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There's nothing here yet (well, except for this message), but clicking on the "+" button in the menu above should change that. Have fun! :)
About
Capital Strategy|Complex Deal Execution|Early Stage Ventures and Project Funding|$1B+ in Closed Transactions
Executive leader with a 25-year record of structuring and closing large capital transactions across sectors, from large-scale urban development to early-stage ventures. Most effective in white space: politically complex environments, capital-constrained conditions and novel, emerging sectors, building a path from concept to market.
Wayne Olson turns ambiguous opportunities into executable strategy across the public, private and nonprofit sectors. He builds strategy for novel and urgent mandates by aligning cross-functional stakeholders and driving executive decisions in politically and financially complex environments. He is a three-time founder and a former interim CEO of a higher education foundation, with more than $1 billion in negotiated transactions across real estate, infrastructure and public-private partnerships, and capital partners spanning venture capital, private equity, family offices, institutional investors and high-net-worth principals.
As Chief Economic Development Officer for the City of Palm Springs he created the Office of Economic Development, led the strategy that reopened a $175 million resort hotel after a decade of inactivity, negotiated a citywide development pipeline of more than $500 million, and restructured the hotel incentive framework behind $450 million in new project development. Before that he ran Carnivore LLC, an advisory practice structuring capital strategies for private equity sponsors, project owners and public entities, and served the City of Palm Desert as Economic Development Manager, where he originated a $110 million experiential entertainment development and, as interim CEO of the higher education foundation, led the capital strategy behind a $75 million state grant for the CSU Palm Desert Campus student center.
Earlier, in Minneapolis, he founded Olson Development, advising executive teams and boards and building a first-of-its-kind dashboard that tracked $1 billion in federal ARRA spending; delivered more than $100 million of mixed-use development as Director of Development at Cornerstone Group; and led stakeholder alignment for a $1 billion urban redevelopment master plan as Senior Project Manager for the City of Minneapolis.
He holds a BA in Political Science from St. Olaf College and an MA in Addiction Studies, summa cum laude, and was a research collaborator in neurobiology at Mayo Clinic, with exposure to early-stage science commercialization. That grounding in behavioral science informs his stakeholder work and an ongoing focus on life sciences and neurotech. His current research is Metal Dylan, a persistent, model-agnostic environment for a continuing mind, and he writes Digihuman/Biohuman on how biohumans and digihumans will live together. He lives in Palm Springs, California.
Digihuman/Biohuman, on how biohumans and digihumans will live together.