Representative Portfolio
I have been actively involved, as investor and board-member in over 30 enterprises, for-profit and non-. My work has contributed to a roster of fine enterprises that do useful work. They range from the company that pioneered quality online higher education in the 1990s to the social enterprise that re-invented K12 leadership training to a unique philanthropic effort that has raised over $100mm for little-known organizations working to make the world a better place. I am proud to have been associated with all.
Here’s a representative list, in alphabetical order. It closes with two unusual projects.
AXIOMA
Axioma, a pioneer provider of quantitative tools to the global financial asset management industry. The company, acquired by Deutche Börse at an attractive valuation, sells data and software that enable leading investing firms to optimize performance and manage risk. I led two pivotal rounds and served on the board for the eight year duration of our investment.
CAPELLA UNIVERSITY
Capella University / Capella Education Company, a pioneering provider of Web-based post-secondary education and poster-child of innovation and regulatory good behavior. Online education, which is now ubiquitous, was born in the US higher education sector in the early/mid-1990s, and that innovation was led by Capella and another company (which was not ultimately successful). I led the first institutional investment when Capella was a promising upstart with an audacious idea and remained centrally involved for eight years, through a few crises, several boardroom battles and the company's 2006 IPO. Capella completed a $1.9 billion “merger of equals” with Strayer Education in 2018.
eVESTMENT
eVestment is a global provider of institutional investment data intelligence and analytic solutions. I joined eVestment’s board when we combined the business with a portfolio company we labored to build for many years. We should have engineered that transaction long before we did – under eVestment’s management the combined company flourished. Acquired by NASDAQ for a handsome return, eVestment remains the dominant provider in its market.
FRONTLINE EDUCATION
Frontline Education is the leading provider of human capital management software (HCM) solutions to the K12 sector. I was a key architect in building Frontline from a small, single-product company into a large, category-defining enterprise. Prior to Frontline's existence the K12 sector did not have access to the modern HCM technology that is common in the enterprise sector. Frontline was purchased by a private equity buyer for an attractive return.
NETSMART
Netsmart is the leading provider of software to behavioral and public health providers. We took an undermanaged business private, gave management the resources to rebuild it, and ultimately sold a much more valuable company to a private equity buyer.
NEW CLASSROOMS
New Classrooms is pushing the boundaries of adaptive/individualized learning and rapidly re-inventing the factory model classroom. I joined the board as the organization was separating from the NYC Department of Education where it had been incubated and helped guide its evolution over a critical period.
NEW LEADERS
New Leaders. Chairman, 2003-2010; Member, Board of Directors, 2011-2021. New Leaders is a leading social enterprise focused on training the next generation of U.S. principals and their leadership teams. I signed on as Board Chair during the organization's infancy. Today it is a $30 million enterprise with a reputation as a leader in the education reform field and a hotbed for talent.
PARCHMENT
Parchment transformed the management of academic and other credentials across the human capital spectrum. I was closely involved for 7 years, having led a pivotal financing. Credentials are proliferating in form and increasingly digital, a wave Parchment continues to lead. We sold company to a private equity buyer for an attractive return. It is now part of Instructure, the leading learning system and maker of Canvas.
PEARSON
Pearson (LON: PSON; NYSE: PSO) is the world's largest learning company. I was recruited to the Board when Pearson began expanding well beyond textbooks into education's digital frontier markets, where I had been active for over a decade. This transition involved CEO succession and the building of a new Board of Directors, selling the Financial Times, Penguin Publishing, and a significant stake in The Economist, multiple acquisitions, and a thorough restructuring of the company as its higher education segment came under intense market pressure.
PERIGEN
PeriGen is a provider of big data/analytics-based clinical decision support solutions to the labor and delivery departments of leading U.S. hospitals. PeriGen was an AI company long before AI was an ordinary term. I led a rescue financing of the business and was closely involved as the firm re-invented itself after the 2008 financial crisis decimated its market, which led the CEO we’d originally backed to throw up his hands and resign. Our investment period lasted eight years – all of them difficult. We ultimately generated a small loss on the investment. Now part of a larger company Perigen is still run by the CEO we recruited long ago. It has saved the lives of countless newborns.
MY FAVORITE DEAL I DIDN'T DO
In 1998 I attempted to catalyze the first commercial effort to tackle the protein folding problem - then one of biology’s unsolved holy grails. I spent the better part of a year assembling some of the world’s best scientific talent and creating a business plan, then came to the conclusion that there was not enough compute on planet earth to turn what would have been a great scientific project into a successful commercial enterprise and, to my colleagues’ dismay, abandoned the effort. Some 20 years later, with the benefit of modern AI, Google Deep Mind cracked it, launching AlphaFold, an AI system that accurately predicts the 3-dimensional structure of proteins from their one-dimensional amino acid sequences in minutes. This spectacular achievement earned DeepMind researchers Demis Hassabis and John Jumper the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
MY FAVORITE INVESTMENT
Seven years ago several of us came together to create the Holiday Impact Prize, built off two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and NYT columnist Nick Kristof’s annual “holiday gift guide,” which Nick began in 2009 to bridge the philanthropic gap between readers who want to help but don’t know how, and nonprofits that are not on most donors’ radar but deliver high impact and can do much more if they have the resources. The column has helped raise the profiles of small organizations that work on health, education, human rights and women’s rights, domestically and abroad. The prize includes an initial cash award plus donations from readers. Since 2019, in total, the initiative has helped raise more than $107 million. And we are just getting started.