Dan Diaz drives client growth like he races cars: fiercely, intelligently, whole heartedly.

After leaving high school at 16 to study the culinary arts, Dan—who landed in a Michelin starred restaurant his first year out of cooking school and learned to debone a chicken in two-and-a-half minutes flat—found himself at a crossroads and took a job as a janitor at Facebook’s London office through his family’s cleaning business.

Ever curious, Dan struck up conversations with almost anyone he met while cleaning. Soon, he was helping an executive with Excel spreadsheets. Two years later, he was setting ad prices for the entire social media company. Shortly thereafter, as forecasting gave way to the ad auction, Dan had the opportunity to drive how this evolving format for buying and selling ads should be used.

As Facebook’s resident auction expert, Dan tracked tens of thousands of companies as they used the auction to propel growth. But as much as the companies grew, Dan knew he could help them achieve even more—if he were calling all the shots. Buying ads was only part of a growth strategy. It would take a 360 approach and an insider’s view for a company to soar.

In 2018, after more than seven years at Facebook, Dan decided to start a new chapter, both for him and for the industry. He launched Social Bulldog, a performance marketing agency—named for his beloved French bulldog, Mickey—to challenge agency norms with critical thinking and take client growth to unprecedented levels.

Jon Bednarsh isn’t afraid of a challenge. Never has been.

His roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-it-done ethos was already in effect in the mid-90s when he figured out that the print marketing company he was working for needed a website—so he built one. Open, agile, and curious, he proved his business mettle once again in 2001, when Money magazine approached him to develop the data for their “Best Places to Live” franchise, a project he’d been involved with as head of business development at MonsterDaata, which folded after the 9/11 attacks. Though he had no infrastructure for such an endeavor, he knew it was an opportunity he could not refuse so he and a partner built a startup, Onboard Informatics, out of his basement to make it happen. Over the past 20 years, Jon has nurtured several data-driven startups—including his own—into successful, mature businesses. But it was his skill in car racing—Porsches, specifically—that brought him to Social Bulldog. Jon met Dan during a rainy weekend at Watkins Glen, the premier international track in North America. They bonded over their love of racing in the rain—something most drivers fear—and began a conversation about bringing the same kind of limit-pushing that sets them apart on the track to growing Social Bulldog.