What stage and sector is a fit?

Seed through growth, in hospitality and real estate, consumer and food and beverage, health and performance, and applied AI. The common thread is capital intensity: companies where a wrong structural decision is expensive and slow to unwind, rather than a fast experiment.

Yes, personally and at early stage, and I structure capital for others: joint ventures, recapitalisations, CMBS and private financings, and introductions to family offices, sovereign LPs and private equity firms who have known me for years. I do not make introductions I would not personally stand behind.

Los Angeles, California. I work with companies across the United States and take a small number of engagements at a time so that each one gets real attention.

Casa Rusca / Advisory

Advisory, board roles and investment

Q: What kind of board seats do you take?

Independent director and board observer seats at venture- and private-equity-backed companies, and directorships at nonprofits whose work I already care about. I am most useful where a board needs someone who has personally carried operating responsibility and personally sat across from institutional capital — not one or the other.

Q: How is an advisory engagement structured?

A written mandate with a defined question, a defined term and defined access — usually two to four days a month over six to twelve months. Compensation is normally equity, occasionally a retainer, and I say plainly at the outset which of the two makes the incentives honest.

Selective advisory for founders, owners, and institutions building ventures that are expensive to get wrong—and worth the discipline of getting right.

Fifteen years as a founder and operator across more than $500 million in project value; over a decade of nonprofit board service; and experience aligning land, capital, design, operations, and governance around ambitious ideas.

Where I am useful

I am not a general-purpose advisor. These are four problems I have solved more than once and can be specific about from the first conversation.

Making an original idea financeable

Founders often see the whole before anyone else can. Capital does not have to share the vision, but it must understand the opportunity, the risk, and the path forward. I help translate an original idea into a clear investment case, a credible model, and decision-ready materials without flattening what makes it valuable.
Capital structure before it becomes a constraint

The terms chosen at the beginning determine which decisions remain available later. I work across joint ventures, recapitalizations, public-private structures, CMBS, and private financing to align the capital with the actual life of the asset. The least expensive time to solve a structural problem is before the term sheet.
Governance that earns trust

Reporting, board composition, decision rights, compliance, and a cadence that keeps directors informed without turning the chief executive into a reporting function. The goal is institutional-grade discipline calibrated honestly to the company’s stage.
Making place, experience, and economics reinforce one another

Hotels, clubs, restaurants, and cultural spaces must be legally possible, operationally credible, financially durable, and worth entering. A beautiful room that cannot support its cost is an expensive photograph. A profitable one that nobody wants to return to has a shorter life than the model suggests.

Marcus Aurelius returned repeatedly to the same idea: stop debating the qualities of a good person and practice them. A board exists for the same reason—to turn stated principles into decisions.

Marcus Aurelius · Meditations · c. 170

I have sat on both sides of the table: as the chief executive being asked and as the director asking. The engagements that work establish the terms of candor in advance—a defined mandate, real access, and permission to disagree in the room rather than in the hallway afterward.

How engagements work

Every engagement begins with a written mandate: one consequential question, a defined term, clear access, and an agreed decision process. Most require two to four days a month for six to twelve months. Compensation may be equity, a retainer, or both; the structure should make the incentives as clear as the work.

Before any of that: run your deal through First Pencil, the free feasibility screen →

Where the experience is real

My experience is deepest where physical assets, operating companies, and institutional capital meet.

Hospitality & real estate

Land use, entitlement, capital, design, construction, and the operations on top. More than $500 million in project value developed with Jon Blanchard through BLVD Hospitality, including Soho Warehouse, The Hoxton DTLA, citizenM, NeueHouse Venice, and The Georgian Hotel.

Human performance & applied AI

Founder and CEO of Superform, building an intelligence engine that brings together wearable data, laboratory diagnostics, physical assessments, and daily behavior. The central challenge is not collecting more data. It is turning evidence into useful guidance without overstating what the evidence can support.

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First-of-kind projects

Los Angeles’ first modular high-rise, a 1933 landmark returned to service, and the facilities behind a digital-asset infrastructure company. Getting a city, lender, investor, and operator to accept a method none has approved before is a distinct operating discipline.

The full ledger of work →

Questions I am asked

The work is intentionally selective. I am most useful where an original idea is becoming an institution—and where the consequences of an early structural decision will compound over time.

What kind of board roles do you consider?

Independent director and board observer roles at venture- and private-equity-backed companies, along with directorships at nonprofit organizations whose work I already care about. I am most useful where a board needs someone who has carried operating responsibility and worked directly with institutional capital.

What stage and sector are a fit?

Seed through growth across hospitality, real estate, consumer, food and beverage, human performance, and applied AI. The common thread is consequence: companies where a wrong structural decision is expensive and slow to unwind.

How is an advisory engagement structured?

A written mandate with a defined question, term, level of access, and decision process—typically two to four days a month for six to twelve months. Compensation may be equity, a retainer, or both, depending on which structure creates the clearest alignment.

Do you invest?

Yes, selectively and personally, generally at an early stage. I also help structure joint ventures, recapitalizations, CMBS, and private financing. I make introductions to family offices and institutional investors only when I am prepared to stand behind the opportunity myself.

Where are you based?

Los Angeles, California. I work with companies across the United States and accept a small number of engagements so that each one receives real attention.

Contact

Start with the specifics.

[email protected]

Tell me what you are building, where it stands, why it matters, and what you want from me. If it is not a fit, I will say so quickly—and, where I can, point you toward someone better suited to the work.