A CEO’s journey through culture, strategy, and execution
A little about me – and how I think about leadership
I didn’t grow up wanting a title. I grew up wanting agency.
My father was an Army Ranger, stationed in Berlin in the 1960s, part of the early test cases for what would later become Delta Force. He grew up on a farm in Superior, Wisconsin, and earned his finance degree in the Army. My mother was raised by a single mom who helped Jews escape Hitler during the war. She studied business and languages across Berlin, Cambridge, and the Sorbonne.
I was born in Berlin, flew to the U.S. on an Army jet, and started life at Fort Ord in Monterey – where I fell in love with the ocean.
I’m German, Finnish, Dutch, and Danish by blood. But Silicon Valley shaped how I think.
My love for technology started early
When I was five years old, my parents were poor. That meant one gift under the tree.
That year it was a remote-control Pontiac Trans Am.
My parents thought I ran straight to the driveway. Instead, they found me in the garage, at my dad’s workbench, taking the car apart to understand how it worked.
That moment didn’t make me an engineer. It made me someone who needs to understand systems.
I went on to earn a BS in EECS, drawn to semiconductors – the foundation of Silicon Valley at the time. I chose UCSB to study under professors doing world-class work in the field, fully intending to become a semiconductor engineer.
The moment entrepreneurship clicked
Sure, I mowed lawns as a kid. But the real trigger came earlier.
Our first family home cost $30K in 1970. When my dad opened the front door for the first time, the smell hit us immediately – previous owners’ animals that had destroyed our home.
It was far beyond a fixer-upper, trust me. I can still remember it because of the combination of visuals and smells.
Me: “Why is our house like this, dad?”
Dad: “Because it’s all I could afford.”
Me: “Why can’t we afford something nicer?”
Dad: “Because this is what my job allows.”
Me: “What jobs pay more?”
Dad: “Pilots. Lawyers. Doctors. Business owners.”
Me: “How do I become a business owner?”
That question never left me.
I started my first company in 1999, in semiconductor packaging. I was on a mission. I’m always on a mission.
Becoming a CEO was a journey
I wanted to be a CEO in high school – but before earning that responsibility, I earned the fundamentals.
I started as an electrical engineer at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, working on a classified Army-funded laser satellite defense project. I worked through college as a digital engineer, then joined NCR (which merged with Teradata into AT&T), where I became one of five engineers who helped invent and implement Teradata’s next-generation BYNET platform.
I did that while getting my MBA at night and on weekends. I studied corporate finance, real estate finance, international finance, and investment finance. I knew that numbers made the world go around. I knew my path to $ meant that I needed to understand the numbers.
Later, because I understood technology deeply, I was sent into the field. I became a technical consultant – putting out big fires for big customers. That eventually pulled me into product leadership, then product marketing, and finally into revenue.
That was my real education.
When I left Teradata, I became VP of Sales & Marketing at an innovation lab focused on breakthroughs across semiconductors for digital media, space, communications, and medical devices. I ran a weekly pipeline cadence and earned a simple reputation:
The hammer. 3X thinking only.
Being a CEO is hard
When I was promoted to CEO in 2000, I began a leadership journey that’s now 25 years in the making.
- 2x PE-backed mid-market companies
- 5x VC-backed early-stage startups
- 3x public company VP/SVP & GM roles
- 3x EIR positions
- 5x exits
Across companies ranging from $22M to $1B in revenue, with growth profiles from steady to hypergrowth: $1B (12% YoY, 20% PM), $250M (51% YoY), $50M (36x YoY), $30M (30% YoY), $22M (48% YoY).
And there was a cost.
My first marriage ended. My two sons estranged me. I lost my father. I nearly lost my mother.
In 2024, after five intense years as CEO, I presented my board with three options and chose to move on.
It wasn’t failure. It was evolution.
You don’t complain. You aren’t a victim. Instead, you turn every challenge into an opportunity. That’s the charter. That’s just what you do.
Restarting with purpose
Four years ago, I met my life partner and true soulmate. She was born in Poland, half Polish and half Italian, raised in France – and she’s a four-time CEO herself. Dinner conversations are deep, meaningful, high in adrenaline, and frankly powerful.
She has a perspective on life that is incredibly rare.
They say the right partner pushes you when you’re stuck, believes in you when you doubt yourself, and reminds you of your worth when you forget.
She does all three.
San Francisco is now home. And I’m building the next chapter with intention.
How I lead
I live my life at home and at work the same way. My values don’t change from the dinner table to the boardroom.
I believe leaders fall into three broad buckets:
Execution-led Know your metrics. Let data tell you the truth. Course-correct constantly. If you don’t know the numbers, you’re not earning the CEO paycheck.
Strategy-led Have a clear North Star. Know where you are, where you’re going, and the playbooks to get there.
Culture-led People are the system.
I’m a culture-led CEO.
I start with people. Then I align strategy. Then I obsess over execution – only insofar as it helps teams remove obstacles and over-achieve.
I believe enduring enterprise value begins with people, not products.
I lead through trust, humility, and performance – balancing empathy with intensity. I empower leadership teams to operate autonomously while maintaining alignment through clarity, data, and ownership.
Culture. Strategy. Execution. One integrated system. Built to scale. Built to endure.
And I genuinely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE what I do. Just ask any team that has worked with me.
What are you building, and who are you becoming while building it?
