I've been the person on the other side of the table. I know what it feels like to pitch 50 investors and get 49 rejections. I know the weight of making payroll, the loneliness of hard strategic calls, and the difference between an investor who shows up and one who just wires money. That experience changes how I engage with founders. It also matters in competitive rounds where the best companies have options and choose the investor they trust most.

Cross-border payments isn't something I studied from the outside. I spent over a decade building products in the space and understanding the economics of money movement at a granular level. That depth lets me evaluate payments and fintech companies with a level of conviction and speed that's hard to develop from the investor side alone.

At Monito, I spent years structuring partnerships between a small fintech and large financial institutions. That meant learning to understand each partner's goals, constraints, and internal politics, then finding the overlap where both sides actually benefit. This maps directly to what Visa Ventures does for portfolio companies: connecting startups with Visa's commercial teams in ways that create real value.

I enjoy questioning assumptions and going deep. Whether it's building agentic payment workflows on weekends to test what the technology can actually do, or developing a stablecoin thesis from first principles, I combine hands-on experimentation with analytical discipline. I think the best investment theses come from doing the work yourself.

I think like a founder when it comes to the firm itself. I care about culture, process, and developing people because I've seen firsthand how much those things drive performance. At Visa Ventures, I'd bring that same energy to mentoring junior team members and strengthening how the team works together.

At TX Ventures, I've led investment processes end to end, from first meeting to signed term sheet. I source through my network, events, and databases. I build conviction by pressure-testing founder assumptions with market research, reference calls, and financial modeling. My CFO and COO background means I know exactly where to dig in a data room. And I've reviewed and negotiated legal agreements hundreds of times across both Monito and TX Ventures.

I map problem spaces from first principles before forming a view on the market. At TX Ventures, that approach led to our investments in Particula (tokenized real-world assets) and Range (stablecoin infrastructure). I'm currently doing the same with agentic payments, building workflows hands-on to understand where the technology works and where the gaps remain. I also involve founders and fellow investors in my process to challenge my thinking before I commit to a thesis.

This is where my Monito experience is most directly relevant. I spent over a decade as the person connecting a fintech startup with large financial institutions, structuring 130+ partnerships that drove commercial results on both sides. I know how to make strategic relationships work in practice. At TX Ventures, I extended that as a board observer, supporting founders on strategic decisions and connecting them with customers and partners.

I bring a warm network of fintech VCs and founders across the Bay Area and Europe, built over more than a decade. I thrive at conferences and industry events, both as a learner and as someone representing my team. In the past six months, I've attended over 50 events and consistently turned those conversations into deal flow and lasting professional relationships.

Through my experience on Monito's senior leadership team and as a board observer at TX Ventures, I've developed the ability to distill complex situations into clear, data-supported narratives for senior stakeholders. I'm comfortable presenting investment rationales, including the case for why not to invest, with the kind of rigor and clarity that executive audiences expect.

This one matters to me personally. As a founder, I built and managed teams across growth stages and I take talent development seriously. I'd bring that same intentionality to Visa Ventures: contributing to process improvement, mentoring junior team members, and strengthening the team's investment frameworks. I'd actively enjoy doing it.