The relationships and proof behind the practice.

15+ years across 8+ Stanford communities: athletics, MS&E, Communication, VHIL, GSB, entrepreneurship, Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, and alumni leadership. Two Stanford degrees, three Pac-12 titles, 20+ engagements, and seven Stanford-connected companies surfaced with meaningful downstream financing. Chalk, SuperDial, PlayerZero, Rain, Lightup.AI, Ferrum Health, Phia. The pattern, not any one company, is the point.

Companies I sourced, developed conviction around, and formally brought to the Nava investment team between 2022 and 2025. Not meetings, not CRM adds. 18, 19, 20, then 24 by year, a cadence that held while the bar went up.

Of the 81 opportunities I originated, 55 went on to receive meaningful external validation through financing. 50 of those are publicly verifiable and appear in the ledger; the remaining 5 involve private or undisclosed outcomes. Validation by later markets is the closest thing sourcing has to a scoreboard.

6.6% to 12.2% across four years, 9.1% and 10.3% in between. The same relationships got deeper, the judgment about what deserved to advance got sharper, and a larger share of what I brought forward held up inside the process.

Champions are the people who consistently see companies early: angels, seed and growth investors, operators, researchers, Stanford nodes, portfolio founders. Tracked, segmented by sector and strength, and maintained on a weekly cadence rather than ad hoc. Net +219 relationships across four years, roughly 75% growth.

Seed 13 to 102, growth 10 to 36. Roughly six times denser connectivity into the investors who tend to see companies before an institutional process exists. This is the part of the network that produces pre-consensus looks.

36 inbound introductions from seed and pre-seed investors in 2025, 8 of which progressed to formal company introductions. Inbound of that shape is evidence of pull: other investors routing early looks toward someone they trust to handle them well.

Featured alumni spotlight from Stanford Management Science & Engineering's 25th Anniversary — third-party recognition of a decade-plus arc from Stanford student-athlete to venture investor, community builder, and mentor. The recognition is the receipt; the underlying story is sustained participation in the ecosystem.

Moderating a Stanford GSB founder discussion on scaling organizations and building successful teams, as part of the Building Momentum initiative. The visible artifact is the panel; the real story is the chain that led to it — Botha-Chan workshop on building diverse teams, an invitation to the Building Momentum Advisory Board, founder relationships built through repeat participation, and ultimately the nomination to lead this conversation. Most venture opportunities don't start with a deck. They start with trust.

Invited as a panelist for a Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs session on Careers in Startup Investing — sharing lessons on sourcing, founder support, and venture decision-making with founders, operators, aspiring investors, and alumni. The organizer chose to forward the recording to SA&E's ~1,200-member Stanford alumni community. The lesson isn't the panel; it's that consistent contribution to founder and investor communities builds the trust the practice runs on.

Invited by Stanford's Department of Communication to sit on an alumni panel for current undergrad and grad students. Not a venture event, not a sourcing moment — a chance to help students think through careers, leadership, uncertainty, and what comes next. The lesson isn't 'spoke at Stanford.' It's that I keep showing up for the communities that invested in me, long after I have to.

Invited back by Stanford MS&E as one of three alumni panelists to speak with current students on nonprofit and civic board leadership, and on using an MS&E education for impact. The pull quote I left them with: 'Leadership is about showing up for something bigger than yourself.' The lessons came from years of board, Chair, and advisory roles at Life Is Worth It, BUILD, Thoreau Giving, and Takeoff Institute, and translate directly into how I show up for founders as an investor.

Early experiments using automation and AI to remove the busywork around the practice, note-taking, follow-through, relationship hygiene, so more time goes to trust, judgment, and the founder relationship itself. Clearly labeled as exploratory. Technology is the amplifier; relationships remain the asset.

The diligence and sourcing systems I built were adopted as the internal standard at Nava and shared with LPs as evidence of how the firm worked. The artifact is private; the signal is that judgment, when made repeatable, becomes the institution.

The 'what would change my mind' criteria I pre-commit to on every pass, so revisits are disciplined not emotional.

An interactive leadership workshop with ~25 SF founders. Decision-making, leadership under uncertainty, building org muscle. The signal: founders choosing to spend an evening learning from a trusted thought partner, not collecting an intro or a check.

Unsolicited feedback from a two-time founder I've built a relationship with over years, on what it looks like when 'we add value' is executed with intent: thoughtful intros, real context on both sides, consistent follow-through, and support that compounds instead of expiring.

A recent angel investment where a trusted technical relationship surfaced an opportunity inside an area I was already actively thinking about. Access created the look. Technical judgment and thesis fit, Infrastructure With Leverage, turned it into an investment. Company identity, traction, and diligence materials are held privately. Additional details available in conversation.