About

Background

I started in institutional finance at Morgan Stanley, rotating across strategy, product, and the COO's office. That gave me a foundation in how large organizations think about growth, risk, and market positioning, and a fluency in the language investors and operators share.

At Silicon Valley Bank, I worked directly with 700+ early-stage founders and VC funds, and built the bank's go-to-market for the crypto vertical from zero. The real unlock there wasn't external. The bank was pricing all crypto at the risk level of its riskiest business model, so I segmented by model. Straightforward cases onboarded fast, heavy diligence went where the risk actually was. When SVB collapsed, I guided 30+ companies through the crisis in 10 days, coordinating banking transitions and securing emergency funding. 65% of them came back once things stabilized. That taught me more about trust than any of the strategy work.

As Chief of Staff at Basic.Space, I translated a founder's category vision into an operating model that didn't exist yet. Luxury design couldn't run on infrastructure built for fashion drops, so I argued for a parallel commerce stack and built it across four departments I had no authority over. Design is now the platform's leading category. Along the way I structured partnerships with Design Miami, NYFW, and Frieze LA, and scaled the marketplace to 8x MAU.

At Rippling, I ran executive escalations on the highest-revenue accounts. That job teaches you to find root causes fast, because the wrong diagnosis is expensive. The work I'm proudest of started as a customer complaint and ended as a company-level product priority, because I kept digging past the first plausible explanation.

Most recently I've been building pricing infrastructure and negotiating talent, producer, and brand deals in media, opposite professional agents. Building the rate card and unit economics first, then using that same model on the other side of the table.

The through-line is the same everywhere. Someone has an important decision and the economics underneath it haven't been built. So I build them, and then I use the same model in the negotiation, in the pitch, in the board conversation. One source of truth for both sides of the table.

I don't deliver decks and walk away. Identifying the problem is the easy half. I stay in the work until the number moves.

Who I Work With

Founder-led companies in the creator and brand economy. Media and content businesses, creator platforms, agencies, experiential and events companies, consumer marketplaces, design and fashion brands. Typically pre-seed through Series B, small teams, where the founder is still leading strategy.

The pattern is almost always the same. There's real inbound demand, brands and partners are reaching out, and deals are getting done. But the pricing isn't defensible, the deals run on instinct, and everything routes through the founder. That's exactly where I come in.

How I Work

A small number of clients at a time, directly with founders. I'm honest early about what falls outside my scope, and when it does I'd rather bring in someone excellent than be mediocre at it myself.

I keep working hours and I say so up front. Response within one business day, or four business hours for anything live. I don't work evenings or weekends. In my experience that produces better judgment on the things that matter.

Outside of Work

I studied Art History and Economics at Boston College, which probably explains why I ended up at the intersection of culture and business. I speak fluent Mandarin and conversational Spanish. I travel as much as I can, usually chasing some combination of good architecture, good food, and good flea markets. I'm also a trained pianist and a film photographer, which is where the photos on this site come from.

Experience

Education