Sam Cole

Sam Cole is the Managing Principal and co-founder of Stonecutter Ventures LLC. Since 2016, he has helped build companies that combine disruptive business models with enabling technologies, from robotics, fintech, and defense to consumer brands, commodities, and manufacturing. Before 2016, he was the President and Co-Founder of Phigital, Inc., an early-stage company that developed new technology to create and distribute rich media content to consumers. In October 2015, he sold Phigital to Gimbal, a spin-out and majority owned company of Qualcomm.

Previously, Cole served as Executive Vice President and Deputy Head of eExchange, a technology subsidiary of State Street Bank (and the 4th largest foreign currency exchange globally) providing advanced trading solutions to global clients in the foreign currency, interest rate, and derivative markets. From 2004 to 2010, Cole was the Chief Operating Officer and a Managing Partner at BlueMountain Capital Management LLC, a multi-billion asset manager and, at the time, the largest derivatives-focused asset manager globally. As a member of the firm’s Management Committee, he led BlueMountain’s operations, valuation, capital management, and financing teams, as well as co-led its risk management and trading functions, in North America and Europe.

Prior to joining BlueMountain, Cole was an Associate Principal in the Financial Institutions Group of McKinsey & Co. in New York for nearly six years. He also worked as a private equity analyst for Global Partner Ventures in the former Soviet Union where he supported projects to commercialize Russian defense technologies. Earlier in his career, he was a defense analyst with the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.

Cole serves on the NYC Governing Board of Success Academy Charter Schools, a New York City-based charter network of 45 schools and more than 20,000 students, and was previously Chairman. He is currently on the Board and Executive Committee of Business Executives for National Security (BENS) which allows him to remain current at the intersection of foreign policy, security, and business issues.

Cole earned his BA in Government with Honors from Harvard University (1992), his MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management (1998), and an MA from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University (1999). He was a 4-year Division 1 wrestler at Harvard and team captain. Sam and his wife, Marika, have three children and reside in Short Hills, New Jersey.