As Chief Strategy Officer, I led a series of eight acquisitions and the focused investment and cost reduction programs that turned Rubicon Project, a shrinking open-web ad tech company worth under $100 million at its low point, into Magnite (NASDAQ: MGNI), a leading connected TV (CTV) advertising platform worth about $4 billion (November 2026). We did it all as a public company.
I was a key player in the turnaround of Rubicon Project, the creation of Magnite and our pivot into CTV, but it was a team effort. I was fortunate to work with and learn from an exceptional group of executives, including Michael Barrett, David Day and Adam Soroca, and to work closely with an accomplished board of directors. Through good times and bad, we pushed to hire and keep top talent and to invest in our team and culture. Those investments weren't always easy to make as a public company with quarterly numbers to hit, but I am convinced they were the best investments we ever made. I am proud of the organization we built, and I bring what I learned there to everything I do next.
I saw my role as cutting across functions and levels. I was as comfortable reviewing deal materials with our board, previewing strategic options or working through capital allocation plans with our audit committee as I was working across functions, levels and regions to carry out our post-merger integration plans. I also led strategic initiatives such as our early work in AI, piloting the technology when it was new. That work led to investment in AI capabilities across the company and to our acquisition of streamr.ai.
Before Magnite
Before Magnite, I was one of the first 25 employees at GoTo.com, the company that invented pay-per-click search advertising and became Overture. I ran product at launch and then business development, through our IPO and the sale to Yahoo!. We crossed $100 million in revenue in 2000, less than three years after launch, making us the (then) fastest company to reach that mark, and we grew to $668 million in revenue by 2002. After Overture, I was a pre-IPO general manager at Green Dot, the fintech company that pioneered prepaid debit cards. I then became CEO of LeisureLink, a property-tech startup I had invested in at the seed stage. We raised venture funding and capital from a strategic investor, but the 2008–09 financial crisis and real estate crash hit the business hard, and it was eventually sold for far less than we had hoped.
I started my career in strategy consulting at Marakon Associates and then the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), before and after business school, in New York, San Francisco and London.
Boards and investing
I have been a private investor in startups and venture funds since the early 2000s. At one point I co-founded and ran a small accelerator fund, combining angel investing with mentorship.
I have served on several boards of directors and advisory boards, mostly at companies I had invested in or was running, and as a trustee of an educational institution. I have taken part in scores of board meetings in nearly every role, from observer and presenter to agenda-setter, including substantially all of Magnite's board meetings over my ten-plus years there and every board meeting while I was a CEO.
Princeton (AB, 1989) and Harvard Business School (MBA, 1994).
Today
Today I take on a small number of board and advisory roles, along with nonprofit and mentoring work. I bring experience, judgment and strong communication skills to help management and fellow directors focus on, and execute, the few things that really matter.
Based in Los Angeles. [email protected] · LinkedIn