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 Dr. Shahrzad Nooravi, Founder & CEO of Strategy Meets Performance (Episode 1374)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Stewart Gandolf, CEO of Healthcare Success (Episode 1373)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Yuko Tsuchida, Founder & Owner of Hito LLC (Episode 1372)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Bill Edwards, CEO of Edwards Global Services (Episode 1371)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: John Mendola, Founder of University Curriculum for Independent Learning (UCIL) (Episode 1370)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Mark A. Herschberg, Author of The Career Toolkit (Episode 1369)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ashley Harris, Chief Financial Officer of Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Orange Coast (Episode 1368)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Dr. Kathryn Hamel, CEO of Hecht Trauma Institute (Episode 1367)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Ashley Vallett, Founder of Technacity Group (Episode 1366)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Cathy Trinh, CEO of Recruiter Hustle, Inc. (Episode 1365)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews John Beaver, President & CEO of BIOLASE (Episode 1364)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Kayla Sibley, CFO at SERVPRO of Irvine (Episode 1363)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Hector Muñoz, Senior Helpers of South Orange County (Episode 1362)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews James Muraca, Chief Technology Officer at Enersponse (Episode 1361)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Sherri Snelling, CEO of The Caregiving Club (Episode 1360)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Richard Medcalf, Founder of Xquadrant (Episode 1359)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Matt Armand, Founder of Align Executive Search (Episode 1358)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Tolga Tarhan, Founder & CEO of Kibsi (Episode 1357)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Abir Alameddine, Founder & CEO of Ze Titan (Episode 1356)
Critical Mass Business Talk Show: Ric Franzi Interviews Meymuna Hussein-Cattan, Founder of The Tiyya Foundation (Episode 1355)
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