Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now, let's join your host Phil Better as your special guest today on Invest In Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast.

Welcome to another powerful episode of Invest In Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. I am on none other than your podcast mogul, Phil Better, and I am happy that today we're gonna be diving into a remarkable story of a leader who has mastered the art of perseverance, faith, and grit, and whose relentless drive has not only turned businesses around, but also inspired countless others to reach for the impossible. Our guest today is a dedicated father, a husband, and c a CEO whose balanced energy and core values approach have helped him unite teams and achieve success where others only saw obstacles. In 2023, as CEO, he turned a struggling retail technological technological technology company into a thriving, successful, safeguarding jobs and delivering pardon?

That was a long word.

It was. It was. Technology is a long word. Yeah. Safeguarding jobs and delivering incredible returns to his investors. His track record, nothing short of extraordinary, leading a mobile tech provider to a 1,300,000,000.0. That's with a b, ladies and gentlemen, exit in 2016 and orchestrating a go to market strategy for one of America's top largest telecom com comp companies during the ultra competitive launch of Apple's technology in the twenty two thousand eight. With leadership roles at Fortune 500 giants like AT and T, Sprint, Systematic, and Avast, this powerhouse knows how to drive growth and management management manage strategic partnerships across the globe.

His story is one of resilience, vision, and most importantly, people. Whether steering a company to new heights or helping a team through life's toughest challenges, his focus remains on building trust and empowering others to succeed. So today, he's here to share his story, his wisdom, and his thoughts on leadership and overcoming that adversity. So please put your hands together for Chris Greco. Chris, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks, Phil. Good to be here. Wow. What a what a a introduction. I appreciate that.

You're very welcome. I wish I wasn't fumbling over my words, but, you know, podcasters apparently would

You didn't have your coffee yet, I guess. Right?

Yeah. That's it. My coffee hasn't hit the system yet. But, Chris, I'm very excited to have you here because your journey of, you know, what you've done for different companies and what you've done for yourself is incredible. Thank you. I I wanna know why why did you jump into this path of life, and what made you decide to become an entrepreneur?

Well, I didn't decide. Right? The life life chose, you know, it was got, you know, God's plan. Life chose, you know, life chose me. Life chooses all of us. So it's it's it's how you it's how you react. And, I always, you know, I always, talk with, you know, mentors. And my mentors always say is that, you know, when there's an opportunity in front of us, sometimes we just don't realize it. And that's that's always good when you talk to somebody that that you're senior because they can see things that that you that you might not see.

And the the opportunity that I I took, with that retail technology company store wise, I wasn't keen on taking it because it was fraught with so many issues and problems. But my mentor said, look, Chris, if you can, you know, if you can really turn it around, it'll it'll, you know, establish it'll establish you. And and I didn't turn it around. I was the team that that I was lucky enough to recruit because you you can't you can't you never do it on your own, ever. You always do it with with good people. And I think that the the peep the leader that is able to go ahead and, you know, bring people together, you know, with them, you know, to work side by side with them is the one are the ones that are gonna be successful. And the team that we built, store wise was incredible, and and they're the reason why, you know, we we scaled. We turned the company around, and then we sold, you know, to private equity for, for a six x multiple on revenue.

That's

insane. That's insane. Yeah. I wanna talk to you about building that team because leadership is so important when you're an entrepreneur, you're starting your business, hiring the right people. How how did you go about finding those right people to help you build Starlink or a Star Store or Or Wise. Yeah. Starwise, to be an ex tymer