Biography

Ed is a Co-Founder and Venture Partner at Activate, where he focuses on identifying new investment opportunities for the firm. He co-founded Milestone Venture Partners with Todd Pietri and was initially Milestone’s Managing Partner.

Ed began his career at Patricof & Company where he managed a fund that invested in Apple Computer’s last private financing before completing its IPO. Ed then joined Hambros Bank, Ltd. and managed Hambros’ venture capital and investment banking operations in the United States. The Hambros investment team financed a wide variety of businesses, including Staples, Corporate Software, Petsmart and Veeco Instruments. Ed was instrumental in expanding Hambros’ presence in venture capital, supervising the creation of a series of biomedical investment funds as well as a multinational venture business that included funds operating in Japan, Australia, and Israel.

Before embarking on his financial services career, Ed joined his family’s high-fashion retail business, Bergdorf Goodman. He worked closely with his father to complete the sale of Bergdorf Goodman to Carter Hawley Hale Stores. Ed is the former Chairman of the Board of the Fashion Institute of Technology, an 8,000-student college within the State University of New York (SUNY). He is a Trustee of the Andrew Goodman Foundation, which supports college student voter registration and social entrepreneurship. Ed was a founding director of Donors Choose, a non-profit that enables individual donors to fund projects initiated by public school teachers. He is the former Board Chair and Life Trustee of the Choate Rosemary Hall School.

Ed holds a BA in English Literature from Yale University and an MS from Columbia Business School.