About

I’m a bit of an accidental entrepreneur–out of adversity I founded Urban Mapping, which went through several distinct phases: first the Panamap, a physical map with a unique printing technology, then data licensing of neighborhood boundaries and aggregated public transit data and finally a web-based mapping platform with integrated data serving enterprise customers.

Customers included Tableau Software, Google, Airbnb, TripAdvisor, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Kayak, IAC, CoStar Group and lots of smaller organizations. In early 2015 I sold the company to Pitney Bowes and returned to NYC and took a senior product role at a startup that acted as outsourced research for the financial services industry, focusing on alternative data to generate alpha for hedge funds.

In September 2016 I left Thasos to further explore interest in derivative uses of data, generally falling into the domain of an emergent “data supply chain.” I have endured many an odd look when saying “one person’s metadata is another’s data” beginning circa 2009. Thankfully the comment is now more often greeted with a smile or laugh.

In April 2017 I started a part time advisory role with Booz Allen Hamilton as entrepreneur-in-residence. It is a term-defined role that allows me to peer inside their vast consulting business ($5B+ revs in 2016) and help connect dots and create new ones.

In 2018 the idea for Koffie Labs, an insurance company focused on transportation and trucking, began to take shape. My attraction of the industry is foremost its lack of sex appeal– people just deem insurance boring, and that’s fine by me and serves as a first layer for people to keep walking.

The rapid changes in vehicle safety/technology combined with commercial auto insurance as an unmitigated disaster and the ability to bring alt data to select and price risk is compelling.

More about my background is on LinkedIn and I occasionally blog on themes relating to data, the whimsical and occasional adventure travel at Post-employment.com. I have an MBA from Babson College, BA from McGill University and attended high school in Ireland and France. Currently living in Brooklyn, NY.