We’re thrilled to welcome Josh Fagel to the REMUS family as our new Chief of Staff. Josh joins us from CMA Strategy Consulting, a boutique management consulting firm that specializes in telecom, media, and technology. A Stanford grad and Bay Area native, Josh recently moved to Boston, where he’s optimistic about becoming a Red Sox fan (he’s less optimistic, though, about learning to love New England winters).
Josh’s role at REMUS will be a central one. He’ll work closely with the partners to define strategic areas of focus, optimize internal processes, instill a data-driven approach to firm decision-making, and engage with both the portfolio and REMUS investors.
We recently chatted with Josh to learn more about his experience, interests, and vision for his role at REMUS.
Welcome to the team, Josh! Tell us about yourself.
Glad to be here! I was born and raised in the Bay Area and have been inundated by the tech ecosystem from a pretty young age. I went to Stanford University, where I studied economics and was still very interested in the tech scene.
I knew I wanted to pursue business, so I went into consulting after my senior year in order to develop a quantitative toolkit that would allow me to analyze any company I might come across in the future. I was always focused on the most innovative and disruptive companies in a given industry.
How do you think that toolkit you’ve developed will help you in your work at REMUS?
Many of the companies REMUS interacts with are young and growing, with limited resources to support growth. They have sound ideas and products and are beginning the commercialization stage of their businesses, so they could use help on many fronts. REMUS itself is a growth stage startup of sorts, so there are many opportunities to make an impact.
I’m someone who’s had a lot of experience creating models and forecasting bookings and revenues. I’m comfortable supporting companies, even at the very earliest stages. I’m also very comfortable creating a system to operationalize and streamline those processes in order to better support the entire portfolio.
What attracted you to the opportunity at REMUS?
I’ve always been interested in startups and VCs. When I came to Boston, I did a pretty broad search of VCs in the space. I knew I wanted to be at more of an upstart VC fund, and I appreciated REMUS’ entrepreneurial mindset. I also really aligned with the “building, not betting” mentality. As someone who has entrepreneurial ambitions myself, I don’t want to just throw money at companies in a hands-off way; rather, I want to work with them to help them grow. That was something about REMUS that was exciting to me.
As Chief of Staff, what do you envision your role will look like?
I’ve always liked to think of myself as a Chief of Staff, even in my past positions. I’m the type of person who voluntarily wears multiple different hats. At my past firm, while I did project work and managed analysts and communicated with clients, I was also in charge of recruiting for Stanford and UC Berkeley, and I planned all of the firm’s social events. I love to do a lot of different things at once.
At REMUS, I’ll apply that passion and ability by working with portfolio companies while concurrently thinking about internal process optimization, working with the partners, and communicating with investors. I’m used to managing multiple workstreams at once, and it excites me.
How do you hope your presence will positively impact prospective REMUS constituents?
If I’m doing my job well, it will enable Krishna and John to focus on what they do best: supporting portfolio companies, conducting rigorous and accurate diligence of potential portfolio companies, and communicating with LPs.
That means it’s my job to be their right-hand man—to attend meetings in their place with no loss, to communicate takeaways, and to execute.
How do you plan to interact with portfolio company founders?
I want to be a reliable, trustworthy, and quality point of contact for our companies. I want founders to come to trust me and my experience, so I can both add my own value and augment the value they’re already receiving from the rest of the team.
You mentioned you were always interested in VC. Why?
I’ve always thought of myself as a generalist. As a young, up-and-coming person in my mid-20s, I want to learn about all of the industries in which REMUS invests and support them.
In a VC role, you have the opportunity to interact with so many founders in so many industries. The ability to see what works and what doesn’t work – in terms of the products, the industries, the markets, etc. – is something that really excites me before I hone my craft and dive into one industry that I feel more passionate about.
What do you do for fun?
I’d say my big two things are music and sports. I’ve played the drums since I was in fourth grade. So I was in the Stanford Marching Band, I’ve been in jazz bands, rock bands, funk bands, a brass band. And I play soccer myself, and I follow sports pretty religiously.
I’m a very social person, and I love communicating with lots of different people. I’m connected to the Stanford tech scene, to the entrepreneurial and VC landscape in Israel, and to the entrepreneurs at HBS, where my girlfriend is a student. I have a big network of people whom I know, and I love to catch up with them frequently.
We’re thrilled to have Josh as part of the team. Learn more about the rest of the REMUS family here.