BACKGROUND
People should come home from work filled up, not drained, with something left to offer their families.
That’s the conviction that drives David Mann to work and home each day. Mann is the co-founder of The Firefly Group (2014), an investment holding company, and, as an entrepreneur and investor, he currently sows into the leadership of six companies. These companies are focused on building an ecosystem using The Entrepreneurial Toolkit, which helps small and mid-size companies be more successful in three areas: people, customers and data.
He can’t imagine doing anything more important.
“Volunteering is great, donating money is great, but I believe the greatest force for good, if done well, is building a great entrepreneurial company. Even a small business with 25 employees and families of 4 gives you the opportunity to impact 100 lives in a huge way,” he says.
It all started with humble beginnings, a dad who drove a city bus and a mom who was a dietician for a nursing home. They lived in southern Indiana, just north of Louisville and he learned early that service – “orienting life around something bigger than myself,” was important. After school, he and his siblings would often go to the nursing home to wait for Mom to finish work. There, they would serve meals, play games with residents, and volunteer in other ways assigned by Mom from the time he was six or seven.
Today, Mann’s life is still oriented around serving. He and wife, Julie, have lived in Indianapolis for 20 years, but for two decades prior to that, he served our country as a naval officer. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, he received his MBA from Harvard and, after a stint at a startup in Chicago that was bought out, began working in venture capital, ultimately leading to Indianapolis and the Kelley School of Business where he taught a class called Entrepreneurial Finance.
Mann has a big spot in his heart for veterans, serving in Indiana’s HVAF (Helping Veterans and Families) effort to find homeless vets places to live. His current focus is helping vets who are transitioning into civilian life, specifically by encouraging them to become entrepreneurs.
There are two others areas of service he gravitates toward: helping at-risk youth and being involved in a local parish, St. Elizabeth Seton, where he and Julie attend and have a small group they help lead. Mann is also involved in a men’s group at church where he finds encouragement and accountability, as well as offers leadership.
With at-risk youth, he has served as chairman of the board for KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), helping the charter school that was once struggling get back on track and grow into an organization able to reproduce its success in other charter schools. Currently, he helps youth get active in the Indy rowing club, a group in which his own son participated.
“Rowing is the only sport where one out of three high school girls and one out of six boys receive scholarship money for college,” he says of his work. “It’s the most-recruited sport today, and, unlike many sports, it’s an activity you can participate in for a lifetime.”
The Mann’s have raised two children, a son, 20, who (unsurprisingly) rows for Princeton University and attended Marine Corps Officer Candidate School last summer, and a daughter 23, who graduated last year from Purdue and is applying to graduate school to become a physician assistant while living with her 90-year-old grandfather (Julie’s dad) in Washington, D.C.
Julie is a health care provider for Elevance Health.
He attributes his success at The Firefly Group to the same passions that drive his community service – the discipline learned in his military career, his value for service, and his faith. The company’s core value statement reads a little like this: Do the right thing with compassionate accountability, humble confidence, and bold action all while having fun.
“My first lesson was the discipline I learned in the military,” he says. “Not missing the day, doing my homework, studying the market hard.”
Next, he cites a boldness that has enabled him to not always allow security to be the main thing in his life. It’s something he coaches the leaders of the Firefly partner-companies around, too.
“Helping people believe they can achieve more than they ever thought possible is one of my core jobs,” he says. “I tell them I’m going to push them harder than they likely ever have been, and love them more than they ever have been too,” he says.
Part of that boldness is “caught” when he takes the leaders on occasional retreats. One year they hiked the entire Grand Canyon, rim to rim, in one day. Another group climbed to the summit of Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous 48. “We had a plan,” he says, “and people who thought they couldn’t do it, did it and will never forget.”
In addition, the hospitable environment of Indianapolis has played a key role in his success – especially for a guy from the “outside” trying to make connections. It’s part of the value he sees in C7: a city-wide fellowship of like-minded men from all walks of life, people he might not meet otherwise who’ve become points of connection and friendship.
“It’s a group, united in faith, with a desire to grow personally, help others grow, and help community grow,” he says. “I’m all about that.”
MANN'S IDEAS FOR A BETTER INDY
- BE BOLD. “Too many people are scared to take risks,” he says. “Most people are looking for the secure thing. Be willing to ask, to take a risk, and to be bold. You’ll never know unless you ask.”
- BUILD A SMALL BUSINESS. “It’s where you’ll have the biggest direct impact on employees and their families,” he says. “Build a great culture. Fill people up so they don’t come home empty.”
- FAITH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. “Faith is the most important thing in my life. It’s critically important. My relationship with Christ is how I begin and end every day,” he says. “But it hasn’t always been that way; God wanted me on my knees so he got me there well into my career in my early 40s.” That humbling has gotten him to a different level of success.
DAVID MANN TRIVIA
Favorite hobby besides work? Working out and movies (sometimes at the same time)
Go to snack & beverage? Costco protein bars, root beer
Favorite restaurant, locally? Capri on Ruth Drive
Favorite places for a vacation? The mountains in summer (hiking)
Secret Dream? “I’d like to build a for profit business with disabled vets as our staff and team.”
Please reach out and connect with Mann at dmann@thefireflygrp.com.
