I'm an innovation advisor and AI-native operator. I help senior leaders translate strategic bets into shipped products — usually messy, usually under-resourced, and usually with one of the roles missing from the team.
Over the past fifteen years I've worked across consumer brands, enterprise software, public sector, and industrial operators on more than 230 engagements — including Salesforce, LinkedIn, Walmart, Target, Pernod Ricard, Fujitsu, Schneider Electric, the United States Department of Defense, and the UK Government, plus 30+ accelerator and government-funded innovation programs across Europe and Asia in partnership with Innovation Norway, Vinnova, Enterprise Ireland, and others. Most of that work is embedded with VP and SVP-level P&L owners, coaching them through the messy work of turning strategic bets into shipped products and the experiments that prove (or kill) those bets cheaply.
I sat on two consecutive Unilever Global Innovation Boards — Foods and Ice Cream — as an external member, helping shape portfolio decisions for two of the company's largest product lines. The work there was adopted into a global transformation program called Innoflex. Today I run my own AI venture portfolio on the same capital-discipline framework I teach Kromatic's enterprise graduates: explicit kill criteria, option-cost analysis, and a hard cap of two active ventures at a time.
I cut my teeth on the operating line as Vice President & General Manager of the Data Protection Division at SECUDE International AG, where I turned around a declining product line, ran a hardware/software OEM business with Hitachi, Fujitsu, Samsung, and Infineon, and concurrently held the Chairman & GM seat at SECUDE's Vietnam R&D office for over a year. Since March 2025 I've been the solo founder, builder, and seller of Krobar.ai — an AI-powered forecasting platform for enterprise innovation portfolios — and the supporting AI toolchain: Fermi, Voltaire, box-claude, and Athenaeum.
I'm a strong believer in remaining operational and hands on. When the team is missing a role, I fill it. When SECUDE FinallySecure needed an enterprise-grade admin console in 2007, I designed it myself. When I needed deep expertise in agentic memory systems, I built it and open-sourced the code. I've operated across the United States, Switzerland, Vietnam, Germany, and Taiwan; hold American and British citizenship; and split my time today between client engagements, building, and free office hours for first-time founders.
I founded Kromatic to help innovation teams turn ideas into impact — across 232 client engagements, 65 cities, and partners ranging from one-person startups to $12.9B-revenue global enterprises.
Self-employed musician for nearly a decade — three full-length albums and an EP, retail and digital distribution, and national tours. The founder skill set before 'founder' was a job title.
Turned a money-losing business unit into a top performer and shipped a world-first product.
Tristan's first lean startup — applied lean principles, invalidated the business idea, and documented the process publicly; the methodology discipline that validated the approach later became the foundation of Kromatic.
I founded Krobar.ai in 2025 to apply data-driven decision making to enterprise innovation portfolios using Monte Carlo simulations for financial modeling. Currently in beta with a $10.3B-revenue global enterprise.
Designed and ran a one-month lean-startup bootcamp that brought Mexican entrepreneurs to the Bay Area. The program ran for several years under TechBA, the Mexican government's accelerator program led by Jorge Zavala.
Held the honorary Warren (Pete) Musser Professorship at Temple's Fox School of Business for the academic year — bringing field-tested lean startup, agile, and design-thinking practice into the entrepreneurship curriculum.
Ran LUXr's accelerator train-the-trainer program. The core curriculum I worked on was adopted by 13 accelerators worldwide — including 500 Startups, Singularity University, and the United States Presidential Innovation Fellows. LUXr was acquired by Pivotal Labs in 2014.
Sat on Unilever's global Ice Cream Innovation Board reviewing experiment data and steering portfolio decisions. The lean-and-agile approach we used later spread across the rest of Unilever as the Innoflex global transformation program — where I served as a principal advisor in designing the system.
Sat on Unilever's global Foods Innovation Board through the COVID-19 disruption, reviewing experiment data and steering portfolio decisions. The work later helped seed Unilever's Innoflex global training program.
Founded a worldwide grassroots network of lean-startup meetup groups — from Silicon Valley to Taipei, Tokyo, and Rio.
Built a community wiki for founders moving to Silicon Valley — meetups, visas, housing, and how to plug into the local startup scene.
Mentored under-resourced high-school students at Oakland Tech in entrepreneurship, helping a student team design and sell lanyards in their school colors.
Organized the 2011 San Jose Startup Weekend in 14 days, sold out in 9 — a Startup Weekend speed record. Chris McCann (now General Partner at Race Capital) called it 'the highest quality Startup Weekend I've ever been to.'
Graduated from The Dalton School in New York City; represented the school at Model United Nations in 1993.
BA in Philosophy from NYU's College of Arts & Sciences after transferring from Carnegie Mellon.
Two years in CMU's College of Arts & Sciences in Pittsburgh; Dean's List with High Honors, Fall 1994.
Two years of international graduate study at IUG Bruchsal in Germany.
Foreign-study exchange program at National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.