It's What's Next...

In February of this year, I stepped back as COO from start-up number four for me, GoFor Industries, where I had the absolute pleasure of working with some of the most talented and driven people in my career. Brad Rollo and the operating team we built together with Raj, Bob Burk and Paul have accomplished one of the rarest of feats – validating a SaaS marketplace (in last-mile logistics) and scaling to north of $1 million MRR and in doing so attracting a syndicate of amazing venture capital partners...and now – well, hold on, that’s a story for Brad, Chris and team to continue telling and it’s going to be amazing to watch. 

After four start-ups inside ten years, it was time for me personally to step back and reassess life, the universe and what's next. I frankly needed to focus on my own humanity, sanity, health and wellness and that of all those whom I hold dear. A global pandemic was also a forcing function that afforded me the opportunity to reflect here at midlife on what matters most and where I want to spend time and energy in the years ahead. And while it’s been a wonderful and well-needed pause in my journey, it’s time to grow again and continue learning, being challenged and building. 

While afforded a number of really compelling "what's next" opportunities to work alongside some great teams doing interesting work – from autonomous heavy lift logistics, a LEO IoT solution stack backed by SpaceX and even a very cool B2B patent marketplace – I felt most compelled to pursue paths that would allow me to help other entrepreneurs succeed in building their own businesses, and at the intersections that matters most in my experience; 

#1 – A high functioning, transparent and reliable finance and FP&A function. You simply can't raise, nor responsibly deploy, capital without one and it's messy and mostly antiquated today. I want to make that better. 

#2 - Access to capital (the right capital) 

I wanted to do both of these. So instead of choosing between one or the other, I'm doing both...

I'm excited and privileged to join founders Jason Burke, Jeff Stoss and Paul Brown at Positive Venture Group. Founded here in Ottawa in 2015, PVG has become a leading Finance-as-a-Service (FaaS) provider serving technology-focused early and growth-stage businesses across North America and Europe. Jason and his team have built an extensible FaaS cloud stack with Oracle NetSuite as the foundation. Coupled with an amazing team of CPAs and CFO's, their finance professionals are delivering turn-key outsourced finance solutions and strategic advisory services to a growing list of amazing and diverse clients. Providing NetSuite in a SaaS model puts the industry's #1 ERP within easy reach of early-stage businesses coupled with the experience to implement and scale the finance function in step with revenue and complexity. As Jason profiled in his recent post I believe FaaS represents the "best practice" future for the finance function in early and growth-stage businesses. 

In the last few years, I've seen an expectation gap between investors and operating teams around the finance function. Early and growth-stage investors are sophisticated. They are becoming increasingly accustomed to – and demand – real-time business KPI's, financial reporting and FP&A outputs. Founders and their leadership teams, especially those seeking external investment, need to understand that core product/solution innovation needs to be built alongside a tightly coupled back-office stack and FP&A capability. Investors want to see lean finance operations (and expect it) but with the same level of capability as mature businesses. That is only possible (and affordable) with a FaaS partner like PVG. 

In the "Chief Growth Officer" role I will work with the PVG team to prepare and further scale the business, work with our growing network of technology, banking, tax and private/venture equity partners along with our product & platform team to define the evolution of the FaaS cloud stack while helping our clients with a range of capital access and business strategy challenges. More to come in the weeks ahead - watch this space.

In addition, I'm stepping into a Venture Partner role with Ligo Partners, where our multi-family office, under the leadership of Alec Andronikov, has been transformed over the last two years from a successful private office into a global network of hundreds of FO/MFO's. I will be working with our growing team of associates and venture partners to co-invest into disruptive tech-focused deal flow sourced from alliance relationships with top venture capital firm and angel networks globally. Our investment thesis is highly prescriptive but our ability to find and surface underexposed and difficult-to-access deal flow is driving successful outcomes for entrepreneurs. Dead stop. We're helping businesses grow. 

So grateful for the opportunities and experiences that lie ahead...