Orlando Voyager just published a feature on Highland Private Office, and it covers more ground than most interviews I've done. We got into the early Celltronix years, what fourteen years in retail actually teaches you, the COVID stretch when a hundred families were depending on payroll, and why I built Highland the way I did.

A few moments from the conversation that felt worth pulling out.

On building Highland the way it's built

The interviewer asked what makes Highland different from a traditional family office or consulting firm. The honest answer is the model itself. Most firms in this space are built on big teams and big overhead, which means big retainers and a lot of layers between the client and the person doing the work.

That's not a philosophy I picked up in a book. It came from watching enough firms operate from the inside to know which version of the model I wanted to run.

On the curriculum nobody signs up for

The Voyager team asked about the hardest stretches. The honest part of that answer is COVID, when Celltronix had over a hundred employees and their families depending on the calls I was making, and my first son was born in the middle of it. There was no playbook for any of it.

On how I think about risk

Every entrepreneur is, by definition, a risk-taker. But the risks I've taken have all been calculated. The frame I keep coming back to is pretty simple. Avoid the kind of risk you can't come back from. Take real risk when the upside is real and the downside is survivable.

Read the full piece

The Voyager interview goes deeper on Poppy, the early Celltronix years, what acquisitions in Central Florida look like right now, and what Highland is actually built to do for the families and founders who work with us.

If any of this is the kind of thing you'd want a thoughtful operator handling in your own world, that's exactly what Highland is built for. Reach out anytime.