Nick Mammola, founder and managing partner of Kingside Partners, will deliver the keynote address at Catawba College's 13th annual CEO Lecture at 11 a.m. Tuesday, March 29, in Hedrick Little Theatre on campus.
Sponsored by the Ralph W. Ketner School of Business, the lecture is free and open to the public and has become an event much anticipated by the campus and local business community.
Mammola's career spans a variety of industries and business models such as licensed sports properties, new media, web and mobile technologies, ad tech, digital media, consumer internet, loyalty and affinity marketing, inbound and direct response marketing, multi-sided SaaS subscription models, crowdfunding and multi-unit restaurants. He has spent more than 30 years as a C-level executive, a top tier venture backed start-up founder, and as a former CFO, COO and board director in public and private companies.
His career focus has been in creating, financing and building high growth consumer and marketing centric companies with technology as a central enabler. He offers a unique set of capabilities – knowledge, skills and hands-on experience - in the complexities of business formation, private and public debt & equity capital markets, corporate governance and day-to-day operating performance.
Over the past 10 years, Mammola has been principally focused in the early stage and emerging growth space, initially as a co-founder, director, CEO - Wingman and principal financial and operating officer of Stoneacre Partners LLC. The business was a start-up NASCAR official loyalty and affinity platform backed by Bain Capital Ventures, Halyard Capital and several prominent family offices from the world of sports, technology, media and entertainment.
The original Stoneacre business was sold in 2011. Mammola restarted the business in 2013 and currently operates Stoneacre2.0 as a portfolio interest of Kingside Partners. Stoneacre2.0 has worked with high-affinity consumer brands such as USA Hockey and Angie's List (NASDAQ:ANGI). His knowledge, experiences, skills and first-hand "lessons learned" are central to the Kingside Partners value proposition.
Through an "Office of The CEO" structure and "Business of The Business" methodology, Mammola works with and for equity sponsors, company founders and senior management teams in addressing the challenges unique to early stage and emerging growth companies. As an experienced operator and a transaction veteran with broad business, marketing and financial acumen, Mammola's focus is on the business model, the revenue funnel and the accretion of enterprise value.
Prior to co-founding Stoneacre, he served as a director, CFO, COO and Executive Committee Chairman of Cyrk, Inc. (NASDAQ:CYRK), a $1B global provider of promotional and loyalty marketing programs for Fortune 50 brands. He previously served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Papa Gino's, Inc, helping to lead the company's growth as New England's largest quick service multi-unit restaurant chain and eventual sale to Berkshire Partners, a prominent Boston based private equity firm.
Mammola started his career in public accounting after completing his undergraduate degree at Boston College. He received his MBA from Suffolk University. He has served as a member of the board of Overseers at Lasell College and is a member of the Association of Corporate Growth.
A lifelong Bostonian, he now lives in North Reading, Mass., with his wife and has two adult daughters.
Mammola will join other notable CEOs who have delivered the keynote address at Catawba's Distinguished CEO Lectures. Prior speakers have included Louis DeJoy, chief executive officer of New Breed Logistics, Inc.; Jeffrey Kane, former senior vice president in charge of the Charlotte office of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond; Bob Ingram, vice chairman pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline; Ellen Ruff, then president of Duke Energy – Carolinas; Robert Wagner, Lowe's senior vice president of specialty sales and store operations support, and Kelly King, chairman and chief executive officer of BB&T Corporation; Bryan Jordan, president and chief executive officer of First Horizon National Corporation in Memphis, Tenn.; James H. Morgan, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc.; Ralph W. Ketner, one of the co-founders of Food Lion and chairman emeritus of the board of Food Lion, Inc.; Brandi Tysinger-Temple, founder of Lexington-based Lolly Wolly Doodle; Jenny Fulton, co-founder of North Carolina-based Miss Jenny's Pickles; and Danny Morrison, Carolina Panthers' Team President.
