Helping a Start-Up Secure Their First CFO

CFO| Full Time | Technology

The Client

A privately held and rapidly growing early-stage tech organization (The Client) in the commercial real estate and automation space.  The Client was highly entrepreneurial and had a fast-paced culture that required the ability to pivot to new priorities on a regular and unpredictable basis.

The Challenge

The Client was under the leadership of two co-founders, who were focused on strategic and tactical business growth and day-to-day finance & accounting was led by a strong finance director. However, the company lacked strategic financial leadership for growth, and lacked expertise in capital raising. They therefore needed their first CFO to take their business to the next level.

AUTHOR

Steve Rosen

Principal

Steve is a Principal in the Executive Search & Interim Management practice at B. Riley Farber. He brings a depth of experience from a long career in finance and accounting with Fortune 100 as well as smaller firms; more recently he has focused his experience in the search industry.

The Solution

We mapped a broad range of candidates with experience in the industry, as well as adjacent industries including software, SaaS, and automation hardware. We introduced a total of seven candidates in two tranches. One standout candidate brought relevant technical experience, deep capital-raising expertise, and key relationships, on both the debt and equity sides. While his salary expectations were significantly higher than our original target compensation, The Client was able to recognize the value he would bring and found a way to bridge the gap, utilizing both short term and additional long-term incentives. This was a perfect example of finding a way to make it work for the right candidate and to start the relationship off well with the right compensation structure.

The Outcome

The new CFO quickly took the lead on the capital raising activities, allowing the founders to return their focus to their areas of expertise—technology improvements and client acquisition.  The CFO was able to introduce the firm to new sources of capital based on his prior experience, upgraded reporting both internally and externally and is now focused on the next big round of growth. In the end, The Client got exactly what they needed from a new strategically minded CFO, a qualified candidate to take the lead on finance, strategy, and capital raising while they focus on the product and customers.