About Me
Executive. Investor. Advisor.
Hi, I'm Zephrin (yes my parent's really made up my name).
I like to help things grow, be they businesses, teams, or flowers (I’m partial to geraniums or anything blue).
I’m a strategic technology and growth leader. I believe that both product and growth are first and foremost creative endeavors, powered not just by execution but by imagination --- and that having a clear vision and doing one thing greatly beats tons of features and requirements. And if you can’t explain what you’re building to a civilian, you’ve already lost everyone else.
I've grown companies from raw ideas into global disruptors, and worked in public companies with dizzying numbers of moving parts and hundreds of millions of revenue. I've had some great days and a lot of hard ones too. I’m currently working on a big new thing.
I’ve built five startups. My company ShopChat created the world’s first shopping keyboard (US patent 10,943,290). Imagine an emoji keyboard but swap the 😍 for your favorite 🛍. ShopChat was acquired by Rakuten Viber in 2017. I spent two happy years helping roll out the product globally to hundreds of million of users. I got to know the contours of the Greenland fjords in intimate detail gazing out the window of a 787 on frequent 16-hour flights from SFO to TLV and back. I also co-founded and was CEO of Pontiflex, the creator of the signup ad. I did lots of other stuff in NYC, Prague and London.
I’ve done a fair bit of public company leadership work. I was CMO of Kaleyra (NYSE:KLR), a global communications platform acquired by Tata Communications at the end of 2023 for over $325MM. I was Head of Mobile and Social Product at Constant Contact at the time of its acquisition by EIGI for $1.1BN.
Next I’m diving deep into cleantech and alternative energy. These are two massive growth areas that are not just key to future economic value creation, but also to our future as a species. How we manage our introduction and application of these technologies will rule the fate of many.
I sometimes consult for companies on their products and serve on boards where I can lend a hand. I invest in startups through an incubator called Edge Drop Labs. I named it after peering down over the edge of the wall where the Caribbean Sea drops from 30 feet to almost three miles deep. It’s a beautiful, terrifying and completely addictive feeling. I also love to build stuff IRL, I’m especially fond of middle-age Land Rovers (we both get better with age and a few upgrades).
I wasn't born in the US. I’m an Atlanticist at heart, though home will always smell to me like Eucalyptus and surf. I used to be the #3 search result for "man" on Google Images. At least I was at the beginning of 2016. So if you see my picture somewhere strange on the interwebs, it's not me. Really.
Reach out if you want to chat. First initial last name at gmail.