Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:48 — 35.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

Skip Norris is the President of The Building Center, one of the largest privately held lumber and building products companies in the United States. The company was founded in Charlotte in 1977 by his father, Ed Norris. And what started as a single building supply operation has grown into a vertically integrated powerhouse with lumberyards, truss plants, custom millwork operations, and door shops all across the Carolinas. We’re talking over 400 employees, a fleet of trucks that’s the largest in the Carolinas, and more than a dozen locations stretching from Boone all the way down to the South Carolina coast.
What makes this story especially interesting is how Skip has grown a business that his father built while keeping the values that made it worth growing in the first place.
Skip, welcome to the BrandBuilders Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:28 — 40.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

Andrea Swope is a founding force behind Blueprint Financial Advisors — a Charlotte-based registered investment advisor that launched in 2021 with a single advisor and a little over $20 million in assets. Fast forward to the end of 2025, and Blueprint is managing $1.4 billion. That’s not a typo.

But what makes Andrea’s story compelling isn’t just the growth. It’s the how. Blueprint was built on a philosophy that, frankly, you don’t hear a lot in the financial world: put the advisor first. Handle all the infrastructure, compliance, operations, technology, and asset management behind the scenes, so the advisor can stay front and center with their clients. 

In 2024, Blueprint doubled down on that vision in a big way, acquiring a broker-dealer, launching Blueprint Insurance Services, and creating a brand new ETF. It’s a full-service financial platform, built right here in Charlotte. 

Andrea, welcome to the BrandBuilders Podcast! 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:49 — 29.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

There’s a new generation of wine professionals out there, replacing intimidation with invitation, and gatekeeping with genuine hospitality. Shay Gilchrist is one of those people.

She’s the founder of Wine & Vibes, a wine consulting and experiential brand built on four pillars: food, wine, hosting, and vibes. She holds a WSET Level 2 with Merit certification and works as a wine consultant and author and the creator of Vinology, a trademarked interactive word search collection that blends wine literacy with pairing guides, tasting notes, and flavor language.

She believes wine is a story, a mood, and a moment worth sharing. She brings food, music, and community to every glass, and believes wine is meant to be experienced.

Shay, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:49 — 40.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

There are two kinds of resilience stories. One is the kind where someone overcomes something hard and comes out the other side stronger, more polished. Like in the movies.

The other kind is messier. It’s told from inside; or what our next guest calls “the long middle.” It’s nowhere close to a straight line, and it’s a whole lot more complicated. Like real life.

On June 12, 2024, Eleanor Shell was pushing her infant daughter’s stroller out of the path of an oncoming SUV in a SouthPark parking lot. The car hit Eleanor instead. The traumatic brain injury that followed changed her life, her purpose, her family’s finances, and her identity.

And she is still in recovery.

Out of that experience, she is building a community and a body of work for anyone who has had a day that divided their life into “before and after.”

Eleanor, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:34 — 39.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

Next time you’re on your computer, look at the last five brand websites you visited. How many of them looked exactly like each other? Same stock photography, same font, same promise to “transform your business.” Marketing has a sameness problem, and most people in the industry have just accepted it.

Laurie “Nez” Donato is not one of those people. 

After earning a BFA in Visual Communications from Auburn, she spent two decades in advertising, where she worked on brands from Nucor and KeyBank to Bojangles’ and GE.

Then 2020 hit. Instead of riding out the pandemic at her then-current role, she and her creative partner Ruben Lopez co-founded nez&pez, a branding agency specializing in the most un-creative-sounding industry on earth: cybersecurity.

Laurie, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:59 — 35.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

Charlotte is practically famous for its trees. They line the parking lots of office parks, anchor the corners of apartment complexes, shade the walking paths of neighborhoods we love. We trim them back when they get inconvenient, and sometimes — only when they fall — do we finally reckon with how much they were holding together. Trees are living infrastructure. Long-term investments that can outlast the buildings beside them. 

Today’s guest has spent 20-plus years understanding that at the root level. (get it?) Chris Green is an ISA Certified Arborist with Schneider Tree Care in Charlotte.  He came up through lawn care, spent years in sales, studied business management and information systems, and trained in CAD drafting before finding his calling in the canopy. 

Chris, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:53 — 40.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

There’s a question that lives in the back of the mind of nearly every parent raising a child with special needs. It doesn’t announce itself — it just sits there, quiet and heavy. What happens to my child when I am no longer here?

For a long time, that question had no good answer. Families navigated a maze of government benefits, legal documents, and financial systems — often alone, guided by well-meaning professionals who didn’t have the depth of specialization this work demands.

In 2005, a financial planner from Charlotte decided that wasn’t good enough. Ryan F. Platt founded A Special Needs Plan with one mission: to serve families living with that fear and replace it with clarity, structure, and a road map forward. Today, the firm is an elite, nationally recognized practice serving families across the country.

Ryan holds credentials most financial advisors have never heard of — including the Chartered Special Needs Consultant designation — because he believes this community deserves a true specialist. He’s a former president of The Arc of North Carolina, a speaker at national conferences, a published author, and a champion for families who have spent too long facing the impossible alone.

Ryan, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:44 — 37.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

In 2009, Charlotte had the distinction of being the largest city in the United States without a single brewery. Most people would look at that and see opportunity. Ryan Self did, and built his entire career from that moment forward.

He spent thirteen years at Olde Mecklenburg Brewery — from self-distributing kegs to Charlotte bars to statewide distribution across North Carolina. Building something from nothing, rooted in German brewing tradition, earning gold medals at the European Beer Star along the way. Then he made the move to Triple C Brewing — Craft, Community, Charlotte — right in the heart of South End, steps from the Rail Trail.

And now Ryan has crossed to the other side of the industry, joining Carolina Premium Beverage and Caffey Distributing — an 80-plus-year-old, family-owned distributor that sits in the top one percent of beer wholesalers in the entire country.

He’s spent a career watching how brands rise, stumble, and earn their place on the shelf. And along the way, he landed on one of the sharpest observations I’ve heard about where craft beer is actually headed: “Only good beer equals good.”

Ryan, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:53 — 35.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

Every business runs on data. Every data breach costs money, erodes trust, and — in some cases — ends companies. The question isn’t whether cybersecurity matters. It’s who you trust to protect you when the stakes are that high.

Today’s guest built his career on that question. Matt Donato spent nearly two decades in professional services — starting in staffing and executive search, learning how organizations find, build, and keep top talent. He took that knowledge and co-founded HuntSource, an executive search firm focused on the cybersecurity sector. That led him deeper into the industry — through a leadership role at CyberSN, the largest cybersecurity talent acquisition firm in the country — and ultimately to where he is today.

Since January 2023, Matt has been a Partner at Echelon Risk + Cyber — an award-winning cybersecurity and risk management firm based in Charlotte, with a mission as clear as it gets: protecting security and privacy as basic human rights.

Charlotte is a city on the move — diversifying fast, with a tight-knit executive community where reputation is currency. And for Matt Donato, reputation is exactly the business he’s in.

Matt, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:56 — 39.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS | More

What does it look like when someone builds their entire life around a question — not “what can I get?” but “what can I give?” Today’s guest has been quietly answering that for over a decade, and the results speak for themselves: hundreds of young lives redirected, a nonprofit that has become a genuine force in Charlotte, and a reputation so consistent that his colleagues simply call him Superman.

Jimmy McQuilkin grew up in Columbia, Maryland, graduated No. 1 in his high school class, and arrived at Wake Forest University with enough drive to talk his way onto the men’s basketball team as a non-scholarship walk-on. He earned two varsity letters and, in his own words, “dribbled out the clock a few times.” But it wasn’t the hardwood that changed his life — it was a volunteer experience at a Latino community services organization in Winston-Salem that set everything in motion.

After Wake Forest, he joined Teach For America, taught Spanish and coached basketball in Charlotte, and was named First Year Teacher of the Year. In 2013, he co-founded UrbanPromise Charlotte — a Christian-centered nonprofit that now serves 335 young people across three sites, employs 105 people, and runs one of the most inspired youth leadership models anywhere in this city.

People who know Jimmy describe him as “the most intentional” and “the most humble” person in the room — which, if you know anything about leadership, tells you everything.

Jimmy, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.