St. Pete X St. Petersburg Group

A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a U.S. Naval officer veteran, Mark Mahaffey joined his father’s business in 1969. Today, he is Chairman of the Board of The Mahaffey Companies, one of the largest family-owned real estate companies in Florida. St. Petersburg’s Mahaffey Theater bears his family’s name. In this edition of SPx, Mahaffey discusses his amazing life journey, as chronicled in his 2023 memoir “The Pathfinder.” In the book, subtitled “Finding the Right Path,” Mahaffey recognizes the defining moments that were the tailwinds to his considerable success.

Ken LaRoe is the founder of Climate First Bank, which is his third bank. After the very successful sale of Florida Choice Bank, his first, LaRoe and his wife Cindy rented a small RV to travel the country. For that trip LaRoe's brother gave him a copy of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard's book, Let My People Go Surfing. It proved to be a transformational read. In this episode of SPx we explore that transition into values based banking as well as entrepreneurial banking as a whole.   

After looking for every reason not to open a fund in Tampa Bay, the founders of TampaBay.Ventures found the value to compelling to deny. They stood up a fund and the man who runs the day to day operations, Andreas Calabrease, is our guest on this episode. 

Washington Post associate editor and senior national security correspondent Karen DeYoung is Joe’s guest on today’s SPX podcast. DeYoung, who has been with the Post for nearly 50 years, grew up in St. Petersburg, and wrote for the St. Petersburg Times in the early 1970s. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist discusses her many years as a foreign correspondent, her encounters with global heads of state and her love of travel – along with her thoughts on the role of the journalist in today’s society, objectivity vs. subjectivity, and what it’s like to have Jeff Bezos for a boss (Bezos purchased the Post in 2013). 

A fourth-generation St. Petersburg native, Marcus Brooks passionately believes in absolute equity on every level, and as the executive director of the Center for Health Equity, he is fully invested in what he calls the “collaboration and connectivity” needed to achieve both physical wellness, racial balance, empathy and understanding in the city (and county) he loves. His daily affirmation: “Whatever gifts you are believed to have, are not yours. They were gifted to you for a finite amount of time, to be passed on and used in service of others.” 

Jim Barnish is the Founding Managing Partner of Orchid Black and the host of The Dirt podcast. Orchid Black is a consulting firm that focuses exclusively on revenue-positive start-ups looking to make an exit within three years. This conversation discusses the nuances of Orchid Black's unique business model, the hurdles and opportunities facing companies looking to scale, and how to balance working with multiple start-ups. 
 
You can learn more about Orchid Black at orchid.black, and The Dirt podcast is streaming on all podcast platforms.