Samuel was co-founder of Phigital, Inc., an early stage technology company that allows brands to distribute location-based media content to consumers, and LightSail Education, a successful literacy software company based in New York City. In 2015, he sold Phigital to a spin-out of Qualcomm.
From 2004 to 2010, Mr. Cole was the Chief Operating Officer at BlueMountain Capital Management LLC, today a $21 billion asset manager. He served on the firm’s management committee and led its operations, risk management and trading teams. Mr. Cole also worked as Deputy Head of eExchange, a technology subsidiary of State Street Bank providing advanced trading solutions in foreign currency, interest rate and derivative markets; for nearly six years as a senior consultant in the Financial Institutions Group of McKinsey & Co.; and as an analyst for Global Partner Ventures in the former Soviet Union. Mr. Cole has seeded over ten companies across fintech, defense technology and manufacturing/robotics.
He holds an A.B. in Government from Harvard University, M.A from Tufts University (Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy) and M.B.A from MIT (Sloan School of Management).