About Us?
It's Not About Us; It's About You.
We serve the gifted population, especially in the workplace. Our raison d’être is to improve the fulfillment (and lower the stress) of your professional journey. Studio B3 is not your average nonprofit. Nor is it the median or the mode, and yes, we love those kinds of nerdy jokes. We are in the process of our 501(c)3 application, so we’re not technically a nonprofit in the eyes of the IRS just yet. But who needs labels to change the world?
Our Story
How Did We Get Here?
Studio B3 started from innumerous conversations with groups of loosely connected friends in high-IQ societies. Over many years, those discussions explored an exciting question: “Could we organize a bunch of smart people and start a business?” A few of us—soon to be Studio B3s founders—got serious about pursuing that idea in 2023. But as we explored the concept and spoke with our friends, friends of friends, and total strangers, we noticed key emerging themes. The desire to start a business rarely stemmed from an entrepreneurial spirit. Even less frequent was the presence of a defined and monetizable concept.
Why, then, entrepreneurship?
What we knew intrinsically, but had not directly connected to our collective entrepreneurial daydream, is that work can just be so difficult. While this is true for many people, intellectually gifted people face unique challenges for which there is little to no support in either the workplace or in workforce development. We—and our friends, and friends of friends, and total strangers—struggle at work, and with work, when our talents are a liability.
In founding Studio B3, we realized that merely starting a business or developing tailored assistance for gifted entrepreneurs was insufficient. So we expanded our mission.
Gifted employees need unique support in the workforce in order to make the transition from survive to thrive. Both polymaths with unconventional resumes and hyper-focused experts with nontraditional education struggle to find employment. And employers need assistance, too. There is an undeniable business case for doing everything possible to attract and retain disproportionately talented employees, but many employers fail to do so.
That is how we arrived at our mission. In serving entrepreneurs, employees, and employers, we help great minds do great work.
leadership
Our Founding Trio
Yuko Veatch
Co-Founder
As a Co-Founder of Studio B3, Yuko Veatch brings over 20 years of people management and technical expertise at Fortune 50 companies. Her peripatetic career has taken her across the United States and Europe. Within two years of arriving in Germany, Ms. Veatch had learned the language well enough to both lead a major translation project at a university, and earn a degree in Applied Data Science.
Ms. Veatch knows first-hand just how important it is for employers to prioritize demonstrated talent over gatekeeping credentials. By the time she had earned an undergraduate degree, she had already racked up an impressive track record of major successes as a skilled people and project manager. At American Express, she supported software used in over 100 countries; at HSBC, she oversaw more than a dozen teams. In addition to English—her native language—Ms. Veatch speaks both fluent corporate and fluent manager. Not to mention Japanese, German, and French.
In addition to her traditional work history, Ms. Veatch stays relentlessly busy with other passion projects. She co-organized the Goettingen March for Science for four years, and within weeks of the beginning of the war in Ukraine she was actively involved in relief efforts. She managed intricate multi-national distribution networks and complex logistical challenges to deliver urgent supplies throughout Poland. She is also a Co-Founder of QED playing cards, a company that produces physics-themed playing cards and toys. Ms. Veatch currently calls California home, where she enjoys rock climbing and making sure her passport gathers no moss.
Tim Schifle
Co-Founder
Tim Schifle animates Studio B3 as a Co-Founder with more than 20 years of experience as a battle-tested creative professional. From reading at age two, to his passion for sports, to working with some of the world’s biggest brands, the common threads in Mr. Schifle’s accomplishments are winning and leadership. Mr. Schifle won the Ohio Math Contest, four Odyssey of the Mind regional championships, and coached a club volleyball team to 11th at the Junior National Championships. His “Cleveland Guardians” submission soundly won the fan vote in a 2016 contest that ultimately helped rename the MLB team in 2022. Mr. Schifle has served as both board member and President of Cleveland Area Mensa, and is Vice Chairman of the Official Liverpool Supporters Club in Detroit.
After his Materials Engineering studies ended unexpectedly, Mr. Schifle got to work developing computational spreadsheets for HVAC diagnostics. He has sold boiler parts, financial products, and live trivia; managed a bar; and scouted models and actors for a talent agency.
Mr. Schifle owns Pitch Doctor, a brand strategy and creative services firm. Throughout his career, his work has supported projects with Anheuser-Busch, Aramark, Bacardi, Caesars, Hennessy, Mercedes, Modelo, and T-Mobile, and has been seen at the 2021 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction, the 2022 NBA All-Star Weekend, the 2023 NBA Playoffs, and uncounted national and local Mensa events. When he’s not running volunteer engagements and building community, Mr. Schifle can be found fueling Detroit’s bar trivia scene as a fan favorite question-writer and good-sport contestant.
Jess Tracy
Co-Founder
Jess Tracy’s expertise in leading Studio B3 as a Co-Founder stems from over 20 years of experience in business development, nonprofit capacity building, and government consulting. Her passion comes from even longer experience as a gifted person. At age six, she was given her first IQ test. She competed in the National Spelling Bee twice before she was a teenager. And by age 19, she had temporarily dropped out of college. Having survived the vicissitudes of a gifted childhood largely on the strength of friendships with other smart kids, Ms. Tracy’s lived experience drives her work with Studio B3.
True to her polymath nature, Ms. Tracy changed her college major five times before graduating with a degree in English Literature in just three years at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She then earned an advanced STEM degree at Florida State University, and now holds the Public Leadership Credential from Harvard’s Kennedy School. A skilled educator and engaging public speaker, Ms. Tracy has taught courses in research and the social sciences at four universities. She has delivered keynotes, webinars, and in-person training to over 4,000 professionals across the United States and its territories.
Ms. Tracy has resided in the greater Washington, DC area for well over a decade. She is most at home in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her dogs, where she enjoys artistic pursuits with more gusto than talent, including textiles, fused glass, and photography. Ms. Tracy finds joy in employing her creative spirit and skills to help other talented individuals to do their own best work.
Get In Touch
+1 202 656 4355
[email protected]