GTM backed by strong strategy and analysis to power your entrepreneurial vision; pragmatic thinking, more doing.

Experiences

Managing Partner @ Italic Skyline, LLC
Mar. 2024 - Current
Pittsburgh, PA | Global

Italic Skyline (i.e., me) partners with founders, CEOs, and entrepreneurs to creatively deploy strategy, backed by thoughtful qualitative and quantitative analysis, to make vision a reality. Whatever your toughest challenge, we’re ready to help. Prior and ongoing engagements include ArchDia, Inc. (with IP / spinout of CMU, Drexel, and University of Hawaii) where I led a restructuring and clean-up as interim CEO before placing a new CEO, and at Optimus Technologies where I lead special projects as the Strategic and Growth Initiatives Lead. My services are available on a deliverable or fractional basis depending on the engagement goals.

Director @ Idea Foundry, Inc.
Dec. 2018 - Current
Pittsburgh, PA | Global

Idea Foundry invests globally in early stage innovation-based social impact companies. Started in 2002, IF has made more than 260 investments - personally, I have led about 12 (companies like Boost Technologies, Peptilogics, Opareta, SioValley Technologies, Kuali.ai, etc.). Originally started to help commercialize latent academic and professor-created IP from the adjacent universities (Pitt and CMU), our model has flourished, expanding to encompass and now focus on companies based in markets where traditional VC investment is lacking.

IF pioneered a capability-extension model as opposed to a cohort-based model; the team extends precious commercialization resources through services + capital investments, structured as convertible notes. As Director, I lead a team of associates to invest in startups, everything from defining strategy through post-services portfolio management including partnership development for deal flow, vetting and due diligence, workplan development, and services execution. I also lead Idea Foundry’s angel investment initiative, IF Ventures, working with entrepreneurs, HNWIs, and Family Offices to place capital.

At Idea Foundry, I have the privilege of sharing my experiences as a founder and entrepreneur, helping others to see problems and solutions from new and creative angles. Building on Solinius’ and IF’s rust-belt roots, I pride myself on adding value when the rocket ship stalls, meeting startups where they are, embedding with their teams to solve mission-critical problems with as little capital as possible.

CEO + Founder @ Solinius, Inc.
Nov. 2015 - Dec. 2023
Global

Solinius is a management platform for community solar operations in LMICs. In conjunction with our market-adapted asset management model (think: co-operative), we give asset owners efficient stakeholder communications and ops management, providing their secret sauce against tough unit economics. Through a hardware + software solutions, we are able to pull operational data and provide dynamic control of installed assets, allowing the efficient movement of data and communications between stakeholders including asset owners, end users, maintenance teams, finance teams, etc.

I led Solinius as Founder + CEO since inception in late 2015, with the company incorporating as a public-benefit corporation in June 2017. The Solinius journey has been long and fraught with challenges, but ever rewarding in experience. Using the same foundational intellectual property (robust and ruggedized remote data collection), the team has launched three unique products, serving governments and private companies. Solinius taught me the importance of people - no matter how good your tech is, no matter how much you’re in love with the product, there’s always a person on the other side.

Solinius has partnered with the United States Army Research Lab and University of Pretoria to continue developing “moon-shot” features with a 3-year/$300K grant, following the installation of a group of proof-of-concept one-to-one installations.