Fail early, fail often, and learn from your mistakes.

I am an analytical problem-solver with fifteen years’ experience managing teams in entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial environments, mainly turning business requirements into technical and operational reality.

I am an incurable optimist who finds opportunity in every difficulty. I write wine, beer, and food reviews, eat good food, spend a lot of time with friends,try to keep up with old friends and coworkers, read voraciously, and generally try to keep busy.

I spend a lot of time thinking about (and, hopefully, being moved by) beauty and elegance in the world, and how things can get better. I write about entrepreneurship in my (limited) spare time.

I tend to do a lot of communication-- seeing things from both systems and customer/design perspective, and translating between the two.

Bio

I was born in New Orleans and educated in state schools. I'm a little food snobbish, often wine drinking, and occasionally beer making. I did my undergraduate degree at the University of New Orleans in English Literature, Sociology, and Theatrical Design.

This has taken me lots and lots of different places and garnered me a number of different friends from all walks of life, all over the globe. I was a lighting and scenic designer, producer, as well as carpenter and electrician in New Orleans for 7 years, founding my own nonprofit on the way.

I moved to San Francisco in 1998 and started working in entrepreneurial ventures, riding the silicon valley wave through the initial boom (Thankfully turning down a job offer at pets.com), riding out the bust (starting two companies during that rough time) and back through the "Web2.0" re-boom.

I took a year out at Oxford to get my MBA, honing my leadership skills, and picking up a few distinctions on the way-- founder of the Oxford Business and Environment Network, having a paper published at the IBIMA conference, being one of the winners of the Idea Idol Business Plan competiton, and leading a team to the finals at the UCLA Global Leadership Competition.

After completing the MBA, rather than get a job in banking, finance, or back in IT, I went to Uganda to work in carbon finance and renewable energy with NGOs and entrepreneurs through MBAs Without Borders, followed by some product, operations, business development, and process consultancies with a few different organisations in Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

I'm now in London, UK. For more information and bits about me, check out my:

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