Most careers in venture capital start in an investment bank or an Ivy League classroom. Mine started with a process server handing me a 600-page federal trademark lawsuit from my own university, just months after I graduated.
During my time at Baylor University, I built a profitable experiential marketing company from the ground up. Our best event in that period relied entirely on organic digital momentum, selling 3,000 tickets for a massive concert. However, the university felt our promotional use of the word “DIA” came a little too close to their historic traditions and took legal action.
Staring down an institutional Goliath, I could have folded. Instead, I leaned on daily meditation to keep a clear head, represented myself in federal court, and walked away with a clean settlement and zero financial penalties.
At the time, I thought the resulting press would make finding a job impossible. Instead, the grit it took to navigate that legal ordeal caught the attention of local VCs in Austin, directly leading to my first venture capital role on the Investor Relations team at Capital Factory. I then joined Unknown Ventures as a Venture Associate before stepping in as a Regional Director at Assure Syndicates.
My ability to connect people and capital naturally evolved into ecosystem architecture. As Director of Platform at the Austin Venture Association, I helped build the infrastructure supporting one of the world’s fastest-growing tech hubs, conceptualizing massive events like Allocators Anonymous and securing large corporate partnerships. I’ve scaled media platforms from 0 to millions of monthly views. And I’ve taken several ideas from 0 to 1.
These efforts culminated in incredible community recognition. I was deeply honored to be named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Austin, recognized on the Austin Business Journal’s “Austin Inno 25 Under 25” list, and nominated as a DivInc “Rising Star.”
Today, I run the Austin Venture Association and am a resident at Antler—a highly selective global venture fund—where I continue to operate at the intersection of technology, culture, and commerce. I use my deep background creating experiences and combine it with modern agentic tools to create unique ways to connect people who should have already met.