I've been fortunate to journey through academia, policy-making, investment, leadership, and oversight, all focused on strangthening leadership, value creatio, and governance. For the past 25+ years, I've primarily invested in, advised, and helped to oversee and lead expansions, evolutions, and turnarounds of national consumer-facinng brands and retailers. Ialso advised across other sectors, and in education in particular. Previously, I spent 15 years in academia and policy, where my research focused on value, leadership, and governance in public companies.
After doctoral work at Yale, I spent a decade on the Harvard faculty and two years at the Securities and Exchange Commission, where I helped to lead the development of modern activist public equity investing. I advised numerous Fortune 50 CEOs and boards during periods of investor and board conflict; developed innovative strategies for activists (including the first slate of investor-sponsored independent directors); and spoke on governance reform at leading universities, US and foreign government bodies, and policy organizations, including the World Economic Forum in Davos. My research appeared in a spectrum of leading publications including The Journal of Finance, The Journal of Financial Economics, The Journal of Law and Economics, The Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
In 1999 I established Integrity Brands as a masthead for a program of investments and involvements in consumer-facing, product-led, art-and-science brands. Its mission was to partner with leaders and leverage domain epertise to help create value, in a sector where vision and conviction matter as much as business models and metrics. (And, where I believd I had intuition about the core creative drivers). Through the program I’ve invested in, advised leaders, and helped guide, as a board member, board chair, executive chair, co-chair, and formal and adviser, turnarounds, evolutions, and growth at public companies including Gymboree, Cost Plus World Market, Vans, Guess, Christopher and Banks, United Retail Group, Kirkland's, and others. I’ve been fortunate to help build and support visionary leadership teams; to help founders and leaders develop and evolve visions and plans and navigate governance and public market challenges; and to help lead strategic reviews and sale and restructuring processes.
Along the way I've also served as a strategic advisor to private equity firms, investment banks, and public equity funds; organized and overseen a series of investment partnerships for investments in public companies, and invested with family offices, funds of funds, high net worth individuals, and private equity firms. I’ve maintained a broader advisory poactice focused on value creation and governance, including consumer-adjacent sectors and nonprofits, and in the past few years have been involved with brand and program strategy at universities. I've engaged to support entrepreneurship education, and am presently affiliated with the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Arizona's Eller College, where I’ve helped to develop new programming to support University entrepreneurs.
I live in Tucson, Arizona, with my family, my two rescue dogs, and a small, rotating assortment of interesting (to me) vehicles.
More details and specifics (not about the vehicles) can be found on the CV pages of this site.