Mentors

two12’s mentors aren't just entrepreneurs, business leaders, and other big thinkers with exceptional knowledge and great ideas. They have all of that plus a deep desire to help others succeed.

I've been a mentor at two12. I admire how they've helped entrepreneurs and executives grow their businesses.

Tim Ferriss

Five Time New York Times Bestselling Author

The best thing I got out of this event is the confirmation that there is so much out there for me to accomplish.

Chris 0'Neill

Former CEO of Evernote

2019 mentors

Shane Parrish

Founder of Farnam Street

Shane Parrish

Founder of Farnam Street

Shane Parrish is the founder of fs.blog, an online community dedicated to mastering the best of what other people have figured out. His podcast, The Knowledge Project, is one of the most popular in the world. He doesn’t like introductions which is why this is so brief :)

The New York Times did a good profile on him if you want to learn more.

Vanessa Van Edwards

Founder of Science of People

Vanessa Van Edwards

Founder of Science of People

Vanessa is Lead Investigator at Science of People. She is the bestselling author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. Her book has been translated into 15 different languages and more than 20 million people watch her on her popular YouTube channel.

Her unique work has been featured in dozens of media outlet including CNN, BBC, CBS, Fast Company, Inc., Entrepreneur Magazine, USA Today, the Today Show and many more. Vanessa regularly speaks to innovative companies including Google, Nike, Facebook, Comcast, Miller-Coors, Microsoft, and Penguin Random-House. She has been a spokesperson for Dove, American Express, Clean and Clear and Symantec.

Millions visit her website, scienceofpeople.com, every month for her methods turning “soft skills” into actionable, masterable frameworks that can be applied in daily life. Hundreds of thousands of students have taken her communication courses on Udemy, CreativeLive, LinkedIn and her flagship course People School. Vanessa is renowned for teaching science-backed people skills to audiences around the world including SxSW, MIT, and CES to name a few.

Tero Isokauppila

Founder of Four Sigmatic

Tero Isokauppila

Founder of Four Sigmatic

Tero Isokauppila is the founder of Four Sigmatic, a wellness company helping people to nourish their bodies inside and out.
Tero’s roots (or mycelium, if you will) are in Finland, where he grew up foraging for mushrooms and other wild foods on his family’s farm. He later earned a degree in Chemistry, Business, and a Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition at Cornell University. In 2012, Tero founded Four Sigmatic with the dream of bringing a little Everyday Magic™ to the lives of all.
An expert in all things related to mushrooms, superfoods, and health, Tero is the author of two best-selling books: Healing Mushrooms, an educational cookbook from Avery Publishing, and Santa Sold Shrooms, a children's book for adults about the magical origins of Santa Claus.
Tero was chosen twice as one of the world’s Top 50 Food Activists by the Academy of Culinary Nutrition, and has appeared in Time, Forbes, BuzzFeed, Vogue, Playboy, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, and Bon Appétit. He is also a sought-after speaker, featured at Summit Series, Wanderlust, WME-IMG, Google, and the Fast Company Innovation Festival.

Amber Rae

Bestselling Author

Amber Rae

Bestselling Author

Author, artist, creative director, and speaker Amber Rae is known for turning complex ideas about the human experience (feelings, vulnerability, boundaries, healing, etc.) into simple, relatable, and engaging content on screen, on paper, and on stage. Her illustrations reach more than 1.2 Million people per week on her Instagram, and she has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, NY Mag, TODAY, Inc., SELF, Fast Company, Forbes and Entrepreneur. She is the author of the bestselling book, Choose Wonder Over Worry: Move Beyond Fear and Doubt to Unlock Your Full Potential. Called a “Millennial Motivator” by Forbes, Amber speaks to audiences across the globe on topics ranging from navigating emotions to cultivating joy to unlocking creative potential, and has collaborated with brands such as Kate Spade, Microsoft, TED and Ogilvy. A Seth Godin and Apple alum, Amber began her career building strategic marketing campaigns, which she now parlays into shattering the stigma around mental and emotional wellness.

Kevin Lavelle

Founder of Mizzen+Main

Kevin Lavelle

Founder of Mizzen+Main

Kevin Lavelle is a Senior Vice President of Stand Together, a platform that connects and empowers social entrepreneurs to tackle the major challenges of our time, along with serving as the Executive Director of Stand Together: Vanguard. As the Founder of Mizzen+Main, he transformed the menswear industry by bringing advanced performance fabrics to traditional menswear. He served as CEO from 2012 until 2019 and remains on the Board. Mizzen+Main is carried in well over 800 retail locations in addition to its expansive e-commerce presence and is known for unique partnerships with renowned athletes like Phil Mickelson and JJ Watt. Prior to founding Mizzen+Main, Kevin worked at the venture capital group of the Hunt Consolidated focusing on emerging energy technologies. Before that, Kevin worked for international consulting firm Oliver Wyman in the Middle East and the US.

Vickie Segar

Founder of Village Marketing

Vickie Segar

Founder of Village Marketing

Vickie Segar began her career in advertising at top tier shops Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Wieden + Kennedy, working with Coca-Cola, ESPN and Delta Airlines. Vickie then moved in-house at Equinox, where she launched their partnership marketing department, a first-of-its kind innovative team that focused on relationship marketing. Following her time at Equinox, Vickie built Aloha.com as Head of Marketing where she developed the go-to-market plan for their profitable launch. In 2013, Vickie founded Village Marketing to help companies find success through strategic partnerships with Influencers. Village is the first Influencer-led creative agency and has partnered with many beloved e-commerce brands including Casper, Equinox, Tinder, Zola, DIOR, SoulCycle, Rent The Runway, Daily Harvest to name a few, in addition to other well known International brands. In 2018, Vickie launched Village Studio, a first-of-its-kind lifestyle content studio for brands and influencers in NYC, garnering over 1 Billion press impressions globally. The brand will launch its second studio later this year in Los Angeles. Notable press for both companies can be found in The New York Times and Fast Company.

Craig Clemens

Co-Founder of Golden Hippo

Craig Clemens

Co-Founder of Golden Hippo

Craig Clemens is an advertising copywriter who in the last 6 years has written words that have brought in over 1 billion dollars in sales. He is the co-founder of Golden Hippo, which has become one of the fastest growing private companies in the USA, scaling to 830 team members across 6 offices with no outside investor capital. Craig has 15 years of experience in brand positioning, marketing, and digital strategy, having architected some of the fastest-growing consumer brands of the last decade including Gundry MD, One Two Cosmetics, and Beverly Hills MD.

An avid mentor to young entrepreneurs, Craig is an investor or advisor in 24 companies, and together with his wife Sarah, host the Rising Glen Collective, an invite-only gathering of 100 of the world’s most innovative founders, artists, executives, and performers. Craig & Sarah are proud Well Members of charity: water, have funded over 1,000 cleft lip surgeries through a partnership with The Smile Train and Beverly Hills MD, and have built education centers in Guatemala and Kenya.

Chelsea Yamase

Instagram Influencer

Chelsea Yamase

Instagram Influencer

Chelsea is a sought-after model, photographer, blogger, influencer and adventurer with nearly 800,000 followers on social media. She captures the hearts of her audience and shares personal, thoughtful stories with them as she engages with the world in a curious and meaningful way. She has been recognized by Forbes and Business Insider as one of the leading women in the travel "influencer" space, and empowers thousands of young women around the world to live authentically and confidently.

Sponsored by Canon USA, Chelsea is a PADI dive ambassador. She has been featured in publications such as Travel and Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, Shape magazine, Huffington Post, Outside magazine, on The Travel Channel, and many more. Her client list includes Adidas, Google, Athleta, The National Parks Foundation, Adobe, GoPro and numerous tourism boards around the world.

Brian Dean

Founder of the Backlinko

Brian Dean

Founder of the Backlinko

Brian Dean has been called an "SEO genius" by Entrepreneur.com and a "brilliant entrepreneur" by Inc Magazine. Brian's award-winning blog, Backlinko.com, was listed by Forbes as a top "blog to follow" in 2017.
He is an SEO expert and the founder of the Backlinko blog and YouTube channel.
Success Magazine has referred to Brian as "the world’s foremost expert on search engine optimization" due to the influence of his blog, which reaches over 2.5 million people every year

Mark Fisher

Founder of Mark Fisher Fitness

Mark Fisher

Founder of Mark Fisher Fitness

Mark's core expertise is in time management, leadership development, customer service, and creating healthy organizational cultures.
Mark and his “non-sexual life partner” Michael created Business for Unicorns in 2016 and have since worked with clients like Sony Music, Sylvan Learning, Novus Surgical, Elizabeth Arden, and the ACLU, as well as many of the leading fitness studios across the US, Europe, and Australia. He is also a proud alumni speaker of TEDx Broadway.
In addition to consulting and teaching through Business for Unicorns, Mark co-founded Mark Fisher Fitness, one of the most successful gyms in the history of the fitness industry. MFF has two physical locations in Manhattan and was recognized as #312 on the 2015 Inc. 500 fastest growing companies in America, as well as one of Men's Health's "Top 20 Gyms in America."
With a reputation as the fitness home of choice for the Broadway community, Mark and MFF have been featured in Forbes, the NY Times, the NY Post, the Huffington Post, and the Wall St. Journal, among others.

Nate Checketts

Co-Founder and CEO of Rhone

Nate Checketts

Co-Founder and CEO of Rhone

Nate Checketts is the Co-Founder & CEO of Rhone, a premium men’s active wear company founded in 2014. Prior to Rhone, Nate worked for and consulted with some of the biggest technology and entertainment properties in the world including Cisco, The National Football League, Legends, FanVision and Sport Radar, and currently serves on the board of Beyond Type 1 and Veritone.

Nate is also an avid entrepreneur who founded and launched 4 companies before the age of 30 including Rhone and Mangia Technologies, whose patents were later acquired by the San Francisco 49ers.
In addition to Rhone, Nate serves as a Board Director to Beyond Type 1, a non-profit dedicated to the community of those with Type 1 Diabetes.

Adam Bornstein

Founder of Pen Name Consulting and Born Fitness

Adam Bornstein

Founder of Pen Name Consulting and Born Fitness

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the founder of Pen Name Consulting, a full-service growth and marketing agency that has worked with clients such as Microsoft, Equinox, Dollar Shave Club, DirecTV, and helped scale businesses for Reid Hoffman and Tim Ferriss. Bornstein is also the Chief Content Officer and Chief of Nutrition of Ladder, a premium supplement company founded by LeBron James and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Additionally, he is the founder of Born Fitness, a personalized online fitness and diet coaching service, and the co-founder of the two12 event. Bornstein is an award-winning fitness and nutrition writer and editor, and has been named "one of the most influential people in health." Previously, Bornstein was fitness editor at Men’s Health magazine, and the editorial director of LIVESTRONG.COM. His work has been featured everywhere from The New York Times and Fast Company, to ESPN the Magazine and GQ

2018 mentors

2017 mentors

2016 mentors