The  Team

Jim holds over 20 years of entrepreneurial and ecommerce experience and a deep first-hand understanding of the value of risk-taking. Jim serves on the Advisory Board of Mercury Ecommerce Acquisition Corp.; a special purpose acquisition company or "SPAC" focusing its initial business combination search in the ecommerce sector, specifically companies offering Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) products and services to enterprise customers globally. 

Prior to Momentum Labs, Jim was co-founder and co-CEO at RTIC Outdoors (RTIC Coolers), and Alliantgroup where he led strategy and operational execution. His contributions led each company to nine figure valuation exits. 

Earlier in his career, Jim practiced as a CPA with Deloitte’s International Tax Services practice and founded specialized tax advisory firm, TaxGroup. He then founded and served as CEO for several other D2C brands including Cuero.com, King Disc Grill and CheapCheapMovingBoxes.com. More recently, Jim co-founded Ecommerce-as-a-Service (“ECaaS”) platform, Cart.com, and EcommerceBrands.com - for both of which he now serves as Executive Chairman.

Henry has worked with the Momentum Labs team in a variety of capacities as an operator, investor, and mentor to portfolio companies over the past several years.  He currently leads studio operations and helps guide our portfolio companies founding teams through strategy development and early stage execution.

Prior to joining Momentum Labs, Henry was a Co-Founder of portfolio company Cart.com where he initially served as Chief Strategy Officer and then later Chief Financial Officer.  Prior to Cart.com, Henry lead a $500M vertical for Wayfair Canada and also was the Head of Online and Marketing Strategy for Home Depot where he also served as the Chief of Staff to the Chief Marketing Officer.

Earlier in his career, Henry worked in financial services at Greenwich Associates in the Corporte Finance Group.  Henry has an MBA from the Darden School of Business at The University of Virginia and a Bachelors Degree in Economics from Union College.

Gregg Goldstein is a highly accomplished executive and attorney with almost 20 years of professional experience. Gregg has worked in multiple roles in a diverse set of industries including SaaS, e-commerce, fulfillment, marketing, aviation, industrial services, chemicals, and food and beverage. The breadth of Gregg’s experience makes him a valued leader and advisor to the companies he serves.
 
Prior to joining Momentum Labs, Gregg was General Counsel at Cart.com where he managed the entire legal function as the only lawyer at a dynamic hyper-growth e-commerce company. He played a pivotal role in growing the company to a unicorn in just over two years through a combination of venture rounds, debt financing, acquisitions, and organic growth.
 
Prior to his role at Cart.com, Gregg served as Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel at ForeFlight LLC, an aviation software startup. He led a significant exit when ForeFlight was sold to the Boeing Company.
 
As a serial entrepreneur Gregg is an active angel investor and has launched, owned, and operated multiple small businesses. Gregg is also an active startup advisor holding advisory board positions with a broad range of companies.

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Omair has been involved with Momentum Labs as both an operator and an investor over the past several years.  Omair Co-Founded Cart.com with Jim Jacobsen and has since continued to lead the company to a $1.2B+ valuation in less than four years through an aggressive organic and in organic growth strategy.

Prior to joining Momentum Labs and Cart.com, Omair was an early employee of Blinds.com a company he helped scale and then later exit to The Home Depot.  Omair continued to grow the blinds.com business to a $500M+ business unit as the Chief Financial Officer and later Chief Operating Officer.

Omair has an MBA from Rice University and a BBA in finance from the University of Houston.

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Steven Chester is a serial entrepreneur and currently serves as the Founder and CEO of Mienne. Steven has spent the past several years building the brand strategy, creative, and assortment behind Mienne, a consumer brand focused on the intersection of design and desire.

He also runs PDL cosmetics a company he co-founded with Patricia De Leon.  Previously, Steven served as an EVP of strategy and marketing at MESA and as a Vice President of Akamai Technologies.  Earlier in his career, Steven created and ran new business lines for The Gap.  He also launched a sports management company building businesses around Kelly Slater, Tony Hawk, Bam Magera, and others.

Steven has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor’s Degree from University of California, Berkeley.

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Joel has over 25 years of experience leading startup business ventures in the areas of investment management, debt and equity financing, M&A and strategy. Prior to The J, Joel served as CFO for several technology and ecommerce successes such as Cart.com, RTIC Outdoors (RTIC Coolers) and SalvageSale.com where he was a member of founding management. He also led the online ecommerce strategy launch for start-up brand iwilife.com, a plant-based eco-friendly nutraceutical in the Omega-3 category that is one of the fastest growing brands in its channel. Joel has also facilitated several successful exits to date, with aggregate Enterprise Values exceeding 2 billion USD.

Joel began his career at Price Waterhouse Coopers, is a CPA, and member of the Private Equity Executives Group, Texas Society of CPA’s and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Emerald is a CPA licensed in the state of Texas and graduated first in her class earning an MBA from Houston Baptist University and received the highest recognition earning the Stewart Morris Award as a Texas Business Hall of Fame Scholar. She also earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and continues to express a passion for organizational psychology.

Prior to joining The J, Emerald made a career of working alongside high net worth investors in single and multifamily offices managing over $1.5 billion in AUM in over 45 different alternative investment vehicles in various industries.

Her duties include financial planning and analysis, operations management, tax compliance, and advisory services management for the firm and its various investments.

Bret is a CPA licensed in the state of Texas and has an extensive history in the field of financial management. Prior to his role at The J, Bret served as Vice President of Finance for Cart.com, an end-to-end ecommerce platform. Bret also served as CFO of The Cannon, a Houston-based startup incubator, and Director of Strategic Initiatives and Global Finance for Houston Methodist hospital system. Bret holds an MS in Management Information Systems and a BBA in Accounting from Texas A&M University.