You look like a guy who was into sports as a kid.

Until I was 15, I was absolutely convinced I was going to be an NFL quarterback. Unfortunately, I was alone in that belief.
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So your early heroes were Montana, Manning, Young?

As much as I loved them, my hero was, and still is, my uncle David. He struggled to graduate from a small rural Ohio school, moved to Chicago, slept on his brother’s floor, and finally persuaded someone to give him a job as a trader at the Merc. He’s worked his butt off and has been a managing director at a major bank for more than a decade now. Not that title is a measure of success- I just think he proves you don’t need a pedigree to achieve your dream.
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That sounds like something you learned from your own family.

I grew up in Cleveland. My mom came from a blue-collar, hard-working family and I have like 25 cousins on her side. Even though my parents afforded me a lot of tremendous opportunities, I’ve always retained that aversion to entitlement that my mom and her siblings instilled in me.
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And now you work with a group of individualistic, hard-working founders and entrepreneurs who also share that aversion to entitlement.

Exactly, and I think the last thing any of us wants to do is to corral or stifle that individualism. To be as successful as they are they have to be a little (or maybe a lot) crazy and stubborn– but they’re also all exceptionally passionate and know how to communicate their excitement.
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I take it the founders’ stories really resonate with you.

I could be deathly allergic to peanut butter, and I’d still eat a Justin’s peanut butter cup after hearing Justin talk about how he came up with the idea.
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Wow. That’s brand power. So consumer products excite you more than, say, industrial chemicals?

To me, it wasn’t even a question– if I was going to be sitting at a desk working on a sector for 16 hours a day, why not focus on something that fascinates me? Something I could form a tangible connection with.
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Sounds like you’re a guy who values making a connection with brands, with entrepreneurs, with your co-workers…

Playing football my whole life taught me how to thrive in a team environment and how to channel my competitive drive to further the goals of the group– how to subjugate myself for the good of the team.
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Like eating Justin’s despite your deadly peanut allergy.

Whatever it takes.

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