Advisory Board members help shape the culture, programming and goals of the Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center, McCombs entrepreneurship and innovation initiatives as a whole.
Brian is an entrepreneur, investor, author, and is currently the Founder & Executive Chairman of AlertMedia, a company he started in 2013. AlertMedia is now the world’s leading provider of emergency communication software, used by over 2,500 enterprise companies in 130+ countries to keep employees safe from threats to their health and safety. Before AlertMedia, Brian co-founded Xenex, where he and his team developed a germ-killing robot, now used in over 700 hospitals around the world, preventing infections and saving thousands of lives each year. He is also an investor and adviser to dozens of early stage startups through his investment firm, Marketdriver Ventures. Brian’s focus on starting companies with a positive impact stems, in part, from his experience working at Enron, where he was part of mass layoffs when the energy giant went bankrupt in 2001. He turned his Enron experience and the lessons learned into a best-selling book and later a movie. Brian is a graduate of the University of Southern California and received his MBA from the University of Texas.
Steve Ronnel is President of Metal Recycling Corporation, a second generation scrap metal recycling and commodity trading company based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Prior to joining the family business in 1999, Mr. Ronnel worked in Washington, DC for almost a decade, serving in the White House as an advisor to President Bill Clinton and the United States Senate as a legislative aide to Senator David Pryor of Arkansas.
Mr. Ronnel graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1990 with a BBA in management. He is a past Chairman of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and a past President of the Arkansas Recyclers Association. His proudest accomplishments include marrying his wife Jennifer (UT BA ’90, Harvard Law School ‘96) and their three children, Jason (current UT McCombs student), Marilyn (current NYU student) and David (current high school student).
Quoc is an entrepreneur and loves helping founders start and grow businesses.
He is the CFO for FarBridge, Inc. where he manages the financial health and growth for a team dedicated to making games and immersive experiences.
Previously, Quoc was an Advisor and VP of Operations to SURVIVR, which aimed to make communities safer through immersive and responsive law enforcement training. SURVIVR was adopted by police agencies, universities, and private firms across 10 states – as well as the U.S. Air Force and Department of Homeland Security. In August 2021, SURVIVR was acquired by InVeris Training Solutions.
Before that, Quoc was CTO or technical director for a variety of startups and worked on computer-vision based shopping assistants, software for medical devices that could remove tumors in outpatient surgery, and a no-code platform that reached 3 million app developers.
You can connect with Quoc on LinkedIn here.
After 20 years in retail and merchandising executive leadership, Michael Tucci founded Rebel Capital, a growth investment company, in 2016. His previous roles include CEO and managing partner of Rag & Bone, president of North America Group and North America Retail for Coach, Inc., and executive vice president at Gap. Michael began his career at Macy’s, where he became president of specialty store division, Aeropostale. Michael is an advisor for Allbirds, a direct-to-consumer shoe brand and past director of The Fresh Market. He is the chief of corporate development and a board member of the STEER for Student Athletes, a committee member of Trinity College’s The Future of Athletics Campaign. He lives in Rye, New York with his wife Kim and they have four children, including Ellis Tucci, a finance major in McCombs.
