About Me

I don’t particularly like talking about myself, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the ‘why’ is what matters most. Since I now spend my time mentoring emerging VC managers, I guess they’d want to know why I’m doing this. So here we go.

The Entrepreneurship Bug

Ever since I can remember thinking about a career, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I’m not sure why. There were no entrepreneurs in my family, no role models pushing me in that direction. But there was a vision: build something, surround myself with a small team of great people, and prove that growth at all costs wasn’t the only way.

This was the mid-90s, before the DotCom boom, before startups became a default career path. Back then, entrepreneurship wasn’t a glorified choice. It was often something you did if you had no other option.

I wasn’t in that position. I had landed in an elite business school, but I didn’t know what that meant. My parents were immigrants, so business school wasn’t a planned trajectory.

While some of my friends and classmates jumped straight into entrepreneurship, I figured I’d learn first—observe, understand, and prepare. In hindsight, that was already a bad sign. Another thing I discovered in the years that followed is that entrepreneurs do when others think.

I looked for careers that would let me study entrepreneurs up close. Strategy consulting seemed like the perfect move—work on business problems, get exposed to high-level decisions, and learn from the best. So I went to McKinsey for an internship, thinking I’d get a front-row seat to entrepreneurship.

I quickly realized that the people I talked to weren’t building companies, but optimizing them. I wanted something closer to the action.

That’s how I discovered private equity, a field barely discussed then. It seemed like the perfect observation deck for entrepreneurship. Thirty rejection letters hurt my ego but not my resolve.

And then, the towers fell.

9/11 froze everything. Markets collapsed, hiring stopped, and for a while, it felt like the world itself was on pause.

A Long-Winded Path To Private Equity Investor

After 9/11, I took a hard look at what I thought I really needed to learn to become an entrepreneur. I had a rough understanding of marketing, management, HR—enough to get by. But there was one thing I didn’t want to happen: A CFO telling me, “Don’t worry about the numbers, I’ll handle them.”

I wanted to be in full control. If I ever built something, I never wanted to depend on someone else to explain the numbers that would decide my company’s fate.

I set out to master numbers. I got into GE Capital’s Financial Management Program, where I learned about the rudiments of finance and accounting. That knowledge still helps me today when I train VCs on how to analyze startup financials.

But I still wanted to get into private equity, so when it came time to find a job after the program, I targeted an entity where I could hone my financial modeling skills.

When a position finally opened in LBO financing, I jumped ship, landing in a buyout team in London at the height of the LBO boom in 2006.

The 2006-2008 period was a masterclass in financial cycles. I spent those years negotiating top-of-the-bubble deals, then renegotiating them as the world collapsed around us. First, the cracks appeared in finance in 2007. By 2008, the entire economy was unraveling.

That same year, a few months before Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, I finally landed an equity Investor role. It took me seven years, but I had finally reached my goal! Now, I could learn about entrepreneurship from the best vantage point and prepare for my entrepreneurial career.

And then, I realized that I wasn’t cut out to be a Founder.

From Venturing To Investing and Advising

During those years, I spoke with hundreds of entrepreneurs, invested in several, and followed them closely on their boards. It brought me into the intimacy of their lives—the struggles, the resilience, the constant balancing act of keeping a company afloat.

I always had a knack for psychology, though I didn’t name it that way at the time. I naturally built close relationships with the Founders I backed, understanding what drove them, what kept them up at night.

After a decade of investing—through two funds, as well as running deals through my own boutique firm—I realized that I wasn’t built for that life. The highs, the lows, the relentless uncertainty of being a Founder—I admired it, but I wouldn’t enjoy it for myself.

What I did love was being next to entrepreneurs, helping them succeed.

Then came the unexpected turn. In 2016, almost by accident, I started teaching. First, entrepreneurial finance. Then, Venture Capital. And I caught the VC bug.

At the time, I was doing a lot of VC deals, investing mostly on behalf of super angels, entrepreneurs whose companies I had helped sell, and corporates. It was a fast-paced, active life. And I got exactly what I wanted—experience, a reputation for making things happen, and deep exposure to the VC world.

But in 2018, life forced a reset. My daughter was born, and my father passed away just a few months later. I felt it was time for another chapter of my life, this time building something for myself, with a strong desire to learn deeply about VC and share that knowledge.

(To be continued)