Work History
Wearing all kinds of hats over the years has given me a diverse skill set and a whole lot of perspective. I’ve learned from enough of my failures to appreciate my successes, and that my best skill is being able to work backward from real-world problems to solutions that move the needle for a business, industry, or community, and creating collaborative, high-performing teams to realize them.
CTO @ Appex
2022 - Present
I was the first technology lead at Appex, an M&A driven portfolio of 50+ consumer mobile apps with average rating of 4.7 stars and 150M+ lifetime downloads. I was tasked with designing and building out the entire engineering organization, establishing our platform of reusable services and components used across the app portfolio, and spearheading all technical diligence for new acquisition targets.
- Built out and fully responsible for engineering and software platform teams
- Member of investment committee for new acquisitions
- Developed a novel framework for technical diligence, including collaboration with our data team to automatically identify new acquisition targets and project future performance based on historical data to drive yes/no decisions.
- Led the vision, architecture, and execution of reusable platform services for AI, payment, account management, attribution, reporting, and monitoring.
- Expanded portfolio app capabilities using AI for image generation, text generation, and conversational experiences.
- Apps featured by Apple, Forbes, The New York Times, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Yahoo News, and The Washington Post.
CTO / Co-Founder @ Janeiro Digital
Decentralized Software
2018 - Present
After identifying the need for new decentralized integration patterns to connect decentralized and centralized ecosystems, I conceived and architected XFORM. XFORM is a software platform that seamlessly integrates decentralized ecosystems with the rest of the world (and each other). Incubated within my professional services business, we spun it out in 2021. As CTO I’m responsible for composing and growing the entire technology organization, managing the product roadmap, and providing full architectural oversight of the product portfolio.
- XFORM is one of the first commercial systems to integrate enterprise applications and systems with decentralized data, protocols, and identities.
- Early customers include UK National Health Service, Zurich Insurance, and Novartis
- Partnerships with RSA Labs, Inrupt, KPMG, Deloitte, and Accenture
Professional Services
2008 - 2021
I co-founded Janeiro Digital in 2009; a professional services business that specialized in building massively scalable, data-intensive systems and applications. Overseeing the global technology team, I built and managed a high-performing organization with offices in the US and across the world, and pioneered our RADD methodology for the precise delivery of mission-critical enterprise software. We grew it organically from day one through a successful exit in 2021. [1]
We delivered massive products across a range of industries, from financial trading systems managing billions of dollars to a monitoring and diagnostic system ensuring the safe generation and distribution of nuclear, wind, natural gas, and clean coal for the largest independent generator of energy in the United States.
- 100% organic growth from day one to a successful exit in 2021
- Built and grew teams in US, Central America, South America, and Europe
- Established a commercial framework of reusable software components that was utilized across our customer engagements.
- Listed as a “Vendor to Watch” by Gartner, and a Gartner Cool Vendor
- Customers included Amazon, Caterpillar, IBM, RA Capital, UTC, and Vistra Energy
Editor @ Solid
2018 - Present
Author, contributor, and editor of multiple open specifications in the Solid Ecosystem, including the Solid Protocol, Application Interoperability Standard, Authentication Protocol, Shape Trees, and a range of developer libraries. I led the first draft and subsequent approval of the ecosystem governance process.
Mentor @ Techstars
2013 - Present
Leveraging my experience building companies and technology to help some
awesome young startups navigate the (sometimes) choppy waters. Have been lucky to
mentor some great companies like Codeship,
SynAck, and others.
CTO / Co-Founder @ Intrusic
2002 - 2007
Designed and built a next-generation compromise detection system using passive network analysis and advanced data classification algorithms to identify hacked internal networks without the need for specific attack signatures. [1] [2]
- Invented and built one of the first systems to detect sophisticated covert channels over a network
- Built and managed entire technology organization, including software team, quality assurance, and user experience teams.
- I led our R&D group, which included PhDs, cryptographers, astrophysicists, and reformed hackers, to come up with novel ways to detect covert channels in encrypted and unencrypted communication streams.
- Modified hardware and operating systems (e.g. modifications to Linux Kernel) to optimize high-speed processing of network data.
- Customers included Dupont, Reebok, Avid, and Bank of America.
Systems Engineer @ Shore.net
1998 - 2001
My first job in tech, which I started while in high school as a customer support technician. Ultimately became responsible for managing, securing, and monitoring the service provider network. I used and expanded on a range of open-source tools available at the time. I was able to identify some key problems in securing large networks that led to the founding of my first startup.