Casa Rusca / Board
Board service
I take a small number of board seats, in companies and institutions where brand, place and the people carrying them are central to whether the thing works.
Fifteen years as a founder and operator. More than $500 million of hospitality and real estate developed. Over a decade on the board of one of California’s largest service-based nonprofits.
What I bring to a board
Not a general-purpose director. These are the six things I can be specific about from the first conversation — and the reason to want me in the room rather than someone else.
i
Brand & experience
Boards routinely treat brand and guest experience as marketing line items. In a place-based business they are the asset. I am useful where the question is what a company should feel like to encounter — and whether that conviction survives a budget cycle intact.
ii
Real estate & the built environment
Land use, entitlement, adaptive reuse, construction and the operations that follow. Twelve years of it, including a first-of-kind modular high-rise and the restoration of a 1933 landmark. Most boards have nobody who has actually done this.
iii
AI, practically applied
I am currently building an AI company, which means I can tell the difference between a real capability and a slide. Where the data is, what a model can honestly claim, what it costs to build and staff, and where it belongs in an operating business — and where it does not.
iv
Culture & people
An operator’s read on the organisation beneath the plan: who is carrying it, whether the team matches the ambition, and what it costs a company culturally when it grows faster than it hires.
v
Capital & structure
Public-private, family office and private equity structures, joint ventures and recapitalisations, and the reporting cadence that keeps investors informed without turning a chief executive into a reporting function.
vi
Community & place
More than a decade of civic board service and land-use policy work in Los Angeles. Where a business depends on a neighbourhood accepting it, that is not public relations — it is a condition of operating.
The most useful director is rarely the one with the most to say. It is the one willing to ask the question everybody else has quietly decided not to.
I have sat on both sides of that table — as the chief executive being asked, and as the director asking. The boards that work agree the terms of candour in advance: real access, genuine preparation, and permission to disagree in the room rather than in the hallway afterwards.
What I am open to
Seeking
Independent director & board observer
Private companies backed by venture or private equity, typically Series B and later, where the board needs someone who has carried operating responsibility and sat across from institutional capital.
Sectors
Hospitality, real estate & consumer
Hotel groups, operators, developers, food and beverage, and consumer brands where physical experience is the product rather than the packaging.
Civic
Civic & nonprofit
Institutions whose work I already care about, particularly in Los Angeles, and particularly where the built environment and the community are the substance of the mission.
I take few seats, read the materials before the meeting, and show up with a view. Board service and investment are separate decisions here, and I keep them that way.
Governance today
Contact
Filling a seat?
[email protected]Tell me the company, the stage, and the gap the board is trying to fill. If I am not the right person I will say so quickly, and where I can, point you toward someone who is.