I started my career at Goldman Sachs in New York, advising industrial clients on M&A, including the firm's first SPAC, Vertiv (NYSE: VRT). At the time it read like a mundane data center infrastructure story. Several years later AI arrived and it became one of the more important types of businesses in the economy. I think about that a lot. The overlooked parts of the physical world eventually tend to matter more than anyone expects.

From Goldman I went to Industry Ventures in San Francisco. There, I had a unique seat in the venture ecosystem, investing across stages (early to mid-stage), sectors (as generalists within B2B software), and strategies (direct and SPV investments, primary fund commitments, and secondaries). I was there through one of the most dynamic periods in recent venture history, from the exuberance of 2020-2021 to the more measured correction that followed. I invested in more than a hundred companies across that stretch, and that volume, seen from that many angles and across both sides of a cycle, built valuable pattern recognition.

It helps me do the parts of the job that I consider table stakes better: being a thought partner on go-to-market strategy, hiring, product decisions, fundraising, and everything in between. But what I lead with is empathy. The founder role can be relentless and isolating in ways that are easy to underestimate from the outside. I want founders to feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to our conversations, not just the polished pitch deck version. I prefer honest, open, constructive relationships to formal ones.

While my curiosity takes me deep into a lot of different verticals, the through line is that I'm drawn to overlooked industries that most of the market has walked past, where problems look unremarkable on the surface and turn out to be enormously hard once you're inside them, and to the founders with insatiable ambition who take them on anyway.

I grew up in the Bay Area but am based in LA. I could list hobbies here, but the honest answer is that outside of work I'm with family, trying to cherish every moment of this all too fast-paced life that seems to fly us by.