I build hard technical things, then run them.
Twenty-five years of thinking about how to rethink the tricky bits: the trading platform, the regulator, the offshore dev team, the restructure, the 5,000 people in a desert. I'm the person who goes and finds out how the thing actually works and then brings the step change.
Today that means Figabl, where we buy inventory at its expected value and sell it back when needed, so product founders can scale what already works. Before it: US wide pharmaceutical verification for the FDA, lifecycle tracking for inventory, and electronic trading at UBS. Also a whitewater raft guide, outdoor instructor, corporate facilitator, and a ski instructor who rethinks the fundamentals to help adaptive athletes excel in the mountains.
Build it
Platforms that have to survive regulators, auditors and a Monday morning. Trading infrastructure, product verification, payment rails, expected value engines. I can hold the technical roadmap and the P&L in the same conversation.
Fix it
Contraction is its own skill. I have taken a 6,200-person luxury retailer down to 5,052 without the wheels coming off, and made a family conglomerate profitable by saying no to most of it.
Explain it
Boards, the FDA, stock exchanges, industry associations, journalists, and a field of 5,000 festival-goers. Mostly the same job: say the true thing early, in language the room can act on.
Career
Co-founder, Figabl · the inventory finance company · Jackson, WY
We value inventory by sales, not cost — buying e-commerce stock where it already sits in the seller's 3PL, selling it back as they need it, no margin charged. It lets a founder scale beyond their bank's idea of them, without dilution or delay. Billions of dollars of sales analyzed, hundreds of millions financed. Zero defaults to funders.
CEO & Co-founder, Authentag · McLean, VA
The first live Verification Router Service for US pharmaceuticals, so any packet could be checked under the Drug Supply Chain Security Act. Led an Accenture development team, worked alongside Deloitte, co-wrote the industry test scripts, presented to the FDA and worked with every major manufacturer. National Science Foundation recipient.
Technical Advisor, Hdac Technology · Seoul
Machine-to-machine billing for IoT devices. The token generation event raised $256M, which was a great deal of money to watch arrive in a single afternoon.
Advisor to the President, Lane Crawford Joyce Group · Hong Kong
Restructuring Asia's leading purveyor of luxury goods against the e-commerce threat. Interviewed every senior manager, ran the change management, reported progress to the chair.
Advisor to the Chair, Further Future · Moab Desert, NV
Creative Collisions, executed. Ran front of house across two festivals — 5,000+ attendees, 240 staff, temporary accommodation, and the crisis management that comes free with both.
COO, Asia Pacific Adventure · Hong Kong
Asia's largest outdoor educator and management trainer: ran five divisions, 120+ staff, 30,000 programme days a year including all of Disney's experiential learning in Asia. Net margins up 51% on cost control and product focus, with standardised reporting and safety procedures group-wide.
Co-founder, I&W and Bio-Supplies · Hong Kong
Licensed Greenpeace-approved medical waste treatment and sold it into Europe's largest private waste processor and Metro Manila — taking the dioxin out of London hospital waste, still processing two tonnes an hour today. Alongside it, compostable packaging for Hong Kong's better-known cafés, retailers and cosmetics brands.
Non-Executive Director, SEP Sprint · Melbourne
Independent board member of the southern hemisphere's largest secure printer: government documents and postage stamps. Strategy and oversight.
Associate Director, UBS · London · Stamford · Hong Kong
One firm under four names — SBC Warburg, Warburg Dillon Read, UBS Warburg, then UBS. Graduate recruit to architect and business owner of the electronic trading platform in Asia, handling over 80% of the bank's electronic equity flow across Asia Pacific and Australia. First web-based trade onto the London Stock Exchange, first international electronic order onto the NYSE, negotiations with the Korean, Singaporean and Hong Kong exchanges, and a hand in the international technical trading standards.
Raft guide, instructor, logistics officer · Northern California · Outback · Southern Wales
Class IV+ whitewater in California, wilderness logistics for Outward Bound Australia, and five summers teaching kayaking and climbing to disabled and disadvantaged kids in Wales. Still the best training I have had. SNOW & WATER →
Education
Licences & tools
Financial representative and dealing licences: SFC Hong Kong, FSA London (both lapsed — I stopped needing them). US patent holder.
Hands-on with accounting and cloud project stacks, and genuinely useful in Figma, Illustrator, Sketch and SketchUp — which means the roadmap deck and the wireframes are usually mine.
Not for pay
Adaptive ski instructing, volunteer for the charity and paid by Whistler Blackcomb. Helped out at the Winter Invictus Games.
Badminton coach at the local secondary school. Previously CSR Sowers Exchange advisory board, Hong Kong.
it concerns me.”
Best on LinkedIn — that is also where the resume stays current. Founders, funds and anyone with an awkward technical problem: I read everything.