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Katie Derr shared thisWe're Hiring! Sovrn is looking for a dynamic FP&A leader to partner with me in driving financial strategy and maximizing our growth potential. This role offers the opportunity to lead our FP&A function, collaborate with executive leadership, and shape key financial decisions as we scale. If you're passionate about leveraging data to drive business success and want to make a direct impact, we’d love to connect! To learn more: https://lnkd.in/gKbkqrXv
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Katie Derr reposted thisKatie Derr reposted thisI'm hiring! We are looking for two Account Managers to join the Commerce Demand Team here at Sovrn and help our network of Advertisers more effectively optimize with industry leading Publishers. If you or anyone is interested please check out more in the link below. https://lnkd.in/gH3rj_EG
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Katie Derr reacted on thisKatie Derr reacted on thisSpring has a way of shifting everything—light, energy, mood. At Posey Floral, we see it in the way fresh, seasonal florals instantly brighten a space. Softer palettes, vibrant greens, unexpected textures—they bring a sense of renewal that people feel the moment they walk in. Whether it’s an office, lobby, or event space, a touch of spring creates an environment that feels alive, intentional, and ready for what’s next. Sometimes the smallest change makes the biggest impact. https://poseyfloral.com
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Katie Derr liked thisKatie Derr liked thisYou sold the company. You finally exhaled. And now what? Liquidity events are supposed to bring freedom. Instead, many founders find themselves buried under a new kind of pressure: ✅ Complex tax planning ✅ Entity structuring and trust setups ✅ Investment operational support across entities and asset classes ✅ Estate and philanthropy goals ✅ Coordinating advisors ✅ Managing personal financial data and budget planning You didn’t build your company alone. You don’t have to navigate life after the exit alone either. Parthenon brings order to the chaos — translating big-picture vision into day-to-day execution across legal, tax, investments, financial oversight, and admin. If you’re a founder navigating life after liquidity — or know someone who is — let’s connect. You deserve more than a team of advisors. You deserve a quarterback.
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Katie Derr reacted on thisKatie Derr reacted on thisTechstars Chicago Accelerator is BACK. Our first cohort with revamped program and new structure backed by Long Chicago officially kicks off next week. We're hosting a small mentor and investor "meet the cohort companies" next week... if I missed you on the invite, apologies - lot of moving pieces spinning up the new fund and program. Send me a note! We also just settled into new space this week... If anyone has leads on spare office furniture lmk - we're talking early stage founders and gritty fund here, so I'll come to you to pick up office chairs, conf tables, or plants! More to come, with companies being announced in the coming weeks.
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Katie Derr reacted on thisKatie Derr reacted on thisWhen I was growing up, I worked for my dad’s landscaping business. We’d take empty lots and turn them into outdoor spaces families could enjoy together. Waterfalls. Winding rivers snaking under stone pathways. Most of it was done by hand, though I did love operating the Bobcat. Plans were sketched on paper. If something was unclear, you drove to the site and figured it out. It was creative work. Physical work. Rewarding. And very manual. That’s part of why I’m excited to be joining Twindo as an interim CPTO. Twindo is building a spatial intelligence platform that helps architects, contractors, and field teams collaborate virtually across the lifecycle of a project. Using 3D modeling and computer vision, teams can capture and align real-world conditions to track progress and make decisions with confidence. The mission resonates with me, and I'm looking forward to collaborating with the team in this next chapter.
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Katie Derr reacted on thisKatie Derr reacted on thisI'm proud to announce that I earned the Honor Society Award at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices for outstanding sales and service to our clients! If you're looking to relocate to Chicago, you should definitely reach out to me! #chicago
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Katie Derr reacted on thisKatie Derr reacted on thisKind of wild to write this… This Wednesday between 4–7pm ET, I’ll be on QVC presenting O2 Hydration live on national television. From selling drinks out of the back of my car to pitching hydration to millions of households — this one feels big. Grateful for the entire QVC team and the incredible hosts I’ll be sharing the stage with (👋 Alberti Popaj Rachel Boesing). Excited, a little nervous, and ready to go. If you’re around on Wednesday, tune in. 🙏
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Katie Derr reacted on thisKatie Derr reacted on thisI've been quiet for two years. Not retired. Building. In 2020 I stepped back from Sphero. My wife and I spent four years on a boat - Rhode Island to Trinidad. It was the dream. But by mid-2023 the itch was back. My brother-in-law Steve Tomsic and I started asking: where can AI actually matter? The answer came from our combined past expereinces. Private security. A $50B industry running on tools from the 1990s. Guards carrying gear designed for law enforcement and writing reports by hand. We knew this world. I'd built a robot for law enforcement situational awareness (it didn't make it). Steve had built software for security companies. Between us we saw the opportunity clearly. So we started building. Quietly. Self-funded. A small team with serious talent. The idea: AI-powered body cameras purpose-built for private security. Not law enforcement hand-me-downs. Not a transcription tool bolted onto existing hardware. A complete rethinking of how guards do their jobs - built from scratch. We stayed in stealth for one reason: focus. Building great AI plus hardware for an industry that needs simplicity above everything else is genuinely hard. I didn't want the distraction of explaining it before it was ready. Now it's ready. The product is real. Customers are deploying. And the early results are validating everything we believed when this was just an idea on a boat in the Caribbean. This is startup number eleven for me. And I'm going to share the journey as it happens - the wins, the hard parts, what I'm learning about AI and an industry most tech people have never looked at twice. Welcome to Patrol 6. More to come. I wrote the full story on our blog - link in the comments. #AI #startup #privatesecurity #bodycameras #founderstory #buildinginpublic
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Katie Derr reacted on thisKatie Derr reacted on thisI was impacted by the recent layoffs at Sovrn. While this isn’t the way I expected this chapter to change, I’m incredibly grateful for the smart, thoughtful, and genuinely kind people I had the opportunity to work alongside across the company. I’m officially on the market and open to conversations around customer success, account management, or project management roles where my experience could be a strong fit. To everyone I worked with at Sovrn — thank you. I appreciate you more than I can say, and I hope our paths cross again. And to anyone else impacted by the layoffs, I’m always happy to chat, network, or make introductions if you come across an opportunity where I might be able to help.
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Chris Hutton
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Janelle Gorman
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Hiring and compensation have a huge impact on your growth plans. It’s critical to have a real strategy, and not a “best effort” or piecemeal approach. That was the focus of yesterday’s CFO Roundtable, which I and York IE had the pleasure of co-hosting with Kristen Craft from Fidelity Private Shares. When it comes to hiring, we discussed how important it is to step back and look at the big picture. Regularly reviewing your org chart ensures your structure is evolving with the business, not just reacting when a new need pops up. Designing roles around the company’s goals, rather than individual preferences, is hard but crucial if you want to scale in a healthy way. On compensation, we talked about creating a clear philosophy that aligns with your strategy and stage. Are you paying at the top of the market as a recruiting advantage, or taking a role-based approach? How do you leverage base, bonus, and equity to create aligned incentives that motivate and retain your teams? And thank you to Michaela Goodwin, Eduardo Arreaga, Megan Dunn, CPA, and Rick Darer for sharing their experiences, and to all the finance leaders who joined the discussion. These conversations always remind me how much there is to learn from this community.
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Chris Anderson
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Peter Turner
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Ian Netherton, CPA,ABV, CGMA
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Ok, I said I was going to talk about my approach to startup compensation vs market compensation this week so here we go: As we all know startups are risky and can't afford anything. I have had many many conversations with folks that are confused as to why they're not being offered the same cash compensation they imagine they can get at Meta or Google... because anyone can get a job there. (be nice Ian) So if you're not being offered your full board, what are you being offered? Usually enough cash to barely make rent and an option grant that will someday be worth more than all the money your parents made ever. So how do you know you got enough options/equity? Here's my napkin math: Step 1: Market Comp: 140k Your actual Comp: 105k Difference: 35k: (yikes) Step 2: How long are you going to take this affront on your worth? Lets say 3 years Step 3: What kind of return do I need to get on that cash i gave up? You're working at a company that's pretty risky. What kind of return do you need for that kind of risk? This is debatable but let's go with 20% (this is my floor for this stage of business but we're not going deep on cost of capital today.) Step 4: What is the value of the compensation I've not taken? If we do a present value calculation (picture below), the deferred compensation is roughly $74k. Cool.... so what does that mean? It means you need to get an equity grant worth about this much. If you want to learn how to value the options, the internet has got some tools for you. If you got a grant of restricted shares, congratulations that's a bit more complicated. The upshot is that this method will help you think through what you're giving up and framing it as an investment, because it kinda is. All investments have some element of risk. As risk goes up, the required return goes up. Because I'm a nerd, i tend to do this analysis for my friends when they get equity grants to either tell them to leave Whinesville or hold out for better. Do I recommend you do this kind of negotiation yourself? If you're feeling that brave, have at it. If not, call a friend that does startup finance and they can probably help, maybe with beer.
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Mark Blakemore
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What a good Fractional CFO actually does (and doesn’t do). There’s often confusion about what a Fractional CFO is meant to be. It’s not a part-time Finance Director who produces prettier reports. And it’s not a temporary stand-in until you “hire someone proper”. A good Fractional CFO focuses on decisions. Scenario planning. Cash visibility. Margin mechanics. Investor narrative. The work sits at the intersection of finance and strategy. A Fractional CFO isn't in the business all the time. Well duh.... . But because of this they focus in on the stuff that matters. What's the cash runway? What metrics does the business need to guide and direct? What information are investors looking for right now? They don't have the time to pay too much attention to matters like chasing invoices, reconciling accounts or firefighting basic processes. Yes these are important and it matters that your Fractional CFO understands what the processes are. But if these processes are broken in some way, the structure underneath probably needs attention. Fractional works because it concentrates senior thinking where it has the most leverage. You get experience applied to the moments that matter — hiring, fundraising, pricing, sequencing — without that full-time overhead. It's about getting someone experienced who can take that helicopter view of your business and apply a fresh professional perspective on your business. It’s not about doing less finance. It’s about doing the right finance at the right level. #FractionalCFO #SaaS #AIEnabled
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Richard Sanchez Jr.
Robyn Consulting Group • 9K followers
Proud moment for our team at Robyn Consulting Group (RCG Financial), we’ve officially launched our newest white paper, a strategic roadmap for exit-minded SaaS founders and CEOs. This guide is the result of months of research, financial analysis, and insight gathering. Huge thank you to our RCG team for the diligence and expertise poured into this project — and to our clients and community who participated in our founder survey and shared their real-world experiences on scaling and exit readiness. Inside the guide, we uncover the four key metrics private equity firms scrutinize — and how you can optimize each one to position your company for a 10x valuation multiple. 👉 Get your copy here: https://lnkd.in/eyhz83kk
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Brad Wolfe
Wolfe Pack - CFO/COO & CFO.ai • 10K followers
Brad Wolfe | Operational CFO Series The CHRO & CFO Partnership in PE-Backed SaaS The CHRO and the CFO. The most underestimated partnership in PE-backed SaaS. Most think of the CHRO as a support function. In a PE-backed company under $1B, that's a costly misread. Headcount is 60–75% of the total cost structure in SaaS. Comp, benefits, equity, and severance are the largest discretionary levers management controls. The CFO who treats the CHRO as administrative leaves money — and real risk — on the table. Eight Places Where It Matters Most 1. Headcount planning — joint discipline, not negotiation. Stop letting the budget become the CHRO advocating for hiring while the CFO defends EBITDA. Work from the same workforce model — role design and capacity on one side, revenue-per-employee benchmarks and covenant constraints on the other. 2. Compensation architecture and EBITDA integrity. A commission plan raising OTE 10% across a 50-person sales team is a seven-figure P&L event. A bonus structure misaligned with financial targets is a governance failure. Design it together — or own the consequences separately. 3. The management incentive plan. The CFO builds the model. The CHRO owns the narrative. If the CHRO can't explain the MIP to the VP of Engineering fielding three competing offers, the plan has failed — at exactly the moment the company needs it most. 4. Workforce data as a financial signal. CS turnover is a churn signal. Time-to-fill in engineering is a product risk. Manager flight risk is organizational fragility. A CFO who treats HR data as compliance output is missing the most predictive signals in the business. 5. Restructuring and workforce reductions. The CHRO owns legal mechanics. The CFO owns the model. Miss severance obligations and you'll mis-state the cost. Don't understand the financial rationale and you can't hold the line when managers push back. One plan. Two owners. 6. Benefits and total rewards. In a 200-person SaaS company, benefits run $3–5M annually. Redesign without modeling EBITDA impact and you have a budget problem. Cut unilaterally to hit a target and you have a retention problem. Design the envelope together. 7. People due diligence in M&A. HR liabilities are routinely underestimated. The bigger risk is organizational — can the acquired team execute? Are key people retained? Only the CHRO can answer with real depth. Skip it and the deal surprises you six months post-close. 8. The people narrative to the board. CS attrition costs X in recruiting, Y in ramp, Z in churn risk. When the CHRO and CFO present people data through a financial lens together, both gain credibility with the sponsor. What PE Sponsors Watch For Comp decisions that weren't modeled. Restructurings that overran projections. MIP participants who don't understand their economics. Retention problems that hit the financials before they reach the board. wolfepacks.com
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Naga Subramanya B B
Sprinto • 4K followers
Last week, I had the opportunity to speak about the impact of Anthropic's Claude CoWork feature for Finance leaders in the Elevation Capital portfolio companies. The Zoom session had 100 registrations, 85%+ attendence and almost 95% sit-through rate where attendees sat through the whole session and asked questions. The demand for AI in Finance is very very high! VC investors are incredibly conservative about what they show their portfolio and what they don't, for good reason, they have millions of dollars on the line riding on the success of these start-ups. In this context, I want to take a moment to appreciate the forward thinking nature of Elevation's team to have folks like Vartika Bansal, Harsh Agrawal and Pankaj Ghai do sessions like these for their portfolio. It will help make both Elevation and the portfolio companies AI-native. In this post Vartika Bansal summarises the key take-aways from the session. But if you are a Finance leader still looking at YouTube, LinkedIn and other places and thinking, I will use AI when I have the time, it might be too late. The time to start is now, install it, pay for it and get to work. It is now or never, if you have questions or get stuck feel free to DM me!
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Jason Knaut, CFA
Knauthaus • 2K followers
I just watched a startup make a seemingly innocuous hiring decision during exit planning that will likely cost them real money in the future sale process. The mistake ... they created and filled a new role called Director of Delinquent Accounts. Now, you might think, "but Jason, how does improving cash collections and reducing bad debt expense hurt a sale?" It doesn't. What the startup actually did was create a glaring signal that something is structurally wrong. Here's what happens in diligence. A buyer will request an organizational census early in the process. That title is a yellow flag (maybe red) that immediately prompts deep investigation. Is the sales team overselling the product? Is your product failing to retain customers? Do you have weak collection controls? Are you extending credit instead of requiring payment upfront on credit card? But the real damage runs much deeper. By creating a permanent, full-time Director role, the startup has inadvertently signaled something far worse than the current problem; they believe this delinquency issue is structural and permanent. You don't hire a Director to fix a six-month problem. You hire a Director because you expect the problem to persist indefinitely. A sophisticated buyer will read that organizational decision exactly as intended, not the way management hoped. PLEASE REMEMBER, every hiring decision, organizational change, and strategic action you take in the 12-24 months before an exit will be heavily scrutinized and interpreted through a buyer's lens. When making decisions during that exit-prep window, ask yourself the hard question "how could an external party view this negatively?" Also, be aware that most CFOs advising on exits have only worked the sell-side. You'll benefit far more from an advisor who has also worked the buy-side (e.g., Corporate Development, Investment Banking, or Private Equity). They can help apply the buyer's lens during the run-up to an exit.
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Candice Tait, CGMA, PhD
Dispute Buddy • 2K followers
Shit in = shit out 💩 (are we allowed to swear on here?!) Sorry to be the one to say it, but if your bookkeeper isn’t thinking about how you’ll use your financial data strategically… you are 100% going to end up in a mess. I know this because every single founder who has come to me for help preparing for investment has had their financial records in complete disarray. And you know what this does: ➡️ It costs you MORE money to fix. Yup more money. ➡️ It slows you down b/c you have to spend time fixing things before you can get any value from your accounts to talk strategy. ➡️ If you don't find errors, the investor's analyst will and this will slow you down even further and worse, could become bargaining power when it comes to negotiation. Bookkeeping is by far one of the most important jobs in your finance department because it is the foundation on which you: 💰 Determine whether your business is financially viable 💰 Make decisions about driving sales or hiring a new team member 💰 Decide whether you launch in a new geographical location 💰 Raise investment, apply for grants or apply for bank funding The list can go on and on. I'm honestly just frustrated with the quality of bookkeeping in general and I'm sorry founders have to go through such a painful process. The best advice I can give to every single founder out there is this: 🚨 When you hire a bookkeeper, or outsource to an agency, ask them one question: ''Do you understand how accurate accounting connects to financial strategy and raising investment?'' Because most bookkeepers are focused on compliance. Tax returns. GST. BAS. And yes that's fine but it's NOT enough. If this is a pain point for you, reach out. I'd love to help.
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Hayat Amin
Terra Maris Capital • 6K followers
Your valuation is shaped before diligence starts. Founders who can show protected know-how, repeatable revenue logic, and clean operating leverage walk into fundraising with more control. Investors are not just pricing today’s ARR. They are pricing defensibility, margin expansion, and how hard you are to copy. That is why patents, licensing rights, and fractional executive depth matter more than most decks admit. They change the risk story. And when the risk story improves, leverage usually follows. Too many startups treat moats as branding. I think moats should show up in valuation math—do you agree?Your valuation is shaped before diligence starts. Founders who can show protected know-how, repeatable revenue logic, and clean operating leverage walk into fundraising with more control. Investors are not just pricing today’s ARR. They are pricing defensibility, margin expansion, and how hard you are to copy. That is why patents, licensing rights, and fractional executive depth matter more than most decks admit. They change the risk story. And when the risk story improves, leverage usually follows. Too many startups treat moats as branding. I think moats should show up in valuation math—do you agree?
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Rohini Jain
BILL • 2K followers
The CFO role isn’t strictly a finance-only job anymore. The best finance leaders I know think like operators. They understand how products are built, how systems actually work, and how decisions show up on the ground - not just in a spreadsheet (although I will always love spreadsheets!) My path to CFO crossed manufacturing, e-commerce, and fintech, and that mix shaped how I lead: focus on outcomes, not activity. That mindset matters even more now as AI takes on more of the “how,” and finance leaders step deeper into judgment, tradeoffs, and strategy. My advice for early-career finance professionals: ▶️ Build operating muscle ▶️ Learn how product and systems really work ▶️ Take roles that stretch you beyond finance Thanks to CFO.com and Sandra Beckwith for the conversation. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gvPcCwFj
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