The Suffocating Loneliness of Executive Competence Ends Here.
Carefully selected, non-competing leaders bring real decisions, ask better questions, and share hard-earned wisdom with peers who understand the weight of leadership.
Built to Protect the Trust That Makes a Crew Work
EPIC21® began with business owners who had built something rare together: trust.
Born from a room worth protecting, EPIC21® carries that same trust forward through independent, Driver-led Crews build around a small-town handshake standard.
It’s the kind of trust that lets you say what you are really thinking, ask the question you cannot ask just anywhere, and hear what people who know you well enough are willing to tell you.
The right people in the Crew, a Driver who knows how to lead them, and everyone holding themselves accountable to the same Higher Standard keep that trust growing.
When that trust was threatened, EPIC21’s founder, Jim Naleid, chose independence.
He chose to protect the people, the relationships, and the way they worked together.
That choice still shapes how EPIC21 Crews are built and how Drivers lead them today.
Hear the Story From Jim
Jim Naleid shares why small-town business culture shaped EPIC21, what happens when leaders build strong peer relationships, and why he believes that model belongs in communities across the Midwest.
Two Ways to Carry the Higher Standard Forward
For Leaders Seeking a Crew
Some decisions are too layered for casual advice and too important to carry alone.
An EPIC21 Crew gives you trusted peers who understand the weight behind the decision because they have carried heavy decisions of their own.
You can bring the real issue, hear what you may not be seeing, test your thinking, and leave with greater clarity about what to do next.
This is not a place for networking or polished answers.
It is a place where confidentiality, vulnerability, and accountability are required because together they produce one thing no group can manufacture directly: trust.
Carefully selected, non-competing leaders earn that trust over time and use it to help one another make better decisions in business, leadership, and life.
For Leaders Called to Drive
At some point, years of leading, risking, deciding, succeeding, and getting some things wrong become more than experience.
They become perspective another leader may need.
As an EPIC21 Driver, you use that experience to ask better questions, challenge blind spots, and help a Crew of business owners and executives find their own better answers.
Those lessons you worked hard to earn do not stop with you.
They continue doing meaningful work through the businesses, leaders, families, and communities you help shape.
More Than a Peer Group
Sometimes the challenge sits inside the Crew.
Sometimes it sits inside your leadership team, your systems, your strategic direction, or one difficult decision.
EPIC21 also works directly with business owners and senior leaders through:
Senior Leadership Alignment
Get capable people pulling in the same direction again.
Executive Leadership Mentoring
A private place to work through the decision, transition, or leadership issue you are carrying.
Strategic Planning, Operating Systems & Facilitation
Turn direction into priorities, ownership, and follow-through.
Meet the People Who Protect the Room
Every EPIC21 Crew is different. The standard for leading it is not.
EPIC21 Drivers bring decades of business and leadership experience to the table, but their job is not to arrive with all the answers.
They know when to push, when to challenge, when to listen, and when to help the people in the room find a better answer than the one they walked in with.-
Tim Brennan
President, Nesnah Ventures | EPIC21 Driver
Brings 15+ years of multi-industry leadership and firsthand experience navigating complex business decisions.
Tim Eimermann
EPIC21 Driver
Brings 30+ years of financial, operational, and strategic leadership, along with firsthand entrepreneurial experience.
Neal Zygarlicke
EPIC21 Driver
Brings broad executive leadership across manufacturing, distribution, and chamber leadership, with a strong focus on culture, clarity, and growth.