10.11.18
Nationally Recognized Serial Entrepreneur and Tech Founder to Keynote Northeast Indiana Entrepreneurial Event
Tammy Allen, Director, Marketing Communications & Programs – The NIIC
Santiago Jaramillo, CEO and Co-Founder, Emplify
Santiago Jaramillo, CEO and Co-founder of Emplify, will serve as keynote speaker for The NIIC’s Ideas@Work event on April 16, 2019, at the Parkview Mirro Center for Research and Innovation. Attendees will be engaged and inspired as Jaramillo shares his Lessons Learned from a Purpose-Centered Entrepreneurial Journey.
Early in his life, Santiago immigrated to Florida with his family to escape the rampant violence of late 1990s Colombia. Through this defining experience, he learned the importance of adaptability and grit, which have been grounding principles for him throughout his business career.
A serial entrepreneur, Jaramillo has developed and grown multiple small and midsize companies. Most notably, as the founder and CEO of mobile app platform Bluebridge, he grew the company from his college dorm room to become the premier app platform to churches and tourism destinations across the country. Under his leadership, the company grew to over 45 employees in four years and nearly 500 customers across the world. In November 2016, Bluebridge church and tourism was acquired by PushPay and Simpleview, respectively, for a combined $8 million dollars.
He currently leads a team of engagement experts to provide more reliable employee engagement insights for better decision making. He has spoken to and trained thousands of CEOs and HR leaders across small, mid-market, and Fortune 500 companies on the importance and business value of employee engagement. Last month, Emplify closed on over a $7.5 million outside Series A capital round with several institutional investors.
“Santiago offers a compelling perspective to the entrepreneurial landscape. His tenacity, grit and adaptability not only propel his success and Emplify’s but offers important insights into his purpose-centered entrepreneurial journey. Join us at Ideas@Work to learn from one of the most dynamic and engaging entrepreneurial co-founders in Indiana,” said Karl R. LaPan, President and CEO, The Northeast Indiana Innovation Center (The NIIC).
“I am excited to have the opportunity to share with the nearly 500 attendees the guiding principles and values that have inspired, motivated and keep me centered throughout my professional career. Movements, like NIIC’s Ideas@Work, shine a light on the importance of the entrepreneurial action and energy Indiana needs to be a beacon for diverse entrepreneurs and business builders,” stated Santiago Jaramillo, CEO and Co-founder of Emplify.
Jaramillo’s accolades include being named to Inc. magazine’s “30 Under 30” list in 2013, being invited to the White House for recognition of his entrepreneurial contributions through the Champions of Change program, being named to Indianapolis Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40” list in 2015 as one of the youngest honorees in the program’s history and received the award for Indiana Latino Businessman of the Year in 2016. He is the co-author of Agile Engagement, an Amazon best-selling book
About The NIIC—The NIIC is a non-profit, vibrant entrepreneurial community. We help business builders and entrepreneurs launch and grow successful business ventures. We are located in a designated U.S. Small Business Administration HUB Zone, and in April 2018, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb designated The Northeast Indiana Innovation Park Campus as an Opportunity Zone through the U.S. Treasury. Formed in 1999 by a consortium of community and government leaders and organizations, The NIIC was recognized by Entrepreneur magazine in 2013 as one of the top four under-the-radar incubators in the country. This basically means Entrepreneur magazine, with the help of International Business Incubation Association, picked four U.S. incubators to highlight, and we were one of them. In their words, we “stand out in a state not always perceived as small business friendly.” The NIIC is the country’s only ISO9001: 2008 registered business incubation and acceleration program. https://niic.net/.
About Emplify—Emplify, an industry leader in data-driven employee analytics and action-enabling insights for business leaders, helps executives leverage employee insights to make their workforce more successful. Backed by decades of research in human psychology and neuroscience, Emplify Insights™ blends employee engagement best practices and hands-on expert coaching into an agile feedback system that’s simple yet more effective than historic annual employee surveys, and more trustworthy than modern pulse surveys. Emplify is trusted by companies like Ivy Tech Community College, Herff Jones, Appirio, Cheetah Digital, Crew Carwash, and many others. Learn more at www.emplify.com.
