Company Info for csx.com | IcebreakerMembers
I love building and growing products, organizations, teams and careers for others. I'm passionate about improving the lives of others. From founding a start-up to leading large multi-disciplinary teams, I lead with passion, empathy, mentorship and tenacity.
I started my career at 12 helping my dad to start a tech business (Key Transducers) in our basement to compete against the company that just laid him off (Lebow, a division of Eaton Corporation). We ended up building a successful startup and putting the other company out of business by the time I was 18. It was simple. We had better products, customer service and pricing.
I doubled up at the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) with a Bachelors in Engineering and an MBA, and started companies including CLEAR (NYSE: YOU, the airport fast line program), You Technology (the company that rid the world of paper coupons by enabling click and load personalized coupons for retail stores), and a couple of other small ones around digital identity (the most recent of which is defending the world against deepfakes and fraudulent identities in a post-quantum/gen AI world).
I also believe in the value and sacrifice of public service. Twice I have stepped away from my career to build great things in the government. My first government experience was building the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 under my day to day boss, Secretary Tom Ridge. It is where I fell in love with the concept of identity and digital identity. My second experience was building the Defense Innovation Unit (X), a unit under the Secretary of Defense which engaged commercial companies (who have access to the world's best engineering talent) to solve the hardest government problems around autonomous systems (drones/counterdrones in the air, water and land), cybersecurity, and AI. DIU, started by my team with $10mm of funding, is now issuing contracts worth over $3B to next-generation defense and dual-use companies such as Anduril, Shield AI, and Saildrone (whose first DoD contracts was under my portfolio),
I enjoy mentoring, advising, and leading great growth companies. In the past I have also focused on leadership in SaaS, enterprise software, blockchain solutions, financial services, ecommerce, consumer lending, retail and mobile apps. Feel free to reach out. I love brainstorming. 
