Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
Julia Solooki, MBA
Co-Founder, President & Chairman
Ms. Solooki is the Co-Founder and President of Smart Soda Holdings, Inc., running and developing retail and online sales operations as well as strategically developing channel partner relations while brainstorming new ideas, sales technics and vision for the company.
Julia is responsible for the operation and expansion of Smart Soda’s global branding, and investor relations.
Prior to founding Smart Soda Julia held a series of leadership positions in the health care services arena , responsible for marketing and sales strategy as well as a committee seat on the Board of education for Healthcare Billing Management Association. Julia is a published author and has a series of articles on revenue cycle management for healthcare business professionals.
In her free time Julia loves to travel, learn new languages and psychology.
Lior Shafir
Co-Founder & CEO - Board Member
Mr. Lior Shafir is a highly ranked executive in the water and beverage industry, and has demonstrated growth and leadership skills throughout his 20 year career in the field.
His global marketing strategy and sales precision tactics have landed him great opportunities both in the local and global markets. Serving as past chair and CEO at AquaTal, his skills have attracted Soda Stream to acquire Aqua Tal and offered to hire him as the CEO of Soda Stream water division (a newly formed division). By the end of 2011 Lior has moved to the U.S.
Two years later Soda Stream has asked Lior to join their U.S. forces and he assumed the role as the sole US distributor with Soda Stream Professional. As the CEO, he is responsible for the tactical placement and planning of sales and marketing strategies and overall business direction and vision . In 2015 the company launched its preliminary product line while still evaluating the market demand and has sold $1.5M+ in revenue 2015/2016 alone.
Solomon (Sol) Mayer
Investor & Board Member
Mr. Solomon Mayer, also known as Sol, has been Interim CEO of Ironwood Gold Corp. since September 2015. Mr. Mayer has been CEO and President of Mooney Aviation Company since 1999. Mr. Mayer has been VP of International Medical Search Co. since 2002. He has held various executive level positions and has successfully overseen several businesses from conception through profitability.
He is a senior business executive with expertise in business relations, sales and marketing, corporate management and enterprise financial path growth and operation, purchasing and negations for multi-million dollar businesses and organizations in diverse industries both nationally and internationality. He has extensive experience in international connections with governments and private industry.
Mr. Mayer serves as the President and Director of Chai Lifeline and is a board member of Mishkon and Laniado Hospital, organizations dedicated to assisting profoundly ill children.
Michael Stefanov, MBA
Director Of Sales
Michael Stefanov - Director of Sales - As Director of Sales, Michael oversees lead generation and sales pipeline across the Smart Soda brand. Michael joined the company in 2018, when he saw an industry opportunity that inspired him to change his career direction. Motivated by the possibility to break into an untapped market, provide quality products and serve a community dedicated to healthy living, he is passionate about delivering better beverage options. Prior to joining Smart Soda, Michael spent more than 10 years leading several regional and national finance teams in the mortgage and corporate banking space. Throughout his career, his teams have surpassed aggressive sales targets and set the pace for peers in the industry.
Helen Rothman-Schoeller
Creative Design Manager
Helen Rothman-Schoeller – Creative Design Manager - Helen has been designing across a broad range of settings for a wide variety of clients for over twenty years. She's worked as both a staff and freelance designer and art director at agencies large and small, and has contributed significantly to virtually every phase of the process. From entertainment and beauty branding, event collateral and advertorial work, to commercial story boards, fashion and beauty advertising, as well as photo book design and packaging. She's developed a specialized expertise in conceptualizing and art directing photo shoots as well as creating photo illustrations. She holds a Bachelor degree in Graphic Design from F.I.T.
John Knowles Buckner, PhD
Investor & Advisory Board
Dr. Buckner is an accomplished investor with over four decades of experience. In a change of pace from the past, Dr. Buckner recently entered the fields of marketing automation and e-commerce with a lead investment in Pica9, Inc. and founding memberships in Music Meme LLC and Organic Soda Pops LLC. Small but rapidly growing, these investments can be followed at the .com URLs: CampaignDrive, rockerteeshirts, and organicsodapops, respectively.
Dr. Buckner is especially proud to have led Control Data’s restructuring in the late 1980’s, which culminated in the Initial Public Offering of Commercial Credit Company. At the time, it was the second largest IPO in history. Commercial Credit under Sandy Weill ultimately became CitiGroup, Inc. Dr. Buckner feels blessed to have experienced many exceptional mentors and colleagues, including Robert Weinig, the CFO of Eastern Gas and Fuel Associates and Frank Zenie the president of Waters Associates. Mssrs Weinig and Zenie were key to Dr. Buckner’s transition from science and engineering to finance and investing.
Robert T. Glickman
Counsel
Robert T. Glickman is the managing principal and a senior litigation principal at McCarthy Lebit.
Rob graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1992. Prior to joining the firm, Rob served as an Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor in the Major Trial Unit wherein he was responsible for handling aggravated murder, white collar crime, and other high profile cases. He tried one of the first cases in the community that was televised on Court TV and received a subsequent featurette on Dateline NBC.
In 2001, Rob was appointed by Governor Bob Taft to serve as Judge for the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. While there, Rob presided over cases involving complex civil and criminal issues. Rob retired from the bench in 2004.
Rob has served as adjunct professor of law at Cleveland State University ‘s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, teaching advanced trial advocacy. He is also a frequent lecturer and panelist at various continuing education seminars.
Tony Lapshinoff
Founder at Organic Soda Pops
Tony Lapshinoff is the founder of Organic Soda Pops and became involved with eCommerce in 2009. Tony has a long and rich history in the organic food and beverage industry since his older brother Nik Amartsteff was a pioneer in the health food industry and was vice president of Erewhon food company founded by Michio Kushi. As a young teen Tony lived with his brother Nik and his wife Joanne and together they shared a home in BrooKline MA with environmentalist, entrepreneur, author and activist Paul Gerard Hawken who was president of Erewhon at the time and his then wife Dora. Prior to his career in technology/eCommerce Tony Lapshinoff worked with famed San Francisco interior designer John Wheatman. From 1984 to 1986 Tony studied at Ron Bailie School if Broadcast and graduated with diplomas in radio an television production and produced/directed music videos that included live concert’s for renowned bands such as Bachman, Turner Overdrive (BTO) and The Guess Who. In the 1990s Tony was a licensed general contractor in the state of California and specialized in Victorian restoration.
Dror Tepper, BS
Director of Corporate Finance & Board Member
Mr. Tepper is a founding partner of AJO Capital and serves as a member of the Executive Committee. With a unique set of skills in finance and over 20 years of wall street experience in M&A, risk management, IPO originations, reverse mergers and complex financial transactions. Involved in more than $1 billion of transactional business. Prior to founding AJO Capital, Mr. Tepper held key positions at Gunn Allen Financial, Investec Ernest & Company and Josephthal Lyon & Ross. Spearheaded and expanded business development efforts with private and public companies ranging from emerging growth to the middle market. Maintained and expanded internal lists of private equity groups, investment funds, institutional and accredited investors, as well as micro and small cap investment banks/broker-dealers focused on underwriting equity financing for IPO’s, PIPE’s Initiated, advised and managed over 100 company clients through the initial public offering (IPO) and reverse takeover (RTO) processes providing capital formation guidance and investor awareness (investor & public relations) services.
Jane Tsirulnik
Office Manager
As an office manager, Jane is in charge of all the financial and administrative responsibilities.
Jane joined the company in 2019.
She is in charge of all the A/P, A/R, analyzing business expenses and revenues.
Jane graduated CSU with a degree in BA.
During her free time, she loves to spend time with her family, travel to new places, read and learn more about different countries cultures.
