BLAKE HELPPIE:
CEO of JobApp Network, Inc., in Bloomfield Hills. JobApp provides a cloud-based hiring management system used within nearly all major restaurant systems that is also seeing growing use in other industries. JobApp uses patented services to source, screen, and score future employees, streamlining the hiring process, improving the quality of hire, and reducing turnover. Under his leadership, the company has grown from 10 employees and no revenue to 37 employees and $5 million in annual revenue for 2011. The company's software cut employee turnover 41 percent for Checkers Drive-In Restaurants after nine months. Previously, Helppie was an associate partner at Vineyard Capital Group, which led the $4 million investment in JobApp. Prior to that, Helppie was at Goldman Sachs in London and Germany, where he worked in both investment banking and Goldman's principal investment area. He also served as a consultant with Superior Consultant Co., providing strategic planning for its healthcare clients. Helppie has founded, built, and grown three companies: an early ISP in California; a provider of custom Web application development services; and Dundee Shipping, a maritime logistics business serving the offshore oil industry in Brazil, where he increased revenue to $4.2 million on an annualized basis and went cash-flow positive in the first month of client operations. Helppie received his bachelor's degree with dual concentrations in finance and accounting from Georgetown University and completed course work at the University of Vienna (Austria) and Trinity College at the University of Oxford (UK).
