FOUNDER & CEO

Grant Gooding

About Grant Gooding

Grant got his professional start in the mergers and acquisitions world, working first on the legal side, then on buy-side analysis, valuations, and eventually transition management. After roughly a decade of analyzing, valuing, and transitioning hundreds of small and mid-market businesses, Grant naturally gravitated towards understanding the 70% failure rate of acquisitions.

After years of analyzing acquisition failures, he discovered the leading cause of transaction failures was that there was a lack of understanding and measurement as to why customers do business with organizations.

With his MBA emphasis in qualitative marketing, Grant spent the next several years experimenting with methodologies and measurement techniques that could be used to quantify qualitative data. After working with a nationally renowned brand analyst, Grant discovered a quant method that could be used to assess brand preferences. With that as a starting point, he and his team utilized some principles of neuroscience and created a new methodology that accurately quantifies emotional resonance.

After several hundred iterations, the PROOF method stands alone as one of the most compelling and accurate ways to quantify human emotion. Today, Grant speaks all over the country in the area of Emotional Data, an emerging field that PROOF is helping pioneer.

Education

Grant holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from William Jewell College / UMKC and graduated with honors from The Bloch School of Business with an MBA in qualitative marketing at UMKC.

Grant has been certified as an expert in business valuation, which he practiced in both Missouri and Kansas, where he valued businesses for disputes, transitioning owners, mergers, and buyouts.

Awards & Recognitions

  • Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Nominee 2019
  • Web.com Kansas City Small Business Champion 2018
  • Big Brothers Big Sisters Most Wanted Honoree 2018
  • Next-Gen Leader award from the Kansas City Business Journal in 2017

Current Boards & Civic Affiliations

  • Nonprofit Leadership Alliance Board of Directors
  • Alphapointe Board of Directors
  • Alphapointe Foundation Board
  • Junior Achievement of Greater Kansas City Board of Directors
  • KCCAN Board of Directors
  • UMKC Marketing Advisory Board
  • Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program Marketing Board