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Adrian Falla's CV |
Serial entrepreneur & devotee of Sun-Tzu's manifesto "The Art of War". Excels at identifying disruptive opportunities in business, technology, education & politics. Leadership skills, humor, infectious zeal consistently enable small teams to accomplish extraordinary goals.
Transformational Leadership; Early-Stage Startups; Business Strategies; Strategic Partnerships; New Category Creation; Product/Service Launches
Categorization; Political Science; Sustainability; Transport Infrastructure Electrification; Distributed Energy Efficiency, Storage and Renewable Resources
2018–Present
Two Birds, One Stone, Bremerton, WA
- CEO/Founder
- Consulting & catalysing business and not-for-profit organisations and opportunities, with particular focus on smart marketing of sustainability technologies, renewable energy, & accelerating electrification of the transportation sector. I’m all about seeing & seizing those synergistic opportunities for a double-dip win-win, and driving to power a big triple bottom line!
1998
Method for scanning, analyzing and rating digital information content
US #6266664
1997
Method for scanning, analyzing and handling various kinds of digital information content
US #6675162
1997
Rating and controlling access to emails
US #7130850
2006
Oregon Graduate Institute, Portland OR USA.
1982-83
Portland State University, Portland OR USA.
1980-81
Lewis & Clark College, Portland OR USA.
Sep 2016-Nov 2016
Chloe Eudaly For City Council, Portland, OR
- Fulfilment Lead
- Reported to Campaign Manager. Responsible for all door-to-door deliveries of collateral merchandise (T-shirts, buttons, etc.) and lawn signs to campaign donors. Fine-tuned CRM/fulfillment system functionality, transforming item order stream into inventory pick-lists & optimized delivery routes. All materials delivered via solar-PV-fueled zero-emissions Electric Vehicle.
Mar 2004–Nov 2004
GoPotterGo!-PAC, Portland, OR
- Organizer
- Formed independent Political Action Committee, successfully propelling under-funded underdog mayoral candidate to victory. Raised funds; implemented guerrilla communications strategy, including full e-commerce; implemented PR campaign; designed creative; placed media buys; complied with all electoral regulations and reporting requirements. Result (Primary): executed $6K media spend in last 2 weeks (official campaign couldn't afford media). In 3 weeks from last published poll to ballot, swung race 11 pts to candidate, snatching 1st place from highly-funded "incumbent" opponent. Result (General): an October poll flagged that complacent post-Primary campaigning had completely eroded candidate's early lead. I immediately raised additional funds, and conceived & executed $8K GOTV/brand-association doorhanger campaign, reaching 35K households on opening weekend of vote-by-mail cycle. My PAC's highly-controversial cross-race endorsement captured a full week's news cycle—snatching easily $40K+ of earned media, taking my candidate to a 23-point victory (and earning the cross-race endorsee his seat too).
Mar 2004–May 2004
Frank Dixon for City Council, Portland, OR
- Campaign Manager
- Hired in last 8 weeks of Primary by 1 of 6 neighborhood "protest candidates" independently challenging an aggressively-funded City Council incumbent. Full campaign responsibility, reporting directly to candidate, for communications strategy: built & deployed display-ad and direct-mail creative & collaterals; placed media; built full e-commerce (Drupal); and executed PR campaign. Result: candidate just missed 1st place, by a tiny margin. We were proud of our principled, honorable campaign; but we'd started fractionally too late for victory.
Dec 2003–Mar 2004
Tom For Mayor Campaign, Portland, OR
- Marketing/Outreach Director
- Worked directly with campaign manager & candidate in come-from-behind Primary (candidate declared he'd accept no more than $20 from any donor.) Conceived & implemented successful merchandising program; conceived & implemented successful web presence, including full e-commerce; conceived & implemented most campaign collaterals. Official Campaign Plan hinged on sufficent key constituency support to afford late-stage ad buy, to establish minimum voter perception of viability; I rapidly found reality did not conform to Plan. Resigned, formed GoPotterGo!-PAC to bypass income limitations of official campaign via external resources.
1987-1988
Guernsey Anti-Apartheid Group, Guernsey, Channel Islands (UK)
- Organizer
- Joining in minimally-organized grass-roots street protest of visit by South African apartheid regime's Ambassador to London to Guernsey, then a major offshore finance center, I learned we had no formal AA organization; founded GAAG 48 hrs later. Immediately affiliated to UK national AA movement. Created & drove guerrilla PR strategy based on McLuhan's "The Medium is the Massage"; our key messaging strategy emphasized rapid growth of an unprecedentedly diverse base. In 12 months, our paid member base outgrew 10-yr-old Greenpeace chapter; hailed as fastest-growing AA chapter in UK; we also expelled offshore deposits of > 20M Rand from local banks, after fund managers began advising SA clients their funds risked imminent seizure.
2015–2017
Jewett-Cameron Trading Company Ltd. (NASDAQ: JCTCF), North Plains, OR
- Member, Board of Directors
- Invited by founder & CEO to join Board of a diversified multi-national ~$50M public company. Assigned to Audit and Compensation Committees. Advised on e-commerce & marketing strategies. Closely involved in search for new CEO, enabling founder to retire.
2011–2017
Sarnian Solutions, Portland, OR
- Entrepreneur in Residence/Founder
- Semi-retired following a successful tech career, I spent most of my time and energy looking after my elderly parents, with occasional minor consulting gigs, until my mother’s decease.
2013
EnergyRM, Portland, OR
- VP Marketing
- Key contributor to strategic planning, design and implementation of initial business plan, marketing plan & marcomm program in seed-stage venture-backed company with ground-breaking efficiency-measurement meter technology (the "DeltaMeter") and paradigm-transforming transaction model ("MEETS"), designed to invert the systemic disincentives to deep investment in energy-efficiency measures which presently impact both commercial building owners and regulated-rate energy utilities. The company's early progress has been delayed by the glacial pace of change, catatonic conservatism of the utility industry, and reflexive predilection for addressing novel business and operational challenges by resorting to regulatory capture.
Oct 2010–2011
CauseOn Inc., Portland, OR
- Executive Instigator
- Brought in late into an early-stage startup undergoing an extended investment drought, I was able to rekindle fresh energy and conviction within a demoralised small team. Unfortunately, a key strategic partnership nurtured by the CEO morphed into a deadly brand mill-stone…
2008–Nov 2010
cc:Sync, Inc., Portland, OR
- VP Marketing/Co-Founder
- Recruited by a foresighted telecom executive for a play on group messaging, based on industry-insider technical knowledge to leverage an obscure but substantial systemic operational advantage over other extant strategies. Then, along came Twitter…
2006
Collectability, Inc., Portland, OR
- CEO/Co-Founder
- Collectability was an pre-seed company focusing on the social networking needs of collectors. I helped the original founder crystallize a business plan, and we began building website infrastructure, preparing for seed-stage investment, and positioning for strategic relationships in the online auction space. We ran full-tilt; but we were late to the party: after 2 venture-backed competitors announced strategic partnerships with the world's biggest online auctions company, eBay, further capital access was no longer a realistic prospect.
2005
Liquid Markets, Inc., Portland, OR
- CEO/Co-Founder
- Raised $160K in venture capital in 90 days [on track for $1M total in next 60 days] at idea-stage company, using only a PowerPoint deck to woo & win commitment from a technology billionaire/Google seed investor. I apparently made it look so easy that the Founder/Majority shareholder was inspired to take over from there, since the venture's success was now clearly assured. Googling "Darple" (later branding) suggests otherwise…
2004
Lightfleet Corporation, Vancouver, WA
- Corporate Communications Manager
- Hired by CEO/Founder of severely-undercapitalised developer of new interconnect technology for massively parallel computation/high-speed data switching/massive IO systems, to re-energize demoralized team, assist with fundraising, PR & marcomm. With zero external budget, I: branded core technology (“Lumiband”); created fresh web site; rewrote all major presentation materials (business plan, PowerPoint, etc.); revised CEO’s outbound shareholder letters; helped re-tune strategy development and tactical materials—enabling successful new relationships with multiple prospective strategic customers/partners, including industry-leading national airline, data warehousing supply, and network storage companies. My work-products directly enabled the Company to successfully raise over $1Million in new investment capital.
2003
Verinform, Inc., Portland, OR
- VP Marketing
- Verinform, a boutique consulting services company, was transitioning from enterprise-scale medical software services play. Hired by the co-founder/CEO, and working closely with the CFO/COO, I rapidly developed an aggressive marcomm program and messaging strategy for the key product launch. Within 6 months post-launch, my work-products drove a qualified sales pipeline of over $20M.
1999–2002
BigWake.com, Inc., Portland, OR
- CEO/Founder
- Born in the Dot-Com Bubble as a boating portal; recruited strong BoD; raised
$300K seed. Wooed and won traffic deal with car giant Autobytel.com; cut content deal with #1 US marine lifestyle publisher; earned loan originator rôle with #3 US marine lender CIT; partnered with #1 West Coast marine insurer. Partner to West Marine [NASD:WMAR], #1 US accessories retailer. Built national Certified Service Center network. Built web site with boat configurator, infrastructure for big-$ transactions, and closed 1st-ever online new boat sale. Post-Crash, reinvented as a sales, marketing & fulfillment service provider, offering a superior consumer boat-buying experience to manufacturers versus typical dealer networks, slashing retail real-estate overhead. Sold repo'd sport-fishing boats in South LA, returning 92% of capital basis to note-holder in 90 days (400% faster & 225% larger return than distressed-inventory norm.) Proved our model viable, but unable to access adequate initial operating capital.
1996–2000
RuleSpace, Inc., Portland, OR
- Co-Founder/CEO/Chairman
- Bootstrapped a pioneering internet-exclusive B2C utility app company into a provider of industrial-strength content-recognition services & world’s leading Parental Controls services provider, depended on by MSN, Yahoo!, AOL, Intel, NetApp, France Telecom, and many others. Won 3 major US patents for content categorization; recruited strong BoD; built stable, cohesive mgmt team; secured funds from sophisticated investors; and conceived 3 innovative products: WebQuick™, WebChaperone™, RuleSpace Enterprise Edition™ (all winning category-leader plaudits from industry reviewers.) Much guerilla PR, plus Senate Commerce Committee testimony on filtering technology. RuleSpace raised over $25M from primarily Bay Area investors. Key IP acquired by MSFT (2002). Residual operations unit was highly profitable, enabling later MBO. RuleSpace then leveraged its domain expertise to build a mobile-centric content categorization stack, and was acquired by SYMC (2010).
1992–1995
Now Software, Inc., Portland, OR
- Macintosh Consumer Products Line Manager
- Hired as entry-level Customer Support Specialist, promoted to full P&L responsibility for venture-backed company's top revenue platform in consumer space. Delivered products (Now Compress™, Now Utilities™, Now Quick'N'Easy™, etc.) of unprecedented quality and award-winning market appeal, exactly on-time.
2001–2004
Two Rivers Montessori School, Portland, OR
- Board of Trustees
- One of 3 Board members who turned around not-for-profit private school from collapse, at 50% under-enrollment after staffing meltdown. We rapidly conceived, and successfully pitched to stakeholders, a compellingly bold and imaginative 5-Year Strategic Plan. We averted the crisis by hiring critical teaching and admin staff; reaffirming the school's positive reputation; retaining existing families while recruiting new students; and raising over $100K in new funds within 24 months. The school reached cash-positive operation within 3 years, with waiting lists for all classes.