About

Ciao.

I'm the founder and a managing partner of Portico Advisers.

We advise asset owners, corporates, and investment firms driving innovation in energy systems.

How did I get here?

In 2006, I was the youngest member of an interagency team working on interior-ministry and police reform in Iraq and Afghanistan. The experience left me deeply skeptical about the ability of the U.S. government to deliver durable change in other countries, and I grew convinced that the best long-term answer was patient investments that created jobs.

So, I went to SAIS to study international economics and finance, and explored the question of private-sector development in emerging markets.

I spent the better part of fifteen years on that question—first researching the EM private equity and venture industry, then advising funds, institutional investors, and founders building in the world's hardest markets.

I started Portico in 2016 to work directly with the people willing to pursue differentiated strategies where most capital wouldn't go.

There was a tension at the foundation, though. I started a business in an industry that I believed at the time to be in structural decline. I was building in the wrong market. That diagnosis is at the heart of the book I'm writing now.

I began viewing the capital scarcity problem that lured me to emerging markets in terms of sector instead of geography. And this led me to deep technology, working with venture firms backing companies the broader market had written off as too hard or too early.

That work included a variety of projects with energy-transition technologies, including an opportunity to help a family office stand up a permanent-capital vehicle for it. I also co-founded Transect Ocean to gather critical subsea data for offshore-renewables developers using autonomous vessels, and eventually brought the work back to Portico (2.0).

I enjoy seeking out opportunities in the seams that most market participants overlook, and working with people who have the audacity to do something difficult.

Social media is a cancer, so I post bit(e)-sized thoughts at bits.caseyjr.org instead, and I build independent, open-source projects like the Thucydides Daily Reader.

I live in the United States with my wife, two sons, and dogs.