Timeline

Born in Russia on Friday the 13th. A memorable entrance.

Born in a city known for engineering—nuclear, military technology, and trade shaped the culture.

Mom was a sambo martial‑arts champion; discipline and grit were the family language.

Dad was a workaholic entrepreneur—hustle, ideas, and building things from scratch.

Mom came from a well‑established family; Dad grew up with modest means—two vantage points from the start.

First two years on a farm—animals, fields, and open air.

Family moved to NYC—seeking safety from the turbulent ’90s in Russia; new language, new rhythm, endless possibility.

Russian immigrant growing up at the intersection of religious Jewish, Italian, and Asian communities.

Conversations across cultures and beliefs—mom invited people of different religions to talk with me.

I answered with curiosity and the scientific method—test ideas, compare evidence, stay kind.

Strong focus on interdisciplinary, “renaissance person” thinking—connect arts, science, sport, and craft.

Learned early that healthy competition builds grit and joy—compete to improve, not to diminish.

Sigma gifted-and-talented program—the school’s “nerds,” happily.

Fell in love with poetry—sound, shape, and saying more with less.

Dad dove into tech and day trading; by day he built in real estate and construction.

Watched the stock market ticker while Dad ran errands—first intro to trading and volatility; the image stuck.

Only child until age 10—then my brother was born and the household found a new balance.

At 10, my parents divorced and Dad returned to Russia—the family weathered a sudden drop in income.

Education became the safety net and the plan—work hard, open doors.

After-school everywhere: ballet, ballroom, art, piano, swimming, gymnastics, tae kwon do.

Competitive chess—traveled around NYC and reached ~1900 Elo by age 9.

Mom focused on health & wellness and raising me—always pushing renaissance thinking.

Science fair projects & meteorology program—learned about weather instruments, phenomena, and the environment through sociological lenses.

Chose viola to earn first chair—performed in Lincoln Center and toured colleges with the quartet.

Straight‑A student with a crush on science; also played soccer after school.

Asked to "tame the class" when the conductor couldn't—my first impromptu speaking engagement to 30 peers.

History binge—ancient Egypt and Greece, then the Chinese empires; also reading Machiavelli early.

Art projects lived on—stencils and hand‑made “Chinese empire” toys in the school halls.

Growing up in NYC exposed me to every culture—adopted habits and thinking from East and West early on.

Studious by day, rebel by night: kickflips after class, duct-taped decks, and night rides under street lamps.

Orchestra rehearsals, chamber pieces, and that one solo that just worked.

First digital electronics course—built a dancing robot from sensors and breadboards.

Calculated the ultimate challenge: cardiovascular surgery. High stakes, complex, lifesaving—it became the new North Star.

Biomedical sciences track—took all college major courses for bio: anatomy, organic chemistry, genetics.

Wrote a book of poems—now cataloged at the Poetry Library of NY.

Played lacrosse—teamwork, grit, and fast breaks after orchestra practice.

Medal in gym class—obsessed with calisthenics and bodyweight strength.

Many nights spent reading textbooks for fun—curiosity didn’t clock out.

YouTube became a window to the world—hours spent learning global politics and new skills outside the curriculum.

Helped make a short film on why drugs are harmful—peer-to-peer storytelling.

Acted (badly) in a student thriller—took risks, learned fast, laughed later.

Worked restaurants after school for side money. Tired legs taught me the value of hard work and customer service—and what I didn't want to do.

Senior year experiments: tried medical and dental assistant roles to test the waters.

End of HS: Restaurant Manager. Managing 30-50 staff (all older than me) was a crash course in leadership where everything went wrong.

Freshman year paralegal role to test law. Disliked it, but learned that online perception matters—deleted all social media.

Bored in dental school. Wanted to research Alzheimer's; professors said no. Frustrated, I dropped the full ride (Mom was furious) and transferred out.

Switched to Economics (too simple), but loved International Relations. Added Bioinformatics & Cybersecurity to the degree (more on that below). Became an avid Economist reader.

Finagled my way into a Master's research cohort by taking a grad-level ML class. Founded the first cybersecurity healthcare research pod, got published, and used work insights to drive the research.

Needed money for tuition. Pitched a startup CEO: "I'll do double the work for half the pay." Hired.

Full-time student, full-time employee. No social life—just work, class, and the grind.

Bioinformatics: Realized Econ was simple. Combined my HS Bio background with a new interest in Comp Sci/ML to find a real challenge.

Cybersecurity: Led the integration of a security firm. Dove deep into the tech to lead effectively.

Respect: Managing older engineers again. I needed technical weight, so I mastered Bioinformatics and Cyber—not just vanilla CS—to earn their trust.

Wore every hat: Support, Sales, Ops, Finance, Marketing, M&A. Built servers, managed cloud & data center deployments, IT ticketing systems, and EHR integrations.

The Unfair Advantage: By graduation, I had lived every role in an early-stage company and scaled a team to 30. I understood early stage business from the inside out.

Joined Unqork (Series A) to found the healthcare vertical. We scaled to Series C and ~700 people ($2B+ valuation). Led 0→1 products across Healthcare, Life Sciences & Gov through the full SDLC.

Trial by Fire: Two weeks in, pitched my vision for healthcare to the entire company and board (CapitalG, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs) at an all-hands.

Enterprise & Fortune 500: Navigated a highly matrixed organization, managing centers of excellence and teams from top consultancies.

Crisis Response: Led teams building NYC’s COVID food-delivery app—delivering ~100M meals in 3 months. Hopefully saved at least one life.

The "Corporate VC": Identified patterns across hospitals, agencies, and biopharma—turning bespoke asks into reusable platform solutions.

Wore every hat to make the vertical real: Solutions Architecture, Product, PMM, Sales Support, Engagement Mgmt, and Ops.

Expanded from vertical to Global Strategy Director at Unqork. Conducted deep competitive research and market positioning to align the C-suite and streamline operations across all departments.

Consulting Side Quests: Guided a real estate trust's digital transformation. Led the LBO and restructuring of a technical college to keep my financial muscles strong.

Recruited by Great Point Ventures Partner to help build their studio fund. Living in the air between SF and NY.

Analyzed deals across Biotech, Blockchain, Healthtech, Insurtech, and Climatetech. Created the venture-studio playbook for regulated markets.

Learned to think like an investor: what makes a market interesting, a product defensible, and a team backable.

Left VC. We outsourced studio work to McKinsey. Started angel investing. I realized I didn't want to only invest — I liked building, but wasn't sure what to do career wise.

The Thesis: Re-ignited a university era debate with a Cambridge professor on blockchain energy consumption. How will the new world evolve with energy constraints? I was curious about solar and new forms of energy integration.

So I travelled to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and AU/NZ (alone) as an explorer for 6 months. Studied physics on the road while investigating solar integration and grid dynamics.

Reality Check: Visited solar projects and spoke with operators. Mapped how capital structures, policy, and land constraints dictate what actually gets built.

Bridging Worlds: Saw where Asia leapfrogged the US in startup ecosystems and policy. Thought deeply about how to bridge American innovation with Asian speed.

The Project: I'm now tying that knowledge into working on a large-scale data center and solar project in North Africa, looking to scale to the US and Middle East.

Wing Telecom: Joined a $38M ARR telecom with 40K+ customers and heavy operational debt. Helped a friend stabilize the ship.

The Turnaround: Cut call-center costs by ~45%, restructured billing, and rebuilt the product org around profitable growth.

Shipped a redesigned platform that slashed support tickets. Deep dived into satellites, load balancing & router supply chains, and built ML analytics for churn & collections.

Home Health: Dove into a $100M agency. Mapped every department—intake, HR, billing, nursing, patient services—and streamlined operations with tech.

The Spark: Realized the massive opportunity for innovation in home care (Alyra Care (formerly Carelink)) and decided to build it myself.

Re-Education: Spent months relearning full-stack dev and mastering the new AI stack (RAG, Evals, AI Ops). I was a trained data scientist; now I became an engineer.

Four Leaf: Led a team of Gemini engineers to build a female-focused AI financial advisor for a $13B credit union. Real advice, grounded in policy.

CareLink AI: Founded a HIPAA-compliant platform using voice agents & RAG to automate compliance and workflows for healthcare agencies.

EvalDojo: Fixing fragmented AI evals. Building the tools I needed: reusable benchmarks for model performance.

Advisory: Inbound interest led to advisory roles for VCs, PE and startups—helping with fundraising, storytelling, and AI product strategy.

Econ Club & GovOps: Joined as a Fellow, engaging with Fed & AI leaders. Co-authored a whitepaper on RAG for GovOps with IBM & finance experts.

AI Safety: Advisor to Factor Omega (NFP), focusing on the redistribution of GPU resources to ensure safe AI development.

Unmuted: Co-founded a civic initiative to bridge polarization. Bringing think tanks and diverse voices together to debate AI, innovation, and economics.

Teaching: Realized students weren't taught how to build. Pitched Fordham's Master's program and created a course on modern product & people management. One student (who'd never heard of PM) is now a PM for a government agency!

Global AI Diplomacy: Traveling with my partner to meet with government leaders, advising on national AI readiness and strategy.