About me

Biography

My life has had two distinct phases: pre and post my parents' passing.

These two periods represent not only a chronological shift but a deep and profound transformation that shaped the person I am today.

Good, bad, or ugly 🙂 Even when I look at old pictures before my parents passed, while I share some similarities with my former self, I also find perspective, how I define my life goals, my version of success, and even the geography of my life is now set on an entirely new path.

In the pre-phase

My life followed a trajectory that could be considered conventional for a high achiever blessed with good parents and a reasonable aptitude for learning.

I attended prep school, pursued higher education at top tier institutions like Stanford and Harvard Business School, and emerged as a budding entrepreneur with a focus on traditional success markers. It was a path marked by seemingly linear progress and things fell into place with precision and “on plan” for that type of life.

However, the course of my life took a sharp and unexpected turn in the aftermath of my parent’s untimely passing within six weeks apart. This was coupled almost simultaneously with a large company which I was a key leader and shareholder and founder (of the entity that was executing the roll up strategy) going through a deep retrenchment due to its ground zero of the Global Financial Crisis, the US residential housing market .

My parents’ passing and a business retrenchment at levels of 90% in three months and mass layoffs served as a poignant reminder that life is unpredictable and can change its course abruptly. It was at this juncture that I, together with my newfound perspective, embarked on a significant transformation in my outlook and perspective..

I redefined myself, not knowingly, as an adventure entrepreneur.

This resulted in interesting experiences, global business in nature, and a virtual
company structure all of a sudden very important. This transformation led me to make
unconventional choices, such as relocating to Brazil, where I chose to reside for over a decade.
In Brazil, I began advising sovereign wealth and hedge funds to invest in Brazil’s residential and commercial real estate industry. We actually executed some of the largest transactions in the real estate sector during two distinct phases of Brazil’s economy from 2010 to 2020. One specific transaction was wildly successful with a 40%+ IRR.
In addition during this period, I was blessed to meet my wife. We started dating and as she was capable, available, and cheap as she worked on her PhD, she took over the finances of the company. She now runs operations and has been a total lifesaver. She was the core of restarting my life and I could not be happier with this large team.
Meeting Brazil Where It is At!

Upon the successful transaction mentioned above, my business partner and wife Beatriz was very forceful that we need to build a recurring revenue business. We studied various industries in Brazil and elsewhere including but not limited to solar energy and data centers. However, at the end of the day, we decided that we had to shift our focus to Brazil’s competitive and strategic advantages, agriculture. As we moved the family to Spain right before Covid, we also desired to build a business that could tie Europe to Brazil in a meaningful way.

AgDev This evolution resulted in AgDev. There is a significant desire among climate-oriented investors to prevent deforestation. There are unique financing opportunities, largely in credit, to export-oriented farmers in Brazil to finance the expansion of their production to meet global demand. The bridge to make this happen is our degraded pasture finance program where we loan money to farmers to restore degraded pasture and the farmer pledges to not clear native vegetation. While this is a business I am passionate about and I believe will scale, I am certain that it would not have occurred without the above meandering journey. In addition, in my entrepreneurial career it is the first business where I can truly say it has global impact as large-scale prevention of deforestation while at the same time meeting the global demand for calories has real meaning, impact, and legacy value.

In the midst of this transformative phase, I embarked on a remarkable personal journey. Met a wonderful woman from a place that I did not even know existed prior to meeting her, the Canary Islands of Spain, gratefully she is a decade younger than myself which allowed a new father at 45 years old to end up with four kids 🙂 Together, we embarked on the incredible adventure of building an international business, raising four children, all born at home with three of the children just born with wife, kids, and yours truly. We live with an adventurous flair, which includes driving and camping around Europe in a 9 seat VW van (we all sleep in the van) embracing the spontaneity of the open road and the joys of camping.