Soula Parassidis has appeared at leading opera and concert venues worldwide, including Berlin Philharmonie, Teatro Massimo Palermo, Prague Rudolfinum, Oper Leipzig, Festival Aix-en-Provence, Theater an der Wien, Opéra Nationale de Bordeaux, Guangzhou Opera, Taipei Symphony, and many others.

A passionate advocate for the operatic art form and the singers who inhabit the stage, in 2019 Soula founded the online platform Living Opera. Living Opera is a community initiative spanning 4 continents that strives to inform, equip, and empower singers about the realities of the business of opera. Living Opera has worked with various organizations including Medici TV (Paris), Reload Greece (London), Florida State University, Houston Grand Opera Studio, and Northland, Orlando.

Soula Parassidis

Shane Shown

NxT Level

Nxt Level is a collective of world class head hunters. We have built a recruiting system that allows up to dive into narrow and niche domains. We have been able to successfully build a recruiting practice that focuses on; 
- Technology 
- Product Management 
- Legal 
- Finance & Accounting 
- Video Game Games 
- Civil Engineering 

We are on a mission to be the most influential voice in talent acquisition. 

We were recognized as one of the best businesses to work for in Nashville 2022 and WilCo. We're scaling and growing because we have the best customers/partners on the planet. 

Check out open roles: https://www.nxtlevel.io/open-jobs

CEO | Chief Recruiting Officer

Nxt Attorney

We understand that all practices are different. All law firms have their own culture, skill sets, and specialties. We replace the mountain of resumes with a short list of the right people; who are aligned to your job requirements, culture, and values.

We partner with corporations for in-house counsel and private practice law firms to find the right Of Counsel, Associates, and Partners to join their practice.

Founders Live

We are launching Founders Live in Nashville as a hybrid in-person and live streamed event. Each event will have 5 startups compete and pitch their project. It consists of a fun gathering of entrepreneurs, a 99 second pitch and 4 mins of audience Q&A and voting for the favorite of the night. It will be an awesome event with notable prizes,($10,000 in credits to AWS, a chance to advance to pitch in the Founders Live Prime Time global competition) and might be a good spot to find new hires or to show off your latest product. Oh, and just for pitching, you receive $5,000 to AWS and $3,000 to Google Cloud.  

Here's the event page for more info.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/founders-live-nashville-tickets-155828149189

Co-City Leader for Nashville

Barrel and Roll

Co-Owner (Acquired)

The Climate Corporation

Working as a consultant helping The Climate Corporation scale their engineering teams in Seattle, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Chicago. Working with the teams building Climate FieldView to help farmers sustainably increase their productivity with digital tools. 

Platform Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, UX/UI, Data Engineering, and more! Reach out if you're looking at changing billions of lives around the world by supporting farmers around the globe. 

Technical Recruiting Consultant: Backend Pipeline (structured interviews), Leadership Recruiting, Web Recruiting, Business Applications (Dell Boomi), Product Leaderships Recruiting, and more.

Building Engineering Teams

Talentful.ai

Co-Founder | Head of Recuiting & Sales (Company Acquired for API & Patents)

Talentful’s ML/AI driven SaaS platform changing the recruiting Industry.

Head of Recuiting & Sales

Facebook

Consultant building world-class teams with a focus on Machine Learning, Data Science, and Artificial Intelligence at Facebook in Seattle. Teams include: Pages Science, People Search and Discovery, Content Search Relevance, Entity Search and Discovery, Business Integrity, Ads Ranking, Ads Identity, News Feed, Media Ranking, Groups, Social and Goodwill Ranking, Messenger Core, RTC Audience, Speech Perception, Computational Photography, AR Tech, and CareML. 

JBCconnect - Advisor/Consultant

Building ML / AI / CV Teams for Search, Ranking, Ads, NLP, and Computational Photography

Zillow Group

Proactively grew Zillow's digital marketing footprint in the US for their new Mortgage Product - Zillow Long Form.

Entreprenuer in Residence

Mainz Brady Group

Partnered with C-Level (CEO, CTO, COO) executives, VP, Directors, Managers, etc. of Software, Engineering, Product Management, and more! Successfully managed expectations, requirements, and execution of recruiting/talent acquisition efforts.

Technical Account Manager

National Services Group

General Manager of British Columbia & Washington
Aug 2015-Dec 2015
Led the divisions business development and recruiting efforts. Created University Recruiting roadmap, Classroom Presentations, Online Marketing, Campus Events. Trained recruiters and managers. Created the roadmap for recruiting, employer branding, and retention efforts. Expanded College Works Paintings efforts into a new market to expand international growth. Expected to grow British Columbia’s revenue by 300-500%.  

General Manager of Washington & British Columbia
Jun 2014-Aug 2015
Led the divisions business development and recruiting efforts. Created University Recruiting roadmap, Classroom Presentations, Online Marketing, Campus Events. Trained recruiters and managers. Created the roadmap for recruiting, employer branding, and retention efforts. Responsible for 100+ hires (sales, marketing, management, product management etc). Revenues exceed $3.1million. Increased division revenues year-over-year approximately 20%. 

Senior Manager of Sales Recruiting - Washington 
Aug 2012-Jun 2014 
Led the divisions business development and recruiting efforts. Created University Recruiting roadmap, Classroom Presentations, Online Marketing, Campus Events. Responsible for sales, marketing, customer services, and full cycle recruiting training/execution. Had 14 direct reports. Sold/produced approximately $1.2million, increasing division revenue 35%, total $2.1 million. 

Manager of Business Development and Production Recruiting - King/Pierce County
Jan 2012-Aug 2012 (While attending University of Washington) 
Utilized aggressive, personal strategies to establish a client base in the King and Pierce County community with a combination of Active and Passive Marketing tactics. Devised solutions and negotiated resolutions to ensure client satisfaction. Interfaced with material suppliers and concurrently lead three teams for production. Recruited a team of 12 people.

GM of Washington and British Columbia

I am a self-driven entrepreneur & professional with a strong passion for Talent Acquisition and Business Development. I am constantly looking to challenge the status quo. We live in a fast-paced environment that demands transparency, urgency, and unparalleled accuracy. We are a society of people that want what we want, when we want it! 

I have led companies into international expansion. I pushed the limits on account management and recruiting at National Services Group/College Works Painting, Mainz Brady Group, Zillow, Nxt Level, Talentful, Facebook, and The Climate Corporation. 
 
Every day I strive to inspire organizational growth and retention. I am results-oriented, proactive, collaborative, and have a core focus on high integrity business.

Internally hiring entry level recruiters and entry level sales reps in Nashville, TN.

Adviser and Managing Partner: Working with pre-seed startups to mid-size level companies. 

Actively supporting growth of SaaS companies (Pre-Seed - IPO), Gaming Companies (Tripwire Interactive, Cryptic Studios, Electronic Arts, Cloud Imperium Games, and many more), Executive Recruiting ( Recently placed multiple CTOs, COO, VP of Operation, Technical Directors, and more.) 

Check out open roles: https://www.nxtlevel.io/open-jobs

✅ Salary = $85,000: A 5-year dedicated employee
✅ Salary = $125,000: A new hire in the same role

🤔 What's wrong here? Loyalty should be rewarded, not penalized. Don't risk losing your best talents to competitors willing to pay what they're worth.

🚀 It's not just about money; it's about valuing dedication. When you reward loyalty, you:

✨ Boost morale
✨ Increase retention
✨ Solidify your company's values

Invest in your team's dedication. It's a strategic move with powerful returns. 💪 

#EmployeeLoyalty #CompensationMatters

CEO at Nxt Level - Dream Big, Hire Right, Change Lives.

I didn’t realize how much I needed this trip until I was already there, sitting overlooking the water in Cape Coral, Florida, on my first trip to Florida in my entire life, watching the sun hit the waves in a way that made everything finally slow down.

Since joining EO Nashville back in 2021, my forum has been the quiet engine behind so much of my personal and professional growth, but this retreat hit differently.

We weren’t there to hustle.
We weren’t there to grind.
We weren’t even there to “network.”

We were there to breathe.
To step outside the noise long enough to remember why we started our businesses in the first place.
To stop working in the business for a moment… and finally work on it.

And something shifted.

Somewhere between the conversations, the honesty, the vulnerability, and the no-BS accountability, I felt myself reset. My mind got quiet. The ideas started setting off like fireworks again! 

And suddenly I could think big again, the kind of big that built Nxt Level from a wild idea into a mission:

Dream big. Hire right. Change lives.

That’s what our forum does for me.
They challenge me professionally.
They challenge me personally.
They don’t let me shrink, even when I’m tired, distracted, or stuck in the weeds.

This group of dreamers has changed my life more than they probably realize.

And as we look toward 2026, I can feel something building… a momentum, a hunger, a clarity about what’s possible when you surround yourself with the right people.

If you’re a founder trying to carry everything alone, hear me:

Don’t.

Find the people who sharpen you.
Find the ones who challenge you with love.
Find the ones who remind you that your dreams aren’t too big, your environment is just too small.

EO has been that for me.

And I’m grateful. Truly.

Shout out to my mates! 

Chris Guay 
Nancy Stabell 
Shane Tinnin 
Michael Epps Utley - Digital Marketing and Patient Acquisition 
Penny Austermiller 
Kim McKeeman, APR 

#entrepreneur #startup #growth

No alternative text description for this image

Yesterday I had a prospect admit something I’m hearing more and more often:

“We’ve stalled our hiring. We don’t have the capacity to research, cold outreach, or vet candidates anymore. We tapped our network dry… and AI tools haven’t been enough.”

This is the honest truth inside a lot of early-stage teams right now.

Everyone is running point, everyone is tired, and everyone is hoping AI will magically replace the hard parts of recruiting.

But here’s the reality...and what people don't want to admit... and where hiring is headed in the next 5 years:
🕛  Startups will burn out trying to force AI to be the entire solution architect.
✅  And eventually, they’ll realize AI was never supposed to replace humans,  it was meant to optimize them.
🛫  Founders will still rely on strategic recruiting partners… they’ll just expect a higher standard of quality, speed, and clarity than ever before.

And here’s the mistake I see most often:

☑️  Leaders underestimate the oversight.
🤖  AI can help you run faster, but someone still has to define what “great” looks like, audit the work, and be accountable for the outcome.
🪛  Tools don’t fix broken processes. People do.

Recruiting has always been, and will always be, a people business.

Because at the end of the day:

🟩  We’re not just sourcing for a role.
🟩  We’re solving human problems for humans building something meaningful.
🟩  And that requires nuance, alignment, and real human connection,  the parts AI can’t replicate.

This is why the companies who win won’t be the ones with the most tools.

It’ll be the ones with the strongest partnerships.

If you’re feeling that same hiring stall, or you’re trying to bridge AI with real recruiting strategy, I’m happy to share what’s working inside the startups we support every day.

Just send me a message. Let’s get you unstuck.

True leadership lies in guiding others to success. In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well. - Bill Owens

taplio

The Battle

Soula Parassidis

Shane Shown

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreShane Shown's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Soula Parassidis

Shane Shown

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Shane Shown's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreShane Shown's LinkedIn Performance