Experience

I understood the problem first as an athlete. The system treated the needs of a ten-year-old figure skater as though they were essentially the same as those of an NFL linebacker.

When I began working with athletes in 2002, I found that little had changed. Treatment was still largely standardised and fragmented, with separate practitioners addressing individual parts of the problem and too little accountability for understanding the athlete as a whole.

My professional training was in physiotherapy, and I worked directly with athletes while building and leading Athletic Edge.

In 2009, I founded Athletic Edge to build a different model: multidisciplinary, individualised and designed around the demands of the athlete, their sport and the result they needed.

I started the company without outside funding, taking on significant personal financial risk where no organisation, brand, client base or infrastructure existed. I developed the brand and commercial proposition, won the clients and built the systems, team and infrastructure required to deliver.

The business grew from one person to a team of 65 across three Palo Alto offices, with work and activity spanning the United States, Monaco and Australia.

As chief executive I was responsible for the whole result. Growth required decisions about capital, pricing, compensation, capacity, recruitment, contracts, location strategy and what not to scale. For long periods I led the company from the other side of the world.

I sold the company in 2019.

1 to 65

people

3

Palo Alto offices

US, Monaco, Australia

work and activity

2019

sold

My work has been with teams and individuals across Formula 1, the NFL, the NBA, MLB, international rugby, professional cycling and Olympic sport. In Formula One, that included working directly with drivers and people inside teams. I was not employed by the leagues or their governing bodies.

What those settings teach is unsentimental: preparation is visible, small errors compound and nobody is interested in an explanation after the fact.

• Starting without a safety netI built the company without outside funding, taking on significant personal debt and creating the brand, demand and infrastructure from nothing.
• Building demand from the athlete outwardThe earliest credibility came from individual athletes. I turned that trust into relationships with teams and larger organisations rather than inheriting a client base.
• Choosing when to add capacityAt points demand ran more than six weeks ahead of capacity. Growth required decisions about when to recruit, when to expand and how much fixed cost the evidence could support.
• Rejecting the fastest route to scaleI rejected franchising rather than assume that the quickest available expansion model was the right one for the company.
• Changing the incentivesI redesigned compensation when the original model no longer supported the behaviour, responsibility and economics the growing organisation required.
• Leading across bordersI kept one organisation working across locations and time zones, including long periods leading the California business from Europe.
• Knowing when to sellAfter ten years of building the company, I decided that its next chapter should begin under different ownership and sold it in 2019.

The Decision System shows how I approach similarly consequential choices in other kinds of organisation.

After selling Athletic Edge in 2019, I moved to Italy and chose to spend several years raising two young children. I stepped away from full-time executive work deliberately.

I am now returning through fractional leadership, advisory work and selected engagements. I am most useful where a founder, chief executive, board or investor needs someone who can see across the business: to shape a new proposition, work through growth or take ownership of a decision that does not belong neatly to one function.

The Decision System, Opportunity Studio and essays on this site are current work. They show how I apply the experience of building a company to the commercial and organisational questions businesses face now.

I am based in Modena, Italy, with work authorisation in Italy and the United States.

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