Biography

Demonstrated Success Even When Working in Grey Areas

Chris  is a senior executive with two decades of cross-functional strategic and operational leadership experience in America’s most cutting-edge companies. He brings with him a track record of success in both the private and public sectors, having closed first-of-their-kind, multi-million-dollar deals in the consumer electronics (ODG), new space launch (SpaceX), and optical components (DigiLens) industries. As a professional staff member on Capitol Hill, he managed an annual appropriations portfolio of $25B that was comprised of the most advanced technical programs contained within the Title 10 (MIP) and Title 50 (NIP). Chris is experienced raising venture, growth, and strategic capital, while also evaluating strategic acquisitions and partnerships, and taking first-generation products into both mature and emerging markets. One strength that’s proven most valuable throughout his career is his ability to foster peak performance from both technical and non-technical team members in high-stress environments. As an original thinker and pragmatic executive, he provides unique insights that aren’t readily apparent to others and drives ambitious, yet realistic growth objectives.

As the managing director at GreyAspen, he enables clients to create competitive advantages by leveraging his knowledge and experience with diverse set of technologies and commercial sectors. By preparing companies for a global marketplace of tighter funding realities, Chris enables clients to be ready to act effectively when negotiations have compressed deal timelines.

At mCloud, a digital oilfield and 3D visualization digital twin company, Chris repositioned the AssetCare Mobile line-of-business (LOB) to better complement the company’s core software, and he refined the product strategy to optimize its extended reality (XR) offerings in a manner that was scalable and differentiated.

While at DigiLens, an optical component leader in Silicon Valley, he revised the corporate strategy within the first two quarters at the company, stopping scarce resources from being gambled on a 70° field-of-view program to instead focus on 40°-60° efforts, while simultaneously shedding business partnerships that were negatively impacting company resources and gating meaningful future revenue. He stabilized revenue at $6M and built a new revenue pipeline that was comprised of both licensing royalty streams and new product B2B streams that enabled a $500M post-Series D valuation. He also led the company’s successful rebranding in 2021.

Before joining DigiLens, he was the vice-president of business development at ODG, the leading manufacturer of XR smartglasses and technologies. Reporting to the CEO, Chris led all customer-facing activities and managed ODG’s sales channels, ensuring optimization between the eCommerce, direct, and indirect channels. He brought six different products to market and grew sales from zero to $25M over a 24-month period where the average-sales-price (ASP) of the products ranged from $750-$25,000.

At SpaceX, Chris was one of the five architects who created the strategy to gain access to the classified and unclassified multi-billion-dollar national security space launch market, which resulted in SpaceX being placed onto a USAF $900M contracting vehicle. He led the pricing for SpaceX’s first Air Force EELV class program, OSP-3, at a company which had no federal accounting requirements nor internal costing standards for service fee calculations. Based upon his work, SpaceX was awarded two launch missions totaling over $240M. 

Chris worked on Capitol Hill from 2005 to 2011 where he successfully conferenced numerous authorization and appropriations bills. He started his career as an officer in the United States Marine Corps, where he achieved the rank of Captain. He received his B.A. in finance from the University of Notre Dame and his M.A. in Liberal Studies for Social and Public Policy from Georgetown University.