From linear TV to digital content. From advertising to engagement. From market research to real-time insight. And now, AI. Four platform shifts — and a business built on every one of them.
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Years moving fast
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Companies founded
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Raised across ventures
In 2024 I did what I've always done when the ground starts moving: started building. Not one bet — a connected system for how companies will actually absorb AI.
Founding Partner & Executive Chairman
PE-native AI transformation. What Big Fuel did for brands in the social shift, Velocity Road does for companies in the AI shift — measurable operating impact in 90-day sprints, not multi-year roadmaps.
Learn more about Velocity Road →Founder
The Podcast Intelligence Network. AI that monitors 100+ business podcasts and distills 80 hours of conversation a week into daily executive briefings — starting with Velocity Meter, read daily by thousands of executives and investors.
Learn more about PodStreet.AI →
Chairman & Co-Founder
Twenty years of boardrooms, codified. Structured customer and strategic advisory boards that turn outside intelligence into growth — we manage the program, leadership gets the insight.
Learn more about Boardstream.ai →Boards & advisory: Arccos · Dreamit Ventures · Suzy (Strategic Advisor) · WhyHunger · American Express · Ad Age Publishers Council · DCP Midstream
“Comfort is the enemy of growth. I tend to make people uncomfortable.”
I learned it producing television and it built everything since: audiences don't connect with products. They connect with people. Every brand I've built, bought into, or advised runs on that idea.
Every platform shift creates two kinds of companies — the ones that move first, and the ones that wish they had. The window between 'too early' and 'too late' is shorter than it's ever been.
The real returns aren't in the flashy demos. They're in the unglamorous workflows — operations, insight, decision-making — where AI quietly compounds. Transformation theater is the new comfort zone.
The question I ask every leadership team I work with. The answer is usually the strategy.
Every chapter starts the same way: the ground moves, most people wait, and a few of us start building.
1990s–2004
I started in television — producing for Good Morning America, VH1, MTV, Showtime, and Fox. Then I watched entertainment begin its migration from linear to digital, and I understood two things: everything about how stories reached people was about to change, and the people who saw it early would build the next era. That shift turned a producer into an entrepreneur — and sent me looking for the next one.
Producer: GMA, VH1, MTV, Showtime, Fox · The lesson that became the career: people stories, not product stories
2004–2013
Social media was a curiosity when I founded Big Fuel in 2004. The bet: brands would have to stop interrupting people and start engaging them. We helped invent the category of consumer engagement — moving major brands from traditional advertising to engagement-based marketing — and grew from a one-man shop to a 300-person global agency running social for General Motors, T-Mobile, American Express, Colgate, and Samsung. Publicis Groupe acquired the company in 2011. Cannes Lions then asked me to serve as the first-ever Jury President of its new Branded Content & Entertainment category, and Wiley published Content to Commerce, the playbook for the era we'd helped create.
American Express · GM · T-Mobile · Colgate · Samsung
Solo → 300 people global · Acquired by Publicis Groupe · First-ever Cannes Lions Branded Content Jury President · Author, Content to Commerce (Wiley)
Content to Commerce (Wiley, 2013)The playbook for the engagement era — read it on Amazon →2014–2018
After the Publicis exit I moved to the other side of the table: founded Savar Ventures and became CEO of Dreamit, one of the world's top startup accelerators. We tore up the accelerator playbook — went vertical into healthtech, securetech, and urbantech, raised and deployed follow-on capital, and backed hundreds of startups. I'm still on the board today. Along the way I invested personally in companies like SeatGeek — now a billion-dollar business.
Hundreds of startups accelerated · ~$600M in portfolio exits in 2018 alone · SeatGeek, WayBetter, Promoboxx, Domino
2018–2024
Market research was a stale industry moving at the speed of PowerPoint while consumers were moving at the speed of their phones. I stepped out of my operating role at Dreamit to lead that shift from the inside — taking over Crowdtap and rebuilding it into Suzy, a real-time consumer intelligence platform. Six years as President later: roughly $100M raised, $25M+ in ARR, hundreds of enterprise customers from Microsoft to Unilever, and a category that looked nothing like the industry we found.
Rebuilt Crowdtap into Suzy · ~$100M raised · $25M+ ARR · Strategic Advisor today
2024–Now
Everyone's talking about AI. I'm doing what I've done every time the ground moved: building companies on it. Velocity Road, Boardstream, PodStreet — a consulting engine, a new way for leadership teams to see around corners, and an intelligence network. Same instinct, new ground.
See what I'm buildingMy companies productize pieces of what I do. This is the part that's just me — directly.
Management consulting for companies navigating growth, disruption, and reinvention — from business strategy to AI transformation. Thirty years of operating experience, applied directly to your business.
Board and advisory service for companies at inflection points — growth, disruption, succession, exits. I've sat on every side of the boardroom table: founder, operator, investor, and director.
Talks on AI, platform shifts, and reinvention for conferences, leadership offsites, and corporate events. Thirty years of moving first, told through the stories that made it real.
One-on-one work with founders, CEOs, and senior operators navigating reinvention — the operating lessons of five companies, applied to yours.
Recognition
Staying ahead of a platform shift means listening to everything and missing nothing. So I built my own intelligence engine — AI that turns thousands of hours of podcast conversations into sharp executive briefings. It started as my personal edge. Now I publish it, free, for anyone who wants to move first: this is me building in real time, with today's tools, and giving the advantage away.
AI · Markets · Venture
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Advisory, board, speaking — or you're staring at a platform shift and want to move first. Tell me what's on your mind.
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