Phil Herget brings an unusual combination of large-fund, independent GP, and emerging-manager experience across his career arc from Columbia Capital to founding Avonlea Capital to co-founding Ardent Venture Partners, plus hands-on public company CFO experience from leading Telular Corporation through an IPO. He applies a distinctive AI agents and automation lens to classic domains he knows well, such as choosing ad ops as a textbook application for LLM-based AI agents replacing traditional enterprise software in his PilotDesk investment, marrying decades of communications and media expertise with a specific view of AI's role in workflow automation.