Chris Folayan is a renowned and multi-award-winning serial entrepreneur, author and founder, celebrated for his exceptional ability to start and scale multi-million-dollar global companies. With an illustrious career spanning decades, Chris has demonstrated an extraordinary talent for investing, raising substantial capital, and building thriving businesses from the ground up.
His entrepreneurial journey began at the tender age of seven and a half when he started a profitable recycling business, and since then, he has become an expert across various fields, founding and exiting several successful companies globally.
Born and raised in Africa, Chris's relentless pursuit of knowledge led him to California, where he attended San Jose State University in the heart of Silicon Valley. Graduating with a degree in marketing, he discovered his passion for software development and embarked on a self-taught journey in mastering several programming and development languages. This impressive feat caught the attention of several Silicon Valley tech giants, including Quantum. At the young age of 19, Chris was recruited by Quantum, a cutting-edge hard drive manufacturing company.
During his time at Quantum, Chris immersed himself in cutting-edge software engineering which led him to work with the due diligence group for mergers and acquisition division. White at Quantum he worked on the development of numerous technical patents. Remarkably, he accomplished all of this while simultaneously pursuing a full-time college education. Chris's expertise garnered widespread recognition, and companies across Silicon Valley eagerly sought his technical and market-oriented insights.
Eventually, he left Quantum and co-founded NTM, a pioneering digital music label platform, revolutionizing the industry with the world's first indie music recording-to-digital rights and sales platform. Collaborating with artists from around the globe ensuring artists' music was safe while being encrypted and sold online. Chris dedicated his time to developing the patent for the encryption technology he developed used by NTM used by global artists.
Having successfully exited NTM, Chris founded his first of many companies, OCFX Inc. As the founder and CEO, he built OCFX into a renowned Silicon Valley brand, collaborating with prestigious Fortune 100 and 500 companies such as SONY, Quantum, LSI Logic, Accenture, Adobe, Cisco, EMC, Merrill Lynch, Elo, CapitalOne, History Channel and many others. Under Chris's leadership, OCFX built a reputation for turning clients' imaginative ideas into exceptional revenue-generating software products. Additionally, Chris spearheaded the development of several spin-off companies within the OCFX ecosystem, offering valuable tools and solutions that companies could purchase and license. Chris sold and exited several of OCFX spin-off companies to major brands.
While OCFX was growing globally with over 350 employees he had an idea and developed one of Africa’s largest eCommerce platforms MallforAfrica and MallfortheWorld. An idea he started to help people in Africa and the world who were unbanked shop on top USA and UK retailers. Starting the company from scratch wasn’t easy but Chris ended up building a multimillion-dollar monthly revenue business. And quickly became one of Africa and the world's leading eCommerce experts in emerging markets.
Completing his 4th exit after selling MallforAfrica and Mallfortheworld to a UK based business Chris wrote a book titled “From Pitch To Close: What Founders and CEOs Need to Know and Do Before An Investor Meeting” which has won him several prestigious book awards. A book written to help entrepreneurs build companies at the highest valuation possible. Chris has also written other books about entrepreneurship and investments.
Today Chris helps companies expand globally, consults, mentors, lectures, serves on several boards, invests and is an exciting public speaker with amazing motivational stories and lessons to share. Chris has spoken in over 50 countries and has a reputation for thinking outside the box and getting everyone to master the entrepreneurial mindset with his concept well known acronym P.I.N.K (Passion - Innovation - Network - Knowledge).
Reading his books, hoping on a call or listening to Chris speak is a treat. His witty comedic yet inspirational insights into building a business with passion while thinking outside the box is a masterpiece. Over 25+ years of ownership Chris still owns OCFX as a legacy brand he works under.
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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at Renaissance Executive Forums Orange County. Learn more about Ric at www.ricfranzi.com.
Catch up on past Critical Mass Business Talk Show interviews...
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gHKT2gmF
LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/g2PzRhjQ
Podbean: https://lnkd.in/eWpNVRi
Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gRd_863w
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gruexU6m
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Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Gary Maggetti, General Manager of Disney California Adventure Park West (Episode 1474)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Gaye Tomlinson, CEO of Vaha Energy (Episode 1472)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Erin Giglia, Founder of Montage Legal Group (Episode 1471)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Kurt Lohse, Co-Founder of Bored & Thirsty (Episode 1470)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Catlin Tran, Founder & CEO of Nutripair (Episode 1469)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Mohammed Omar, Crumbl Cookies & Toastique (Episode 1468)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Bret Englander, Co-Founder of Cerno Group (Episode 1467)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Craig Cooke, Entrepreneur & Author of Business Kung Fu (Episode 1466)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Robert Riggs, Founder & President of Oralogix LLC (Episode 1465)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Addison Adams, Founder of Adams Corporate Law, Inc. (Episode 1464)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Ria Berger, CEO of Healthy Smiles for Kids Orange County (HSK) (Episode 1463)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Jan Miller, President of 21-13 Impact Graphics Inc. (Episode 1462)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Nicholas Yrizarry, CEO of Align Wealth Advisors (Episode 1461)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Mandy Schaniel, Founder & CEO of Schaniel Consulting Inc. (Episode 1460)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Nicole Andrews, CEO of Fastapp AMC (Episode 1459)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Rieva Lesonsky, Founder & CEO of GrowBiz Media / SmallBusinessCurrents.com (Episode 1458)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Eileen McDargh, Founder & CEO of The Resiliency Group / McDargh Communications (Episode 1457)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Dr. Chip Espinoza, Dean of Strategy at Vanguard University (Episode 1456)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Kent Schmidt, Litigation Partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP (Episode 1455)
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