Alan graduated from the College of William and Mary in Virginia in 1991 with a degree in Chemistry, cum laude. He pursued higher education in chemistry, attending graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he had several appointments as teaching assistant in undergraduate chemistry curriculum, and conducted his own research, primarily in heavy element nuclear chemistry. Alan graduated with his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Chemistry degree in 1996.

After graduate school, Alan joined McKinsey and Company as a management consultant. He served clients in several industries (heavy manufacturing, healthcare, chemicals, and technology) on a variety of issues (strategy, mergers & acquisitions, cost reductions, growth and business building). Additionally, he worked extensively within the Purchasing and Supply Management practice.

Alan joined Ariba in early 1999 and served as a Director with the Global Account Management team, and was responsible for the strategic direction of several of Ariba’s long-term and largest global customers. During his time at Ariba, Alan worked in a variety of roles: he built and led the Sourcing Solutions team within the Sales organization, managed a team of 60 market-makers in the Sourcing Operations group, worked with a number of customers across many industries in Account Management, and was briefly involved in acquisition integration.

After Ariba, Alan joined forces once again with several of his founding colleagues from Ariba to start Meakem Becker Venture Capital, and early-stage traditional venture capital firm based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a partner, he helped the firm to raise their first fund of $75 million, and is heavily involved in finding, selecting, and nurturing the startup enterprises that form their portfolio. He was most recently Vice President of Denali Sourcing Services, based out of Seattle, WA, a startup focused on providing on-demand sourcing execution services to the Global 1000. Alan is the co-founder at Prime Vector where he focuses on using innovative digital technologies such as RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) to help businesses achieve their goals.