Message from the BizHack Instructors
We have worked at Fortune 500 companies and startups, nonprofits and small businesses, and we’re excited to share our hard won insights to help grow your business and accelerate your career.
Our Experience
We’ve worked with some of the world’s top companies.
BizHack's Founder
Dan Grech
Lead Instructor & Founder
dgrech@bizhack.com
After nearly two decades as a journalist and storyteller, I have reinvented myself as a digital marketer and educator. I’ve headed digital marketing at billion-dollar companies and software startups, and I’ve consulted for hundreds of businesses. I believe in the power of digital marketing to transform lives and businesses. And I want to share what I learned with you.
Some fun trivia about me: My first startup was founded by Eric Reis, author of The Lean Startup. I was interviewed for Tim Ferriss’s book The Four Hour Workweek. I was part of a Pulitzer Prize team while I was an intern at The Miami Herald. And I’ve performed in an improv troupe for more than a decade.
Our Certified Instructors
Alex de Carvalho
Lead Instructor
Alex brings over 20 years of experience in social media marketing, starting with co-founding Europe’s leading e-mail marketing company in 1998, SmartFocus. His career highlights include creating a medical social network for doctors, managing Constant Contact in South Florida, serving as the first Knight Foundation Innovator in Residence at FIU, leading worldwide social media at IBM, and managing a startup of 20 people in the hearing industry for online e-commerce. Alex is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Finnish, and has lived in Europe, U.S., and Latin America. He graduated with an MBA from INSEAD and is the Honorary Consul of Finland in Miami.
Ricardo Berris
Marketing Coach
Ricardo Berris is the founder and CEO of MI Group, which provides technology and digital media solutions for businesses across the Caribbean, Central and South America looking to grow their operations in the US. He is a serial entrepreneur with 17 years of experience growing companies. He is a graduate of St. Thomas University.
Alex Artiga
Marketing Coach
Alex Artiga is the vice president of digital strategy, accounting and operations for e-commerce startup Norte Women, an online retailer of its own line of sustainably-made women’s apparel. He is a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs in London and was the director of global operations and product development for Conitex Sonoco, a global producer of recycled paper and packaging products. Alex has an MBA from ESADE in Spain and is a certified mentor for Score Miami, a partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Blanca Mejia
Marketing Coach
Blanca Stella Mejia has over 10 years of experience in digital strategy. Her career has spanned working with Microsoft and IBM on the social media teams to creating activations with Ford Latino and co-founding a web development and digital marketing consulting agency catering to small businesses. At IBM she launched the social media strategy and SME (subject matter expert) enablement for IBM Systems Latin America and was on the Global digital team for IBM Z Systems. It all began by starting a blog in 2008, where she networked and developed relationships with many bloggers in the Hispanic community and participated at many digital conferences. She was also very involved in the local grassroots Social Media community in South Florida and spoke at various events on topics such as SEO, WordPress and social media. Currently, she is a Digital Marketing Consultant with clients mainly in the medical field including a Global Non-Profit. In her spare time, she loves traveling as a digital nomad discovering great co-working spaces and connecting with people all around the world, works out at the gym and meditates.
Joy Schaaffe
Instructional Designer
Joy Schaaffe is the lead instructor of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program in Miami and the Scale Up program at The Idea Center at Miami Dade College. She has worked in marketing at Air Jamaica and Caribbean Airlines. Joy specializes in strategic assessment and planning, marketing strategy, planning and execution, marketing materials development, communications, public relations, business analysis and planning. Her daughter, Jodian, was in Cohort 9 of BizHack’s The Digital Marketer’s Edge course.