Enron was creating a broadband exchange and John was going to work on it, but the new position kept getting kicked back a few months. He had just shuttered his first startup, StarInsight, an attempt at creating a social media company around influential people. A board member convinced him to take a six month gig in the White House. Enron fell apart, John was in the White House on 9/11, and six months turned into six years. John mostly helped the US Government build new economic alliances with partners around the world. John then created and led for fifteen years Romulus Global Issues Management, a Washington, DC-based consulting firm that advised executives on international public policy and emerging market access issues.
John’s Covid project was taking over his investment in a cocktail bar in New Orleans. In March 2020, John and a few dozen other restaurant owners created the Independent Restaurant Coalition, an emergency campaign that delivered more than $28 billion in federal funding for restaurants. This campaign also put John on multiple video calls each week for over a year with some of the most successful restaurateurs in America. John had lots of questions. They had lots of time on their hands. It was a unique opportunity. And John fell in love with the industry.
John left Romulus to work full time on hospitality. He built Moveable Feast, based in Napa, California, to deliver “fine dining at home” to households and events nationwide. Now closed, MF produced thousands of unique experiences, including at the Masters and for the Rolling Stones. The cocktail bar in New Orleans survived. Jewel of the South has been named one of the World’s 50 Best Bars and was the winner of the James Beard award for Outstanding Bar Program.
A proud RINO and radical centrist, John’s political experience was shaped by his former bosses Jack Kemp, Bob Zoellick, and Rob Portman. John created and led Republicans for Clinton in 2016 in an attempt to save the Republican Party. He failed spectacularly.
John has been a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. John is a board member of the National Foreign Trade Council
