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Founder & CEO of TapOnIt | Chief Strategy Officer at Minute Suites | Henry Crown…
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisMargaret Hamilton was an extraordinary woman. One of the first programmers on the Apollo mission, she helped Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin safely reach the moon, coined the term “software engineer,” and inspired countless other people to break barriers in STEM. She was also a mom. And with the news of her passing, I find myself thinking about a story I once read about her: Margaret sometimes brought her daughter Lauren to work at NASA. One night, Lauren pushed a button that made the system crash. Margaret immediately realized that an astronaut might inadvertently do the same thing, so she recommended adjusting the software. Margaret’s bosses ignored her advice. But during the very next mission, the astronauts made the exact same mistake her daughter did. “After that, they let me put the program change in,” she said. What a powerful reminder of the unique perspectives that parents bring to the table. That breakthroughs and discovery can come from unexpected places. That all around us, unsung heroes are working quietly and faithfully to expand our idea of what’s possible. Thank you, Margaret, for encouraging us all to soar.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson shared thisOur team has been putting together "Beyond the Layover" guides for the cities we serve, and Atlanta is up first. Fall is a great time to explore the city. If you're flying through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, swipe through for a few ideas. Then stop by one of our three locations on your way home. A quiet room before a flight is hard to beat.Katie Castillo-Wilson shared thisFlying into ATL Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport this fall? 🍂✈️ There’s plenty worth leaving the airport for. We rounded up 5 things to add to your Atlanta itinerary this season. Then, when it’s time to fly home, make one last stop at Minute Suites ATL for a private place to relax, recharge and reset before takeoff. Save this for your next Atlanta trip!
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisI found a love note in my husband’s office. A woman’s handwriting. Gushing with love! I’d never stumbled upon something like this before. At this point, we’d been dating for two months, and I was helping him clean his office. …Okay, I was low-key snooping. 😈 When I asked him about it, he turned red from head to toe. Now I was doubly sus. The story: She was a customer. His company, Specialist ID, sells lanyards and badge supplies (about as mundane as a product gets!) and she had been buying from them as a reseller for over ten years. One order went wrong. The team made it right, but it became an ordeal and she was upset. Once everything was settled with her order, she emailed an apology explaining that she was fighting cancer and had been harder on them than she meant to be. (Major props to a customer like that, btw!) So what did my husband do upon seeing this email? First, he found her GoFundMe. Then, he pulled up every dollar she had spent with the company in the last ten years (down to the penny!) and donated all of it back to her care. The love note I found was her thank-you. He never told anyone. I only know because I was snooping. I tell my business students that companies obsess over culture. I wish we talked a lot more about character, because leadership’s character inevitably becomes culture. His character became his company’s character. (Btw, the company does stuff like this all the time!) This matters even more now with AI because AI is going to amplify whatever character a company already has. The companies that cut people without thinking twice and squeeze every dollar out of the customer experience will use AI to do exactly that, faster. The companies that have always cared about their people and their customers will use AI to care even more, at scale. How companies use AI will reveal their character faster than ever.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisA little perspective for anyone putting themselves out there this week. There will always be somebody ready to criticize you. This post made me laugh, but it’s also a genuinely helpful reminder. You can't be interesting to everyone, and not everyone will love your work. Most criticism comes from people who never took the risk you're taking. The people actually in the arena rarely have the time or desire to tear others down. If you try to build something that no one can ever criticize, you’ll inevitably build something that no one cares about. Don't let the fear of what people might say stop you. And just remember, there’s someone out there who gave a 200-foot waterfall in Iceland one star for being too wet and loud.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisShe cashed out her retirement account and paid $70,000 in taxes to do it, then built a $4 billion company and made NYSE history. Meet Trina Spear, Co-Founder and CEO of FIGS. Raised in Miami, Trina was the kid who took the safe path seriously. She did everything right, and every door opened exactly the way it was supposed to. Trina excelled in school and earned a degree in economics from Tufts University, graduating magna cum laude. Later, she went on to Harvard Business School But the safe path came with a ceiling. She spent four years at Citigroup in investment banking and private equity, then landed at Blackstone There, she got a close look at how the healthcare industry really worked. That's when she noticed a glaring problem. Doctors and nurses, the people who were saving lives every day, were wearing boxy, uncomfortable scrubs that hadn't changed in decades. In 2013, she teamed up with Heather Hasson, a fashion entrepreneur, to launch FIGS. At first, no one believed in them. Investors dismissed the idea of "premium scrubs." Some even laughed. But Trina and Heather kept going. She liquidated her 401(k) to fund it and paid roughly $70,000 in taxes and fees. Healthcare workers loved the product. Word spread fast. By 2018, FIGS landed on the Inc. 5000 with three-year growth of 9,948%. In 2021, it went public at a valuation of more than $4 billion, and Forbes named Trina one of America's wealthiest self-made women. What's more, FIGS was the first company led by two female co-founders to trade on the NYSE. For Trina, the moment was simple: "Women can and will do great things together." Today, FIGS does more than $600 million a year and outfits healthcare professionals around the world. Yet I bet this is the first time you've heard of her. That's why I share stories of trailblazing women like Trina every Wednesday for #WomenFounderWednesday ____ ♻️ Share this post with someone who is changing the world. 🔔 Follow Jenny Stojkovic for more content on the future of women in AI.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisShe didn't found SpaceX. But she rang the bell at the biggest IPO in history. And walked away with a $2 billion stake. Meet Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX. Gwynne grew up in Illinois. She earned her bachelor's and master's at Northwestern in mechanical engineering and applied mathematics, at a time when women made up a tiny fraction of the field. She didn't grow up dreaming of rockets. The turning point came when she attended a panel and saw a woman engineer speak about her career. For the first time, she could picture herself in the room. She spent her early career at Aerospace Corporation, then ran Microcosm's space systems division. Then in 2002, she took a bet almost no one understood. She joined a four-month-old startup called SpaceX. The company had no successful launches. Its first three Falcon 1 rockets failed. The fourth launch was do-or-die. If it failed, SpaceX was finished. It worked. That's when everything changed. Gwynne became President in 2008 and has served as COO ever since. While Elon was the face, Gwynne built the engine room. She negotiated the contracts. She won over NASA. She turned a scrappy startup into the company that flew 165 orbital launches in 2025, more than half of every orbital launch on Earth, and over 80% of all mass sent to orbit. The operational force that kept the company running for 24 years. Here's what most people don't know: On June 12, SpaceX went public on the Nasdaq at $135 a share. It raised $85.7 billion. Roughly triple Saudi Aramco's record. The largest IPO ever completed. The stock closed its first day at $161, up 19%, at a market cap near $2.1 trillion. Elon watched from Texas. Gwynne rang the opening bell in New York. She holds roughly 12.6 million shares and is the fifth-largest owner of Class A stock. CNBC valued her stake at about $2 billion at the first day's close. She hasn't sold a share. Her holdings are locked up until June 2027. Not a founder. Not the face. The operator who bet on a company nobody believed in. On that first Falcon 1 failure, she once said: "That failure was pretty dramatic for us. We grew up overnight." The lesson? The operator is just as important as the founder. She made the rocket work. And then she took it public. Yet I bet this is the first time you've really heard her story. That's why I share stories of trailblazing women every Wednesday for #WomenFounderWednesday. _____ ♻️ Share this post with someone who is changing the world. 🔔 Follow Jenny Stojkovic for more content on the future of women in AI.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisThere’s a lot more room for a lot more women, in the room, around the table, and at the top. The ones who realize that are showing us what remarkable leadership looks like.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reposted thisI’ve always loved that Dolly Parton never tried to be anyone other than Dolly. She knew exactly who she was, owned every part of it, and never let anyone else define her. For more than six decades, she wrote the songs, owned her work, built businesses, gave back to millions, and did it all with so much humor and heart. From “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” to “9 to 5,” Dollywood, and her Imagination Library, what she built went so far beyond country music. Dolly showed generations of women that you can be kind and strong, glamorous and smart, laugh at yourself and still know your worth. She never made herself smaller to make anyone else more comfortable. I loved that about her. We lost Dolly today at 80 years old, but what she gave us will live on for generations. Rest in peace, Dolly. Thank you for the music, the laughter, the wisdom, and for always being unapologetically you.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson shared thisCoolest dogs around...Katie Castillo-Wilson shared thisThe whole TapOnIt pack showed up for National Dog Day 🐶🎉 Meet the dogs behind our team. Shades on, tails wagging, ready for whatever game is next. What a year to be a fan. Happy National Dog Day to all our very good sports (and yours too). 💙
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisIKEA replaced 8,500 customer service roles with AI. And the company is now $1.4 billion richer because of it... Back in 2021, IKEA’s largest franchisee, Ingka, launched an AI assistant called Billie. Within two years, Billie was handling 47% of customer queries to its call centres. The obvious move would have been to cut headcount. IKEA went the other way. It retrained 8,500 call centre workers as remote interior design advisers. Customers book a video call, get help planning a room and leave with a product list. In its 2022 financial year, that channel brought in €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) in sales. Ingka is aiming for it to reach 10% of total revenue by 2028. It’s one of the smartest uses of AI I’ve seen. To sum it up, IKEA decided to: ✅ Use AI to clear the repetitive work. ✅ Redeploy people to the work AI can’t do. ✅ Build a new service line around what those people do best. That’s how you build defensibility in 2026. AI is already changing how we work. The real question is where you put your people once it does. Be honest about what AI does better. Be ruthless about putting your people where they create the most leverage. AI can handle the standardised tasks. Humans belong where judgement, taste and relationships matter. Plenty of companies will treat AI as a way to cut costs and stop there. The ones that follow IKEA’s example will build something far harder to copy. Love seeing stories like these, and I hope to read many more in the future. Even though AI can feel doom and gloom to some folks, I hope this provides you a different perspective.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisKeep Becoming!!! said Coach K I have officially completed my Chief AI officer program Duke University - The Fuqua School of Business!!! I will first start with Gratitude Thank you to E.L.F. BEAUTY, a place where we’re given the freedom to learn, grow, and make an impact. Thank you Tarang Amin for creating a culture that is centered around cultivating people. Thank you to the faculty of Duke University - The Fuqua School of Business Chief AI Officer program led by Tony O'Driscoll Stephanie Fruth guest speakers Shep Moyle and Deborah Perry Piscione Ashleigh Shelby Rosette Jamie N Jones Gavan J Fitzsimons , for a week that stretched how I think about leadership in an age of unprecedented change. And I’m in awe of Coach K and his wisdom. A man with 1,000+ wins, five national titles, and six Olympic golds shared that his breakthrough came from realizing he was too central to his own team’s success. I expected a better view of the technology. I came home with a different view of the role. Five takeaways: 1. Intelligence is becoming a commodity. Every competitor can rent the same models. The advantage goes to leaders who solve the right problem at speed and build the trust that turns answers into action. 2. AI is a people problem. Roughly 70% of the effort in successful AI programs goes into people, organization, and process. Yet 88% of companies use AI and only about 7.5% get value at scale. 3. Leadership sets the ceiling. Don’t be the bottleneck. And keep becoming: add new skills without forgetting who you are, and stay close to people who are still learning. 4. Make truth safe, and lead the loss. 57% of employees hide how they use AI. People don’t resist change, they resist what they lose. Name it before you sell the future. 5. Clarity beats certainty. A company planning annually gets one learning cycle a year. A weekly cadence gets fifty, our operating models have to evolve as fast as the technology. My commitment: keep becoming, for myself and for the teams I get to work with. I’ll be writing about my learnings on Substack in the coming weeks. Follow to stay connected: https://lnkd.in/gpwSzf-9
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Katie Castillo-Wilson liked thisKatie Castillo-Wilson liked thisEstonia’s new tourism ad set to Future’s Mask Off goes HARD 🔥 It’s a new film from Visit Tallinn called Born from Culture. Tallinn University’s folk dance group do traditional Estonian dance, soundtracked by Future and Estonian accordion player Ernst Valdmaa. People who’d scroll straight past a folk dance video stop when they hear Future on it. Folk dance and trap shouldn’t work together. Your brain clocks the clash and you have to keep watching to see how it plays out. 👇 Tourism ads are on a roll at the moment! Visit Sweden opened an Introvert Travel Agency, selling holidays where nobody pressures you to socialise. Visit Oslo brought back Halfdan, their famously unimpressed local, for a grumpy Christmas musical moaning about winter. Somehow it makes you want to go. Every one of these found the thing that makes a place feel like itself, and gave people a fun way in. ✌️💚
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisThis 43 year old CEO went from being homeless to making history when she sold her feminine care brand for $380 million dollars. Last year, it did $157 million in sales. Meet Beatrice Dixon, co-founder, CEO, and chief innovation officer of The Honey Pot Company. Beatrice's path to entrepreneurship was unlikely. She worked a long list of jobs to get by, from pharmacy technician to Whole Foods. At one point, she was homeless. Then she hit a health crisis. For eight months, she battled bacterial vaginosis, and nothing she tried worked. One night, her late grandmother came to her in a dream with a list of ingredients. Beatrice woke up, went to her kitchen, and made the formula. Within a few days, her symptoms were gone. With no prior experience in consumer goods, she took a leap of faith and launched The Honey Pot in 2014. Her goal? To create a natural alternative to traditional feminine care products, which prioritized plant-based ingredients, holistic wellness, and Black women’s health. Then Target picked up the brand. In 2020, a Target commercial featuring Beatrice drove a massive sales spike. It also drew online backlash from trolls who criticized her for celebrating being a Black woman founder. Beatrice didn't back down. The Honey Pot expanded into Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens, eventually reaching more than 33,000 U.S. stores. By 2023, The Honey Pot was making over $120 million per year. Then, in early 2024, it happened: Beatrice made history with one of the industry's biggest acquisitions of the year. The company was acquired by Compass Diversified (NYSE: CODI) for $380 million, with Beatrice continuing as CEO and retaining a significant minority stake. The growth didn't stop there. In 2025, The Honey Pot reported $157 million in sales. In the first half of 2026, sales grew another 21% to $83.5 million. And in 2026, Beatrice published her memoir, The Soul Instinct, with a foreword by Gwyneth Paltrow. When she realized her formula worked, Beatrice said she knew right away: "This is what I do now." Her advice for other first-time founders working on an exit? “Your gut, mind, and heart got to be synced up.” Today, The Honey Pot is a category leader, proving that women-led, mission-driven brands can take on industry giants. What makes Beatrice remarkable is that she didn't come from consumer goods. She came from odd jobs and a period of homelessness. She turned a recipe from a dream into a category-defining brand. Yet this post might be the first time you've ever heard of her. That's why I share stories of trailblazing women like Beatrice every Wednesday for #WomenFounderWednesday. ____ ♻️ Share this post with someone who is changing the world. 🔔 Follow Jenny Stojkovic for more content on the future of women in AI.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisPersonality. From our sports bars, to our food, to our guests, to our team members - and yes, Hank the talking buffalo 🦬- the amazing personalities make Buffalo Wild Wings what it is. And I’m having a wild time being part of it. Let’s go B Dubs! 🔥🙌
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisPeople ask me how I stay hopeful when the numbers on women and mothers in this country are so bleak. For me, optimism is a decision you make every morning — and then back up with work. When I started Girls Who Code in 2012, closing the gender gap in tech felt like a long shot, and 800,000+ students later, I’m so glad we bet on it anyway. I’m bringing that same stubborn hope to Moms First, because I believe we can build a country that actually works for mothers. Honored to be named one of Forbes’ 250 Greatest Living American Optimists alongside so many people betting on a better future: https://lnkd.in/euDSvxpe
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Katie Castillo-Wilson liked thisKatie Castillo-Wilson liked thisYou should be deeply concerned about what your AI notetaker does with your sensitive meeting data. Some companies train on it. Others make their policies vague. Fireflies is explicit... We DO NOT train on customer data. Join millions of users and businesses that trust Fireflies over every other platform on the market.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisPlay, joy, and love are biological necessities, and the science is unambiguous. 🧬 Laughter lowers cortisol and epinephrine, crying releases built-up nervous system tension, hugging shifts you out of fight-or-flight and into calm, singing stimulates the vagus nerve (which governs your heart rate, digestion, and immune response) and dancing actually promotes the growth of new brain cells. These aren’t fringe concepts, this is your physiology responding to joy in real time. We’ve built entire industries around optimizing food, sleep, and exercise, and those things matter deeply, but joy, play, and love belong in that same conversation. Think of them as part of your health stack — non-negotiable, not optional, and available to you right now. Joy IS health.
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Katie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisKatie Castillo-Wilson reacted on thisShe watched her friend lose her baby at seven months and had to deliver her stillborn. Then the hospital put her in the postpartum ward, surrounded by new moms and their newborns. So she built a $1.7 billion company to fix it. Meet Kate Ryder, Founder and CEO of Maven Clinic. Kate grew up in Minnesota. She studied English and political science at the University of Michigan, then got a master’s in anthropology at the London School of Economics. She became a journalist, writing for The Economist, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. In 2009, at 25, she ghostwrote Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s memoir about the 2008 financial crisis. In 2012, she joined Index Ventures in London as an investor. But something kept nagging at her. She watched friends struggle through pregnancy, postpartum, and fertility challenges with almost no support. Doctors were hard to find and appointments were impossible. The system wasn't built for women. One of her earliest memories was visiting her mother undergoing breast cancer treatment. She was under five years old. In 2014, she quit her job and founded Maven Clinic, the first virtual clinic focused entirely on women’s and family health. She bet on herself. In 2015, 11 weeks pregnant and new to New York, Kate started bleeding. She had no local doctor. So she opened Maven. A nurse practitioner on a video visit sent her to the ER, where she miscarried. Her first investor gave her $50,000 on the spot at a lunch meeting. Maven launched with a simple idea: give women access to OB-GYNs, midwives, mental health specialists, and lactation consultants through their phones. On demand. Employers signed on. First, Amazon, then Microsoft, and AT&T. Half of the Fortune 15. In 2021, Maven became the first U.S. unicorn focused on women’s and family health. In 2024, it raised a Series F at a $1.7 billion valuation. Annual revenue hit $268 million. Today, Maven covers 28 million lives in 175 countries through more than 2,300 employers and health plans. But here’s what makes Kate different in 2026: In March, Maven opened its doors to every woman, with or without an employer plan. The new consumer platform includes virtual care plus hormone and GLP-1 programs built for women. In April, TIME named Maven one of the 100 Most Influential Companies for the second time. Kate has said: “I want to be able to show up to every person who is thinking about starting a family.” What makes Kate remarkable is that she didn’t come from healthcare. She came from journalism and venture capital. She saw a broken system and built the category that fixed it. Kate Ryder may be one of the most important founders in women’s health, yet this post might be the first time you’ve ever heard of her. ____ ♻️ Share this post with someone who is changing the world. 🔔 Follow Jenny Stojkovic for more content on the future of women in AI.
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DMN 40 Under 40
DMN
2019's 40UNDER40 Winners
40 marketing high-flyers who made the 2019 list.
https://www.dmnews.com/home/article/21080675/2019s-40under40-winners -
25 Under 35
Editor & Publisher
Named one of Editor & Publishers 25 Under 35. Nominations asked for "people who are young, bright and capable of tackling whatever the changing newspaper climate throws at them. People with business acumen to lead through trying times and vision to implement bold, new strategies to move their newspapers forward."
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10 Newspapers That Do It Right
Editor & Publisher
The Quad-City Times was named one of Editor & Publisher's 10 Newspapers That Do It Right in March of 2014. The award was given for being a newspaper that is transforming into a digital agency and marketing experts.
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Dino Vedo
Dino Vedo
My passion has been online advertising and building companies. As a successful entrepreneur, I have built a large number of multi-million dollar brands and I'm always looking for other opportunities to grow, network, and make a difference in the world.<br><br>We specialize in performance marketing for our clients. We drive thousands of new leads daily to our advertisers and are always looking to work with other companies, clients, and brands. Our advertising specialties are in social media, pay-per-click, and display.<br><br>Interested in working together? Just send me a message and say hello!
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