Abe is the business brain behind True Made Foods.. Abe attended Vanderbilt on a Navy ROTC scholarship and became a Naval helicopter pilot. He deployed to South America for counter-narcotics operations and the Arabian Gulf for the beginning of OIF, before being stationed in England.. While living in the UK, Abe also earned his MBA from the. London Business School. After leaving military service, Abe decided to use his skills and knowledge of emerging markets.and was hired by a PE firm to assess investments in Africa, before taking a position as a turn-around manager with full P&L responsibility for a plastics factory in Bulgaria. Abe then set up his own emerging market and innovation advisory firm: Maendeleo Ventures, LLC. He won contracts in emerging markets like Egypt and Ghana and eventually moved to Doha, Qatar. In Qatar, Abe built multiple startups including a controlled environment agriculture business and the popular website Doha Delivery. Abe was also invited to work on multiple innovation projects, including the Migrant Worker Initiative and two Middle East Angel Investment Funds.. In 2013, after over eight years overseas, Abe returned to the US and was quickly hired by the Coexist Foundation as their Director of Innovation and tasked with launching new products. Abe took a Coexist Coffee from concept to a KeHe host product (stored in all nine KeHe warehouses) in six months and created deals that led to the coffee being carried by UNFI. He built out the Coexist Campaign, built the online store and social media strategy and boosted online sales 90%.. In late 2014, Abe left Coexist, because a local VC encouraged him to launch his own food business. So in December of 2014, Abe partnered with his friend Kevin and they launched True Made Foods.
