About me

I am the Vice President of Crypto at Cross River. My mission is to close the gap between the 2.5 billion people who access retail banking services digitally and the 250M crypto users. I am building the technology that enables FinTech players to offer crypto-based products to their users.

Previously, I led product at Oasis Labs: I created the first scalable and privacy-preserving smart contract platform. The Network is now live in mainnet and it’s fully decentralized. I joined as the first non-software engineer employee and helped the team move from a research project at UC Berkeley to a 35-person venture-backed startup, raising $45M from a16z, Accel, Foundation, etc.

I also built/launched/managed products at Google, PayPal, AmEx, and P&G. I am constantly analyzing present and future trends to develop intuitions, which I then validate with data. Through my career, I have developed expertise in product, go-to-market, data, and engineering, both at large companies and startups, one of which I founded. I have aligned, led, and grown teams from 2 to 50 people.

As an angel investor and advisor, I look for ambitious teams that work to exploit the depth of their breakthrough insight. DeliveRex (acquired by JustEat) and Keyless (raised $3M in seed) are a few examples. Some more recent investments include Gumroad, Kift, and Asaak.

I am excited about companies building infrastructure layers to support complex and enormous markets, especially in FinTech.
If you share similar interests, I’d love to connect.

I started an offline advertising company when I was 24. That’s how I learned the rule of the 3 Ws: Wrong plan, Wrong execution, Wrong timing. If you get 1 out of 3 wrong, you’ll survive a few months; if you get 3 wrong, you learn (the hard way).

I live in Greenwich Village, New York and I am often in San Francisco, California. I hold an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas and Ms/Bs in Engineering from the University of Rome.

I also founded Berkeley StEP, a pre-accelerator that helps students get together and launch companies (150 so far; 10% of which received funding).

I believe in principles: integrity, honesty, loyalty, reliability.
Family and close friends come first.
I am a rational optimist: I want to unblock limiting factors.

Some things I like:

  • engaging with people and situations that make me change my mind
  • challenging situations
  • digital and programmable money
  • coding and technical matters
  • twitter
  • hosting
  • reading biographies and explanations
  • djing and playing piano

My articles