Midwest Companies to Watch in 2021 | January 26

James Chapman is the Founder and CEO of Plain Sight, a mobile app for networking with like-minded people in virtual and physical spaces. The serial entrepreneur has a passion for helping other budding entrepreneurs. The Chattanooga native moved to Detroit for the opportunity to assist the Rock Family of Companies with helping local entrepreneurs start, grow, and scale their businesses.

This led him to launch the first ever Rocket Mortgage Detroit Demo Day. In just three years, Detroit Demo Day has provided nearly $4 million in funding to small businesses throughout the city; the majority of which have been minority and woman-owned. In Chattanooga, he ran a workspace from 6pm – midnight for side-hustlers that work full-time during the day. The attendees wanting to know the expertise of people at the space in real-time is what led him to start Plain Sight with his cofounders.

Driven by a desire to combine 20+ years of brand-building experience with positive social impact, Bridget Russo Gottlieb joined the team at Bloomscape in 2019 as CMO to oversee their growth and leadership in the fastest growing retail product of the past few years.

Before joining the Bloomscape team Bridget, headed up marketing for Eileen Fisher moving forward their content strategy, campaign approach and experiential marketing. And from 2012 to 2018 she oversaw global marketing and communications as CMO for Shinola where she worked closely with internal and external partners, across private and public sectors, to build an American design brand through storytelling and products that are built to last.

Prior to Shinola, Russo made a name for herself in the fashion industry by pursuing projects she found ethically compelling—including the establishment of her own consulting firm, Passion Projects Consulting, whose focus was fashion ventures driven by social impact. This globally inspired mentality began with her work at EDUN, the apparel brand founded by Ali Hewson and Bono with a commitment to reducing poverty in Africa through trade.
Bridget was also named one of the Ad Week Brand Genius Class of 2016, bestowed upon 10 of marketing “most talented” that year. She also sits on the Advisory Board for the furniture brand Floyd Detroit, and is an Endeavor Detroit Mentor.

Raffaele’s strategic thinking and effective leadership have been instrumental and paramount in his career as an IT, Sales and Operations professional. His extensive experience in the IT and Security industry serves as the platform of Aadya. His consistent record of leading teams through successful acquisitions; strategic planning and implementation and deploying large, multi-tiered complex programs has served companies such as Duo, FireEye, McAfee and Dell. Raffaele also has experience in implementing marketing and sales strategies positioning companies for future growth and deploying applications and business process improvements to assist with bookings, leads and new go-to-market programs.