Career Path of a Managing Partner at LoveMore Group

In college, I majored in mathematics and minored in music at UC Berkeley. My inspiration for this path was perhaps a little unconventional. I was drawn to mathematics for philosophical reasons rather than pure problem-solving.

I asked questions like, "Is there such a thing as absolute truth?" or "Are there just different relative kinds of truths?" I thought that if general philosophy and religion weren't providing answers, perhaps it had to do with how we connect truths and logic. So, I wanted to study that.

While I didn't necessarily find the meaning of life in mathematics, I did discover an incredibly beautiful field. More importantly, I learned how to learn really well, which is something I've always valued. A key takeaway from becoming a mathematician was the practice of dialogue.

When doing math well, you hold multiple ideas in your mind simultaneously and observe them objectively, suspending initial judgment. You don't fear the difficult parts or the points of tension, allowing intelligent patterns to emerge. This feels very similar to good dialogue.

Practicing this also means practicing what conversation can be like. During my math major, the Occupy Movement was happening. I saw a lack of civic discourse between different political views on campus.

I also wanted to pursue entrepreneurial ideas during the start of the digital revolution. People were glued to their phones, too drunk at parties, or trying too hard to impress teachers. I had worked hard to get into Cal to have deep conversations with brilliant people, but I felt I wasn't getting that.

This, combined with my mathematical realizations, led me to start "Thought Lounge." Its mission is to foster intentional, in-person dialogue in our digital age. I created a format to attract diverse people, from homeless individuals to Nobel laureates.

Thought Lounge grew beyond a personal project, with multiple hosts and becoming the fastest-growing club on campus. We expanded to other campuses and took it nationwide through road trips. I turned it into a nonprofit centered around dialogue practices.

We had agreements like listening as if the speaker were the most important person, suspending judgment, ensuring equity of voice, authenticity, and embracing creative conflict. Eventually, we had 14 campuses in the Thought Lounge Global organization. I felt it was self-sustaining, so I wanted to explore different communities beyond campuses.

We looked at business as a potentially more impactful lever. We conducted management communication trainings and qualitative learning sessions for large tech organizations, appealing to millennials who struggle with communication. This provided customer and product insights beyond what other companies offered. This was my introduction to business.

Essentially, I was a social entrepreneur, seeing both the public and private sectors. I raised funds, developed a business, and managed employees. It was enjoyable and utilized my creative capacities.

I then earned my MBA at UCLA. There, I realized my lifelong passion for supporting others' ideas at scale was the other side of entrepreneurship: investing. I discovered impact investing, a field that spans public and private sectors, real estate, and touches every part of the world.

The shift to considering stakeholders beyond shareholders and financial bottom lines was profound. It meant including environmental and community bottom lines, encompassing neighbors, municipalities, regions, states, nations, and global levels, as well as diverse demographics and minority groups.

The question became not just how to optimize for profit, but how to optimize for other values using business as a tool. This was incredibly exciting to me, so I focused my MBA on that, with real estate as a minor.

I joined the Anderson Venture Impact Partners, a student-led venture capital fund. We sourced companies, conducted due diligence, deployed capital, and monitored them. My internships included consulting, which I didn't enjoy because I felt I lacked control and my ideas wouldn't be implemented for a long time.

After graduating, I delved into sustainable real estate, bought property in Joshua Tree, and began subdividing land and community analysis. Then, I received a compelling offer to head the impact investing division of a multi-billion dollar global family investment office, which was too good to pass up.