Founder and Managing Partner
Doug Amlin
“If you want people to make the right decisions with data, you have to get in their head in a way they understand.”
Miro Kazakoff, Senior Lecturer in Managerial Communication, MIT Sloan School of Management
In 2019, Doug Amlin took the advice of his mentor, a fellow veteran, and ventured out on his own to create an opportunity in helping private companies and family-owned businesses. He sensed a market opening for offering innovative technology support premised upon his successful career experiences, unique learnings, and military training.
He conducted his own feasibility study, confirming that many middle market companies were only at the beginning of a long, serious journey in analytics utilization. Even more surprising was the realization that the small business sector was roughly 20-25 years behind those larger organizations.
What was going on here that could be captured?
His naturally inquisitive mindset, developed as an undergraduate in anthropology, and his battle-tested mission focus as a U.S. Marine, clarified how he could make a difference: Dedicate oneself to supporting the data-based intelligence needs of entrepreneurs, executive leaders, and innovators of small to lower middle market companies with ease, efficiency, and integrity.
Life in Tech, Like Every Data Set, Tells a Story
Doug’s passion for business intelligence can be traced to his childhood and the nurturing of a love for all things outdoors.
Beyond fishing, he developed a passion for hunting and recreational shooting interspersed with RV trips that took the family across the U.S. to places far and near. The imagination for memorable outdoor experiences covered the gamut, from surfing in California (on the famous “Baywatch” beach) to archaeological digging in the Grand Canyon.
Doug grabbed the accelerator into high gear with his military training, purposely volunteering for any number of development opportunities the Marines offered, from mountain warfare to jungle training. During his four years of active duty, he served as an infantry and communications corporal with more than two years of deployment abroad in the theatres of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
The unique nature of the Marines taught him to approach each life situation with an inquisitiveness, regardless of the danger or uncertainty. Like the Navy Seals, the Marines can be called into special situations to navigate pressurized, constrained environments complicated by highly intense human dynamics.
His undergraduate studies in anthropology seemed at the time to be an intellectual elective rather than a choice of career track, but this uncommon foundation would prove over the years to have been an astute course in destiny: The curriculum expanded his thinking in human systems logic, how to discern and interpret holistically, and how history and experience shape belief systems.
“He who would search for pearls must dive below.”
John Dryden, Literary Critic and Playwright; England’s first Poet Laureate
Doug jokes that he literally grew up outdoors, under all sorts of weather conditions. His family lived adjacent to a river making some of his earliest memories with his Dad, fishing along its banks. Many glorious days on the water…
MIS, Logistics/Supply Chain
M.B.A. Logistics and Transportation/Supply Chain Management
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
B.A., Anthropology, University of Cincinnati
Honorable Discharge, U.S. Marine Corps (Corporal/E-4 – Infantry)
Resides in Southeast Pennsylvania with his wife and two children. Volunteers at the national and local level in two nonprofit organizations.
