Background
I grew up in Belgium, Finland, and on the coast of British Columbia. Three languages came with that, and none of them from a classroom. Finnish at home, French with friends, and English when I landed in Canada. I don’t see them as three different languages, but rather just different forms of communication.
Most of what I learned early, and what built the foundation for everything to come, I learned outside. Wandering off into forests, building a fort, and finding my way back.
I came up through the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets as a Petty Officer, Canadian Coast Guard program, and Vancouver Fire Rescue Academy. I run heavy equipment, work in forestry, and fish the Pacific. I still spend most weekends on the water around the Gulf Islands.
The experiences I’ve gone through have taught me a standard nobody could teach. If the boat capsizes, I find a way to stay alive in Pacific water until someone reaches me. If the machine won’t start, I fix it. There’s no version where I find out later whether I did it properly, because finding out later is the part that kills me.
Music & Art
Music has been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember.
I served as principal cellist at the Vancouver Academy of Music Symphony, and Lord Byng Honors Orchestra, where I also held President of Strings Council.
Performance teaches a particular form of discipline. Nothing is hidden. Every note happens in real time, in front of an audience, and preparation does not exempt you from performing when the moment arrives.
It also teaches that there is rarely such a thing as being finished. Musicians spend years refining details that most people will never notice. That process of listening, correcting, repeating, and improving has shaped how I approach work well beyond music.
Currently, I am part of the UBC Symphony Orchestra, chamber groups, and perform as a soloist at events.
https://music.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/47/2025/12/2025_12.06_BernsteinHolst_Program_web.pdf
Entrepreneurship
I’ve been building businesses since high school.
The first two were small consumer ventures I started with a friend. We took them from ideas to operating businesses and eventually shut them down when the market told us the truth. They were small, but they taught me early that enthusiasm does not make an assumption correct.
Most recently, I co-founded LintelAI Technologies Inc. and served as Chief Operating Officer.
LintelAI began with a problem we saw in residential property management: much of the friction wasn’t caused by a lack of software, but by the coordination required between landlords, tenants, trades, accountants, leases, and other moving parts.
We built an AI-driven platform designed to coordinate much of that work through a single system. My role spanned operations, internal coordination, growth, partnerships, and supporting the development and rollout of the product.
I later chose to transition from the company and pursue independent entrepreneurial ventures.
Entrepreneurship remains the environment where many of my interests meet: technology, people, systems, markets, execution, and the process of turning an assumption into something reality can test.
Education
I study at the University of British Columbia pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Cello and a Master of Management from Sauder School of Business.
It’s an unusual pairing, and I chose it deliberately.
Management is the study of how systems and people produce outcomes. Music is the study of structure, attention, and taste. Using both fields in entrepreneurship created far more value than I could have imagined.
What I’m Exploring
I’m exploring EU – Canada business relations in trade, working on the connections between European and Canadian industry and the flow of goods between them.
Alongside that, I publish original research here: hypotheses about how markets work, tested against operators rather than commentary. Writing is how I think, and I’d rather be publicly wrong and corrected than privately confident.
If you’re working in trade, tech, on the water, or anywhere in the overlap, I’m easy to reach.