Scott Cathcart builds companies and commercial platforms in the U.S. and internationally where regulation, manufacturing, logistics, capital formation, and cross-border execution determine whether an opportunity becomes real enterprise value.
His career has followed a consistent pattern: he gets involved where the opportunity is significant but the path to execution is unclear, first-of-its-kind, or operationally difficult — and he operates at both the strategic and execution levels simultaneously, from the boardroom to the field.
That pattern has taken Cathcart from designing and testing blast-resistant force protection systems for the U.S. Air Force, to deploying to Baghdad’s Red Zone under Department of Defense authorization, to building a GMP pharmaceutical manufacturing platform in a Caribbean Special Economic Zone, to negotiating an $80 million cross-border supply agreement backed by a strategic manufacturing partnership with Maersk. Each was built from nothing, in environments where the conventional playbook did not exist.
Defense & Force Protection
At the height of the Second Gulf War, Cathcart founded a defense technology company to address a specific gap in force protection architecture: the need for rapidly deployable, blast-resistant structures capable of protecting personnel at Forward Operating Bases. Working alongside a retired 3-star USAF General, former Surgeon General and Joint Staff Surgeon, the company designed, engineered, and tested two force protection programs under a formal CRADA with the USAF and AFRL. Both systems were successfully tested at Tyndall and Yuma Air Force Bases and advanced toward large-scale deployment before cancellation following a U.S. presidential administration change led to major defense budget cuts. The technology worked. The cancellation was political, not technical.
Cathcart subsequently deployed to Baghdad as an invited civilian guest of the Department of Defense, operating from the International Zone with full military support and PSD. The same threat environment the programs were designed to counter was the environment he operated in.
Read the full Force Protection story here.
Frontier AI and the Defense Technology Sector
The Pentagon is now writing venture-backed defense technology companies into core missions at the prime contractor level. The public-private framework Cathcart used to develop and test those systems being developed under a formal CRADA is precisely the type of model being extended to a new generation of defense companies.
Cathcart has designed and tested systems under a DoD research agreement, deployed to an active conflict zone under DoD authorization, and presented reconstruction and technology transfer frameworks at both the sovereign government ministerial and U.S. military / Pentagon levels. At Ubisoft, the world’s third-largest video game publisher, he architected the launch process for premiere titles across the Americas — coordinating 14 operational disciplines in a company operating at the intersection of real-time simulation, human-machine interfaces, and large-scale commercial execution. Those disciplines are directly relevant to defense AI, autonomous systems, and remote operation platforms.
The broader opportunity extends beyond defense. The most consequential AI applications will emerge in human-governed execution systems: platforms where AI accelerates analysis, forecasting, and operational coordination while humans retain responsibility for the decisions that matter most. In regulated industries, cross-border environments, and high-consequence operations — the domains where Cathcart has spent his career — that is not a theoretical framework. It is an operating requirement. The conditions that defined the last period of convergence between defense urgency, financial dislocation, and frontier technology — the environment in which Cathcart built his force protection and logistics platforms — are reassembling now.
Disaster Relief & Reconstruction
Cathcart has operated in reconstruction environments across three countries and three distinct crises over two decades. In Baghdad during the Second Gulf War, he delivered one of the first structured private-sector reconstruction proposals at the ministerial level to the Iraqi government, and engaged directly with the Chairman of the Iraqi National Investment Commission on a multi-phase housing reconstruction framework valued in the billions. He ultimately declined to pursue it on terms that would have required improper payments.
In Haiti following the catastrophic earthquake, working in partnership with Maersk, he deployed to Port-au-Prince and he and his team committed to building a modular school for 250 students at their own expense. In Western Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa in late 2025, he co-founded the Jamaica Respect Foundation and designed and implemented a QR-code-based voucher system to deliver building materials directly to families in need.
Read the full Disaster Relief & Reconstruction story here.
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
As Founder and CEO of Seven-10 Pharmaceuticals, Cathcart built a GMP-certified pharmaceutical manufacturing and export platform from the ground up in Jamaica. The build required navigating 14 government agencies across 7 ministries to secure 4 licenses, GMP certification, and free trade zone status — including a standalone Special Economic Zone designation granted by order of the Prime Minister. The platform holds U.S. DEA and Brazilian ANVISA import approvals for Schedule 1 controlled substances, with export pathways into the United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean. On the commercial side, Cathcart negotiated a joint venture distribution agreement providing access to more than 13,000 Brazilian pharmacies.
Governments in Jamaica and Mexico sought Cathcart out on a pro bono basis for his specific expertise in cross-border pharmaceutical governance — areas where those governments were building regulatory frameworks from scratch.
Read the full Pharmaceutical Manufacturing story here.
Logistics & Cross-Border Execution
During the sub-prime global financial crisis shipping volumes collapsed worldwide. Cathcart recognized that Maersk’s idle manufacturing capacity in China could be connected to the enormous demand for rapidly deployable structures in conflict zones and disaster environments. He approached Maersk with a proposal to integrate his proprietary modular building system into their idle capacity and deploy finished structures at scale. The resulting partnership established Maersk Container Industry as the exclusive preferred manufacturer, capable of producing more than 32,000 modular structures annually. Together they designed and engineered a complete Afloat Forward Staging Base conversion system for U.S. Navy and Marine Corps deployment.
On the commercial side, Cathcart negotiated an $80 million supply agreement with a former GE subsidiary for national distribution. The same logistics infrastructure underpinned the Baghdad reconstruction framework and the Haiti deployment.
Read the full Logistics story here.
Advertising & Brand Strategy
Cathcart spent eight years in senior account management at three of the world’s leading advertising agencies — BBDO Worldwide, J. Walter Thompson, and Ogilvy & Mather — managing global accounts for Gillette, Nestlé, Kimberly-Clark, Kikkoman, and Morgan Stanley. The work put him in front of the CEOs and senior leadership of some of the world’s largest consumer products companies before he was 30, managing relationships and strategic direction across hundreds of millions of dollars in billings. At BBDO, he led the strategic platform development for the global launch of the Gillette Mach3 across the U.S., Canada, and 17 European markets — one of the most commercially successful product launches in history. At JWT, he became one of the youngest Partners in the firm’s 100-year history and secured more than $20 million in new client revenue. At Ogilvy, he helped launch Pull-Ups, which became a $400 million brand. That foundation in disciplined product strategy, large-scale commercial execution, and multinational coordination shaped the operating approach he has applied to every venture since.
For professional inquiries, contact Cathcart here.