Summary
Engineering executive with 20+ years building software and AI systems - and the organizations that run them - from 0-to-1 through hyperscale. Most recently conceived, architected, and built a first-party, cloud-native security-analytics platform at Amazon (spanning software and proprietary hardware) that grew from a self-built prototype into a 1,000+-person organization protecting 1,700 buildings and 100,000+ employees worldwide, with $500M+ in projected savings. Earlier, led the AI/ML team behind Cisco’s Spark/Webex Assistant - the world’s first AI-powered meeting assistant - and founded a startup that drew an acquisition offer from Google before exiting. Pairs founder-level technical depth with executive-scale organizational leadership.
Career Highlights
- Conceived, architected, and built a first-party, cloud-native platform at Amazon, designing the full end-to-end solution including proprietary hardware. Built the initial product on independent initiative after the proposal was first passed over; a working demo won full executive funding and scaled to 1,000+ staff and contractors over 8 years.
- Drove $500M+ in projected savings as the system of record for 1,700 buildings, 100,000+ employees, 55,000+ security guards, and 300,000+ cameras.
- Led the team that shipped the world’s first AI-powered voice assistant for meetings (Cisco Spark/Webex Assistant), still powering Webex hardware today.
- Founded and architected a social-location mobile platform as sole technical founder (proprietary C/C++ in-memory DB, <2ms median); drew a Google acquisition offer and exited (2016).
- Re-platformed Last.fm (43M+ users) onto a self-designed graph-database architecture - a service CBS Interactive acquired for $280M.
Experience
- Merged AWS Security Operations Center (SOC) and Amazon Corporate Security into a single 17-team, 1,000+-person organization under unified technical and product leadership.
- Architected the convergence of three siloed security domains into one cloud-native platform on AWS, layering AI analytics across aggregated telemetry and underpinning $500M+ in projected savings.
- Aligned executive stakeholders across Amazon (security, corporate real estate, finance, legal/PR) on multi-year platform strategy and funding.
- Led the team that built Cisco’s enterprise AI meeting assistant, launched as “the world’s first AI-powered voice assistant for meetings” (Spark Assistant, 2017), now Webex Assistant.
- Delivered a portfolio of enterprise AI products absorbed into Webex, including a proactive AI meeting agent (Team TV) and VR collaboration on the Oculus Store.
- Architected and built the entire backend 0-to-1 as sole technical founder, including a proprietary in-memory database and the full distributed-systems foundation (service discovery, message bus, delivery automation) on AWS.
- Led engineering across a portfolio reaching 60M+ monthly unique users (TVGuide.com, TV.com, Metacritic, Last.fm).
- Re-platformed Last.fm (43M+ users) onto a new graph-database architecture and built the backend powering Verizon’s flagship Viewdini video app.
- Co-built Clicker Predict, a real-time recommendation engine (Facebook Instant Personalization launch partner, with Pandora), and pioneered “beyond 10 blue links” direct answers at Ask.com within the ExpertRank system.
Core Competencies
What Colleagues Say
“There aren’t many people who can say they fundamentally changed the way Amazon did things; you are definitely one of them.”
Sr. Applied Science Manager (PhD), AWS Security
“The best leader I’ve had in my civilian career, by far - improving the lives and livelihoods of everyone who got to work for you.”
Senior Leader, AWS (ex-McKinsey; U.S. Special Forces)
“What you built was something I always pointed to as done right.”
Engineering Manager, Google
Certifications, Patent & Education
- Machine Learning Certification - Stanford University; hands-on with agentic AI tooling (Claude Code, Kiro).
- Named inventor, U.S. patent (shared media experience, CBS Interactive).
- CliftonStrengths (2026): Strategic · Achiever · Activator · Restorative · Belief.
Contact
Open to VP / Senior Director of Engineering roles (Software & AI). Remote or relocation.