UM School of Business Administration alumni are in Inc. Magazine’s "26 Entrepreneurs We Love" list: Michelle Cardinal & Tim O’Leary Cmedia and Respond2 for rewriting the rules for husband-and-wife teams

Husband-and-wife business teams are common enough that they even have a nickname, "copreneurs." When the arrangement works, it works well; when it doesn’t, a couple can be crippled both emotionally and financially. Michelle Cardinal and Tim O’Leary have come up with a novel way of doing the "for richer, for poorer" thing as business partners — they decided not to share ownership completely. Each spouse runs an independent company in the infomercial business, even though they work together all the time.

Wife Cardinal, 37, is the CEO of Cmedia and husband O’Leary, 45, is CEO of Respond2. Together, the couple and their 100-odd employees have created spots for NordicTrack, KitchenAid, Stanley tools, the Songbird hearing aid, and those best of Johnny Carson DVDs that surged in sales after the comedian’s death in January. O’Leary’s team produces the infomercials; Cardinal’s group holds inventory for some of the product lines and manages the sale from pricing to buying airtime to telemarketing and fulfillment. "I always joke that we talk shop in the shower," Cardinal says. (They also co-own two smaller firms 50-50).

Full Story: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20050401/26-cardinal.html