Ted Dacko

Ted Dacko, the founder of Arbor Dakota Strategies, has over 44 years of experience in executive-level management and leadership, including Sales, Marketing, M&A and the Chief Executive Office, principally in the area of software applications and solutions. As CEO, he has been credited with taking great ideas and turning them into great companies.

Ted was the CEO of HealthMedia® Inc., which he took from a small, near-death company to a $30M annual SaaS business. The company was sold to Johnson & Johnson in 2008 and resulted in an 18 to 1 return on invested capital for Chrysalis Ventures in a six-year time frame and a 10 to 1 return on invested capital for Arboretum Ventures which invested a short time later. This was accomplished during the worst economic time in recent history.

Ted built HealthMedia Inc. employing a market disruption approach that utilized concepts from Blue Ocean Strategy, Competitive Strategy, Solution Selling, Ten Faces of Innovation, Positioning – The Battle for your Mind, Bang and Crossing the Chasm. The company was the Company of the Year in Michigan in 2008 and Ted was Entrepreneur of the year in 2008.

Ted is currently an independent consultant, mentor and board member to technology companies and has served on the boards of meQuilibrium, Court Innovations, XLerant, GoNoodle, DNA Software, Connect Space, Spellbound and Possibilities For Change. He is an instructor at the University of Michigan in the Center for Entrepreneurship program.  He has authored a series of eBooks titled From Passion to Profit and is a frequent instructor at Ann Arbor SPARK and the University of Michigan Office of Technology Transfer.  He also serves as the Executive Director if the Blue Ocean Student Entrepreneur pitch competition and was written up in the book Blue Ocean Shift for his use of Blue Ocean principals.  He has been the keynote speaker at numerous events. Ted holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics from Waynesburg College in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, and a Master’s Degree in Mathematics from The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.