Rising Stars:

In conjunction with the 2012 Soirée, JA will present Rising Star awards to five young entrepreneurs in the Greater New Orleans community.  A Rising Star is an individual, 40 and under, who has demonstrated strong entrepreneurial skills with high moral and ethical standards andwho are taking full advantage of the American Free Enterprise System.

Please click here to nominate an individual for consideration in 2012

View past Rising Stars

2011 Rising Star Honorees:

Neal Bodenheimer, Founder & Owner, Cure, LLP

Simone Bruni, Owner, The Demo Diva Demolition Co.

Robert LeBlanc, President, Founder & CEO, Lifestyle Revolution Group

Neel Sus, CEO, Susco Solutions, LLC and Touch Studios

Lauren Thom, Creator & CEO, Fleurty Girl

 

2011 Rising Star Bios:

	NEAL BODENHEIMER, Founder & Owner, Cure, LLPBorn and raised in New Orleans, Neal Bodenheimer left after high school to attend college in Austin, Texas; he then traveled extensively around the world, cultivating an appreciation for fine cocktails. After living in New York, learning about and working in the bar industry, he returned to New Orleans in early 2006. “It is a special time to be here,” he says of the post-Katrina renaissance. “Younger generations are shaping New Orleans into what we’d always hoped it could be.”In 2009, he opened the upscale cocktail bar CURE on Freret Street with business partners Matthew Kohnke and Kirk Estopinal, spurring a movement to develop the area. At the time, Bodenheimer says, “We took a massive leap of faith in the neighborhood.” Today, Freret Street is thriving with restaurants, shops and galleries. Bodenheimer’s next project will be to open a lounge on Lee Circle.Among the challenges of starting CURE, Bodenheimer says, were cutting through bureaucratic obstacles and obtaining permits. “It’s a long and convoluted process,” he says. Determination made his dream come true. His advice to young entrepreneurs is this: “Go after your dream with singular focus. There will be a thousand setbacks, but if you want it badly enough, you can overcome them all and be successful. You have to fixate on your dream and make it a reality
	SIMONE BRUNI, Owner, The Demo Diva Demolition Co.A graduate of Ursuline Academy and Loyola University New Orleans, Simone Bruni is the president of Demolition Diva, a company that she started in the wake of Katrina after her Lakeview home flooded and she was laid off from her convention-industry job. Seizing the opportunity to turn a negative situation into a positive, she started Demolition Diva and hasn’t looked back.“I scrambled to find a new stream of income,” she recalls. “I see demolition as the first step to a new beginning. Clearing a path is really an act of hope. I wanted to be in the business of giving hope – hope for a better city and a better future.”Being a female in a male-dominated industry presented obstacles, but Bruni’s determination and commitment helped her break barriers. “I encountered the prejudice of well-seasoned men in construction who would not take me seriously,” she says. “I overcame the stereotype by reaching out directly to the customer, and the customers across New Orleans validated me as a good business.” Bruni, who says her parents are among her mentors, says that her advice to young entrepreneurs is to “harness the feeling of failure and rejection. Once you realize that fear and failure have no influence over your dreams, that’s when your dreams will sail you into another stratosphere.”
	ROBERT LEBLANC, President, Founder & CEO, Lifestyle Revolution GroupRobert LeBlanc’s company LRG develops and operates music venues, hotel bars and restaurants, including Ste. Marie, Sylvain, Capdeville and LePhare. A native of Houma, LeBlanc became “enchanted” with New Orleans at a very early age. “That was the biggest reason I chose to attend Loyola University,” he says.     After he graduated, he started a record label and also opened the club, Republic, in the Warehouse District. (He recently sold the venue to pursue other projects.) Despite his success, LeBlanc remains modest and emphasizes how grateful he is for all who have helped him along the way. “My parents did an excellent job of teaching me the values upon which I have always drawn,” he says. “I grew up with and continue to enjoy many wonderful friends and mentors who taught and supported me unwaveringly…It is important to maintain the humility to acknowledge mistakes and the courage to treat failures as learning lessons as opposed to the end of the road.”In the future, LeBlanc would like to his business to expand into a $250 million hospitality industry company based in New Orleans that “has a significant impact on the rest of the world by exporting New Orleans’ innate ability to entertain and charm people with humility, grace and creativity.”
	NEEL SUS, CEO, Susco Solutions, LLC and Touch StudiosNeel Sus, CEO of Susco Solutions and its spinoff, Touch Studios, began his career in the tech industry by creating a custom-software development company in 2006.Susco aims to help businesses run more efficiently by automating their processes; Touch Studios focuses more on creating games and applications for mobile and social platforms, such as Facebook. Susco will leverage its experience to serve as an incubator for product ideas, as it did for a mobile medical data product for iPhone, which has been transferred to Touch Studios.Sus counts his parents, who emigrated from India in the 1970s, as his mentors. “My dad taught me the value of tenacity and that, if you’re going to do something, do it right,” he says. “My mom taught me to always appreciate people for who they are and never judge a book by its cover.” He also is quick to praise his wife, Ruchi, who balances her own hectic career with raising their children. “I look back and see that I’ve been blessed all-around,” he says.Sus’ goals are professional as well as personal, including raising his children to be “happy, productive members of society” and for Susco Solutions to become a “major player” in Louisiana for software development for corporations and the government. Sus advises young entrepreneurs to “Just do it; then repeat. The worst that can happen is that you fail, but you learned something for next time.”
	LAUREN THOM, Creator & CEO, Fleurty GirlThe creator and CEO of Fleurty Girl, New Orleans native Lauren Thom sells original T-shirts, accessories, books, gifts and more, all with local twists. T-shirts with clever phrases such as “Sazerac: The Glass is Always Half Full” and “Who Dat” next to an owl illustration are among some popular items.An energetic mother of three, Thom decided to take a chance starting her own business in May of 2009, using money from her income tax return. Starting small, she sold T-shirts, with just four different designs, from home. Within a month, she had completely sold out of every shirt she’d made. “I couldn’t believe how fast it happened. I still remember all the outgoing packages piled up on my kitchen table. I’ll never forget that,” she says. Just a few months later, she opened up her first retail store on Oak Street, and now she owns another on Magazine Street, one in the French Quarter and one in Metairie’s Lakeside Plaza.”Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how glad I am that I went for my dream. I love New Orleans and I love wearing and accessorizing myself with little details of this wonderful city, she says.

Special thanks to our sponsors: