Mike Glezos

Principal & Co-Founder

"Employees First." It's not the kind of management motto you'd expect from a client-focused business principal. But topLingo’s Mike Glezos has never pursued the expected route. His first assignment out of art school was an underwater photography expedition off the Mexican coast. He co-founded an Internet startup amid the upheaval of the dot-com crash. An avid surfer and snowboarder, Glezos has learned to anticipate the next wave, to pivot ahead of the next turn, while others are still recovering from the last.

"Ultimately, empowering employees serves the best interests of clients," Glezos explains of his staff-centric motto. "By backing the employee, we remove politics from the equation. It allows our team to fully invest themselves in the success of a client's project." It is the approach of a principal with firsthand knowledge of the pitfalls of employment. And by all accounts, it's working. topLingo’s client portfolio ranges from Fortune 500 giants to mom-and-pop startups. The company has doubled or tripled in revenue, staffing or clients in every fiscal year since its inception.

Like his native Southern California, Glezos himself is eclectic, a hybrid. A business executive with artistic sensibilities. A youthful web entrepreneur with a brick-and-mortar approach to business. He founded topLingo with longtime associate Jason Berry in the Spring of 2001, following a decade of web development industry experience. Glezos, the creative director with a background in photography and keen eye for design, found in Berry his ideal counterpart: a technical whiz who approached coding with near-surgical precision. Resources and office space have grown since those early days, but the bond of partnership endures. Glezos attributes his natural synergy with Berry to a shared work ethic. Rather than a fast-money scheme, the family-minded Glezos conceived of his company as a lifelong endeavor, "Something that would be there for our kids 20 years down the road."

As topLingo organically expands into a provider of fully integrated web development, e-commerce and e-marketing solutions, Glezos is determined that the company preserve its small-business culture. He still hands his cell phone number to everyone. He's been known to attend to emergencies at 4 A.M. His door remains open to both clients and employees, many of whom are equally comfortable updating him on project issues and personal matters. And though the attention he once paid to creative direction now goes into management and client relations, Glezos has full faith in his empowered staff. With trademark candor, he insists, "I'm not afraid to rely on people who are better than me."