I joined Corum in 1996, after graduating from Yale, working for Morgan Stanley in New York and Tokyo, and attending UCLA Law School. A legal education teaches the application of law to facts. A good M&A advisor takes a similar discipline in adapting strategy to facts, and pragmatically guiding a group of people with disparate interests toward the best possible outcome for all. This is the discipline that I bring to transactions; although I have passed the bar in Washington state, I focus entirely on the business side of the house.
I have managed over 30 transaction for Corum, with clients and buyers in a dozen countries. These engagements cover a lot of market territory, but the recurring themes in my tombstones are security, consumer web and media, games, infrastructure, and financial applications. I have completed transactions with many of the established players, such as Microsoft, Symantec, Intel, Activision, BMC, and others, and I am always trying to map the business development agendas of the incumbents to the innovation that entrepreneurs are bringing to market.
On a more personal note, perhaps because my business life is entirely consumed by technology, on weekends you will find me at the helm, on the seat or in the cockpit of a human or wind powered device a kayak, sailboat or bicycle along with my wife and three children.