Brooklyn & the Hudson Valley · Strategy · New ventures · Product

Stuck companies rarely need more effort. They need a better angle.

That's been my work twice over. Global macro at Wellington and Point72, then a company I built from a thesis about human connection. Now I'd like to do it inside someone else's.

2000 2007 2015 now ANALYSIS CREATIVITY CONNECTION

Why this work.

The thread through all of it is connection. Making connections, finding connections, noticing connections.

In markets that meant creative manipulation of data that no one thought to put side by side. At OuiSi it meant building something that fosters connectedness: with the world around us, with each other, with our inner selves.

Now, it's addressing problems that require a fresh angle, human understanding, curiosity and flexibility. Between ideas that don't obviously belong together, and between people.

What I bring.

a.

Understand the why

A venture runs on more than a plan. It runs on what drives the team. I read that terrain well, and the "why" is usually where the angle hides.

b.

See the angle

Markets taught me to creatively ask what's mispriced and why. I bring the same discipline to products, categories, and business models.

c.

Help build the thing

I've made products, run a P&L, and negotiated partnerships. I'd rather do the work than write the deck about it.

My path.

Since 2015

Founder & CEO

OuiSi Inc., Brooklyn

The same instinct, aimed at a cultural problem: that disconnection was becoming the defining problem of our time. Built it into a physical-digital product platform. Invented and crafted the products. Built partnerships with the Getty, Boston MFA, the Smithsonian, and Paramount. OuiSi lives in homes, classrooms, and memory care centers across the country. The company continues today, restructured and leaner by design. It's no longer a full-time job.

$15M
Revenue
500K
Units
250K
Homes
2015

Participant, Inaugural Cohort

THNK School of Creative Leadership, Vancouver

A program for creative leaders working on solutions to societal challenges. Part think tank, part accelerator. It bridged my markets career and founding OuiSi.

2010–14

Portfolio Manager

Point72 Asset Management, New York

Systematic global macro in interest rates and FX. The creative work was in the data: reading it in novel ways, pulling in approaches that looked unrelated until they weren't. Ranked among the firm's top three global macro PMs by Sharpe ratio.

2006–10

Portfolio Manager

Wellington Management, Boston

Helped build and run Wellington's most successful systematic investment platform. Sat on the Global Macro Risk Management Committee, assessing performance, allocating capital, and finding where we were exposed.

2003–06

Portfolio Manager

FairLane Asset Management, Toronto

Junior partner of a startup hedge fund. Head of Risk Management and Head of Quantitative Analysis.

2001–03

Bond Trader

Deutsche Bank, Toronto

Junior, then senior trader. Ended up market-making the Canadian Government Bond market, 5-year to 30-year maturities, managing to a $10M/year P&L. Advised the Bank of Canada on market dynamics and liquidity.

Education

BMath Actuarial Science · MMF Mathematical Finance

University of Waterloo (1996–2001) · University of Toronto (2002–2003)

The quantitative foundation for systematic, model-driven investing, and just as much for creative problem solving. Most of the MMF ran alongside the trading desk at Deutsche Bank.

Where I'm most useful.

A company with traction that's lost the thread.

You've proven something works. What it should become is a harder question, and the wrong answer is expensive.

A product that needs inventing, not just specifying.

Someone has to make the thing, not write the brief and hand it off.

A founder carrying too much alone.

Sometimes what helps most is a clear head across the table with no stake in being right.

Find the angle, then help build toward it. I'm looking for the right company to do that in full-time, and take on a few fractional engagements alongside.

Deep inside a problem? I'd like to hear about it.

Full-time for the right mission, or fractional alongside. Send a short note: what you're building, and where it's stuck.

Write to me
LinkedIn OuiSi
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