diligence and other activities. 

Through Gamma Force, I previously served as an Entrepreneur in Residence and Venture Developer for a Venture Capital firm. This firm specialized in technology commercialization, and I joined to explore new channels, which included introducing Software as a Service (SaaS) companies to the portfolio.

Board Member and Advisor

Project Gamma

Host of the Project Gamma podcast where we have conversations with leading Founders and CTOs at tech companies who are driving change in industry.

Founder & Host

The Ohio State University

Through Gamma Force, I served as an Executive in Residence in the President's Buckeye Accelerator within the Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship.

The President’s Buckeye Accelerator supports student founders preparing startups for launch. It combines entrepreneurship skill building, deep mentorship, community building, and funding within a structured process.

Executive In Residence

Amaano

Amaano works to democratize payments in Africa through a mobile app using blockchain. I served in an advisory role working directly with the founder and senior team.

Smart Columbus

I began in an advisory capacity and later served as the Chief Security Officer for the Smart Columbus program, in which I worked closely with the Chief Privacy Officer I helped hire to create security strategies. This role involved: 

Operationalizing and aligning the Data Privacy and Management Plans to the Smart Columbus program and projects

Chairing the Security and Privacy Advisory Board, comprising five security and privacy executives from leading organizations across the country

Creating and executing the Smart Columbus Risk Governance Process, ensuring that projects utilizing high-risk data were aware of their security and privacy responsibilities and that we were proactively managing vendor risk

Building the Smart Columbus Operating System security roadmap to ensure proactive management of security risk

Establishing the security and privacy awareness program to train approximately 30 key personnel and leaders

Chief Security Officer

BOLD PENGUIN

I joined InsureTech Bold Penguin to help establish a strategy to enable growth and accelerate product market fit. I also helped with engineering and cybersecurity. Accomplishments included: 

Creating an internal and external communication strategy, facilitating offsite meetings, and ensuring alignment of all levels of the organization, resulting in a product strategy for the creation of a multi-tenant Software as a Service solution for a commercial insurance exchange.

Serving on the executive team that negotiated the contractual terms with a strategic customer, which included establishing the foundation of a scalable business model with a sustainable Service Level Agreement
Additionally, I created a business case that realized nearly $1,000,000 in revenue as part of the agreement – a 40% premium over earlier projections
This helped improved company valuation for a later capital raise.

Building the security program using a risk-based approach aligning with the NY Cybersecurity Regulation (23 NYCRR 500) and NAIC Insurance Data Security Model Law, which established the information security policy and created capabilities, including:
Security operations
Incident response
Disaster recovery
Service level management
Identity and access management
End-point protection

Creating an employment-branding strategy and organization-wide hiring process while focusing on the improvement of our engineering culture and recruiting, which included engaging the tech community through strategic sponsorships and speaking engagements to build greater awareness of Bold Penguin.

I joined Bold Penguin as an early-stage startup with fewer than 10 employees, where we built the company into growth mode of over 70 employees. These efforts resulted in a sale to American Family Insurance in January 2021 for an undisclosed amount.

Director of Information Security

CoverMyMeds

I served as an organizational leader focused on culture, tech innovation, and cybersecurity helping this fast-growth company grow from approximately 45 employees to 500. My responsibilities in this role included:


Scaling the Infrastructure team of four to a hybrid department of 20+, creating a world-class tech team with specializations in information security and large-scale web operations

Introducing the Kanban process for managing work to the Infrastructure and Operations team 

Creating and leading an initiative for national community engagement to strengthen CoverMyMeds’ presence in the tech community 
In 18 months, the initiative resulted in over 19 presentations, 14 sponsorships, and regularly hosting 6 different community groups

Building the Security and Privacy Program and introducing the annual SOC2 Type II audit with HITRUST control mapping, ensuring HIPAA compliance, annual risk assessments, and annual penetration tests

Represented the technology department’s strategy and the Information Security program when meeting with customers’ senior leadership as part of developing business and maintaining relationships. This included contract negotiation.

Led an organizational-wide risk management initiative

I joined Healthcare IT CoverMyMeds as we were approaching growth mode. Our work building CoverMyMeds created a Columbus unicorn and was sold to McKesson for 1.4 billion dollars.

Infrastructure Architect, Security Officer, Manager of Information Security

2Checkout.com

I had many progressive roles at FinTech 2Checkout.com, including Security Officer and management. All roles were focused on helping the company achieve growth in its tech, people, and profits. My responsibilities included:

Designing a highly available Open Source infrastructure, which enabled a 99.97% SLA by allowing production changes without impact


Establishing production change control processes and led their enforcement, which reduced production-impacting incidents and streamlined changes

Renegotiating telecommunications contracts, which saw nearly $100,000.00 in savings over the contract terms

Leading a project to meet credit card companies' multiple standards, I transitioned to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)  after it was released. I led the project, meeting PCI DSS Level 1 requirements from start to finish without requiring remediation and coming in 15 percent under budget. 

Recruiting and hiring a high-performing team of six people with exceptional knowledge of all layers of the stack

I joined the company at startup stage. Our efforts culminated in a $60 million dollar investment of growth capital, which effectively served as an exit.

Sr. Systems Administrator, Sr. Security Engineer, Sr. Manager - Enterprise Architecture

Since the very first days of the Internet, I’ve been part of tech. In fact, I built my first network when I was 12 years old…so I could play DOOM. Around the same time, I took first place at two different Blockbuster stores in the World Video Game Championship II playing Donkey Kong Country on SNES.

My love for technology and for building things, for easily and effectively sharing information, and for communicating with people across the world are why I’m dedicated to helping companies improve their tech. As the founder of Gamma Force, a large part of what I do is provide innovative strategies for augmenting tech and cybersecurity capabilities. 

Working with the tech community in Columbus led me to create Tech Community Coalition (TCC), a non-profit organization whose mission is to enable the tech startup community through education and mentorship. I’m driven by innovation that supports and empowers people, and I believe in adding value to our world to make it a place we can be proud of. 

To this end, helping people, innovating to lead change in industry and professions, providing broader access to tech to communities in need, and focusing on the value of individual contributions all help to guide my personal and professional lives – which often overlap, because I enjoy my work so much, it doesn’t feel like work.

When I’m not doing work for Gamma Force or TCC, chances are good you’ll find me backcountry skiing, which I am extremely passionate about. I love to travel, and as an auto enthusiast, I recently went to Germany and drove the Autobahn, which was an incredible experience. This thirst for adventure and exploration is what drives me in all my endeavors and has allowed me to help others solve for their needs. 

My areas of expertise include: 

Cybersecurity
Startups
SaaS
HealthTech / Healthcare IT
B2B
FinTech
Cloud and Security Engineering

Specialties: strategy, entrepreneurship, management, cybersecurity, distributed computing, governance, risk, compliance, high availability, scaling, community management, team building, contract negotiation, due diligence, DevOps culture, DevSecOps, organizational management, public speaking, scaling tech companies, hiring, and recruiting.

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The Battle

Andrew McConnell

Warner Moore

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