Husband and wife team Derek and Melanie Coburn founded CADRE out of a shared passion to connect remarkable professionals with one another.
Derek Coburn
When I have a great experience with a business, I love to tell everyone I know. I also love connecting people. In fact, I’ve referred over 300 opportunities within my network just this past year. Remarkable businesses are hard to find, and the ones who are great deserve to have people know about them.
As an owner of Washington Financial Group, most of my clients view me as their “Personal CFO,” and turn to me for advice whenever they’re making a financial decision. I want to help them in any way I can, which has made it imperative for me to have a diverse network of remarkable professionals that I can call on whenever a client’s needs are outside what our firm can provide. I consider myself very lucky to have a great core of strategic partners, but these relationships have taken years to develop and I’ve always wished there was a way to build such relationships more efficiently.
Typically if you’re a remarkable professional, you are extremely focused on adding value for your clients – which limits the time you have to market and network. We created CADRE as a way for remarkable professionals to connect and develop meaningful relationships with other top professionals efficiently and effectively, with the ultimate goal of working together to promote each other while adding value for their existing clients and network.
Melanie Coburn
While marketing for the Washington Redskins for over a decade, I’ve built a very diverse network of clients, partners and friends, and have focused on building these relationships over time. I firmly believe that by deepening your existing relationships, you ultimately expand your network by cultivating word-of-mouth marketers among these connections.
I built the business side of the Redskins Cheerleaders from the ground up, as the first person in the NFL to hold this position. After a few years, I found that my job became easier and easier because of the people I partnered and worked with. These famous ladies made memories for people in the DC Metro area and beyond. However, there were quite a few remarkable people behind the scenes, every one of whom was essential to making it all happen.
With the cheerleaders, I used to say I was in the business of smiles. Now, through CADRE, I hope to become a cheerleader for world-class professionals and bring smiles to your faces each time I create an opportunity for you!
