PUBLIC COMPANY CFO OF THE YEAR FINALISTS
VANCE CHANG
CFO
Beyond Meat
As executive sponsor, Lubi Kutua initi-ated an ongoing comprehensive digital transformation effort at Beyond Meat to establish, redesign or significantly improve the company’s core business processes that drive systems utilization and automation. This initiative is expected to enable substantially greater, real-time visibility into the company’s operating performance, supporting long-term scalability and leadership decision-making, while reducing manual work and multiple “sources of truth” across the company. Kutua has successfully overseen a mean-ingful reduction in the company’s cash consumption since assuming the CFO role (including achievement of the company’s first ever quarter of positive free cash flow generation) and laying the ongoing ground-work for sustained margin improvement. Kutua also led the impact analysis that informed the company’s and the board’s per-spective during the negotiation and eventual signing of Beyond Meat’s two largest global strategic partnerships with McDonald’s and Yum! Brands.
CHERRIE TEVES
CFO
Princess Polly
In 2022, a decline in business was expe-rienced at Princess Polly. The company had to do a round of layoffs. As the leader managing both the finance and business ana-lytics team, Cherrie Teves was faced with the challenge of letting go of resources in finance and business analytics while continuing to support the business and provide stability and balance for the team. Teves developed an automation strate-gy, reviewing all processes and reporting to assess pros and cons of each. She also worked to improve overall communication in the organization to not only get buy-in from leaders on areas needed for cost savings but also partner with those leaders so that the cuts are not only a decision driven by finance but a decision shared by all. Teves currently oversees the Finance and Business Analytics teams which were built when she joined the organization.
TIMOTHY YARBROUGH
CFO
ZipRecruiter
Tim Yarbrough has been with ZipRecruiter for eight years and joined the company as a VP of finance when the company was doing roughly $200 million in revenue. Yar-brough has received three promotions since he joined ZipRecruiter and has been the company’s CFO for the past 1.5 years. Yarbrough played a key role in ZipRecruiter’s direct listing to the NYSE; has been directly involved and helped lead fund-raising; structured an impressive deal to raise $550 million in a high yield bond at a 5.5% interest rate; and partnered with PwC to ensure company operated efficiently as a first year public company. He has also successfully implemented SOX 404 with great reviews from auditors. Under his stewardship, the company accounting team’s close is three to four days and is highly efficient. The compa-ny’s 2021 revenue was $740 million and 2022 was $905 million.
PRIVATE COMPANY CFO OF THE YEAR (ENTERPRISE) FINALISTS
NADIM ABI MALHAB
CFO
Karl Storz Endoscopy-America, Inc.
As Karl Storz Endoscopy-America’s CFO, Nadim Abi Malhab was able to reduce the month end close from 10 days to 2 days. Since joining the company the audit has trimmed down from 3.5 months to 2.5 months. He brought in an RPA tool to streamline multiple processes. Also, Abi Malhab and his team implemented a cash application implementation through AI. He heavily invested in building data analytics capabilities. He created automated dashboard for financial reporting with his custom build out through tableau. Abi Malhab grew Karl Storz’s new busi-ness unit “financing business” 45% from 2021 to 2022. He has supported the com-pany’s sustainable growth over market. Top line has achieved 7% while creating a 10% leverage in the cost structure. He also drove Karl Storz’s financing business unit bookings growth by 16% and designed and rolled out innovative commercial acquisition models.
DANIEL LEVIN
Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer
Oaktree Capital Management, L.P.
David Levin is the chief financial officer for Oaktree. He also serves as co-chair of the Management Committee and chair of the Balance Sheet Sub-Committee that oversees the deployment of the firm’s cash and investments. Among Levin’s recent notable achieve-ments has been his work redesigning the corporate finance teams’ operating models aligned with the further implementation of an ERP to enhance the effectiveness and effi-ciency of Oaktree’s corporate activities. He also centralized various functions such as for-eign exchange, fund treasury and private deal operations to improve execution, enhance efficiency and reduce risk. He oversaw the integration of the company’s technology, data and reporting functions into a new Infor-mation Solutions group focused on deliver-ing strategic insights to both internal and external stakeholders. He also sponsored the significant improvement of the CFO Organi-zation employee experience.
VIDHYASHANKARAN (VID) SHIVARAMAN
Chief Financial Officer
PIH Health
Vidhyashankaran (Vid) Shivaraman MHA is chief financial officer at PIH Health, a nonprofit, regional healthcare network with three hospitals, outpatient medical offic-es, and a multispecialty medical (physician) group that serves approximately three million residents in the Los Angeles County, Orange County and San Gabriel Valley region. As PIH Health’s chief financial officer, a position he has held since 2021, Shivaraman oversees enterprise finance, decision support, supply chain, revenue cycle, managed care contracting, and real estate of the health sys-tem with a budget of well over $1.7 billion. Most recently, he led PIH Health’s financial recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, overturning losses and leading to a positive margin. Shivaraman has also initiated strate-gic growth expansion projects for PIH Health including leading the development of the organization’s current real estate to improve cash flow and leading contracting efforts around health plan.
CHARLES THUSS
CFO
Inter-Con Security
During his three years at Inter-Con, Charles Thuss transformed Finance & Accounting to a forward looking, value-added team by mentoring new leaders and inspiring and supporting his team to work with their peers and customers. Working with key team leaders for Accounting, Trea-sury, FP&A, Billing and Collections, Tax and International operations to improve each group’s individual skills, Thuss has helped his team learn to better communicate with their peers and company leadership through the use of data and emotional intelligence in a positive environment of accountability and continuous improvement. In 2023, Thuss coached his F&A team to build and tell the Inter-Con story which led to a new record-setting $160 million line of credit agreement. Having achieved record sales in its highly profitable commercial sec-tor, the financial results were only starting to reflect the strength of these new service contracts.
PRIVATE COMPANY CFO OF THE YEAR (MID-SIZED) FINALISTS
DAMIAN GANCMAN
CFO / COO
Cityview
As 19-year veteran of Cityview that serves as CFO, COO, partner and member of its investment committee, Damian Gancman is integral to Cityview’s success as the decade’s most active multifamily developer in Los Angeles. Under Gancman’s financial and operational leadership, Cityview has invested in more than 130 projects to date. Over the past year, as debt expirations approached in a volatile market, Gancman managed and executed new loan origina-tions, refinancings and loan modifications totaling $500 million. He also worked to expand joint venture and investor rela-tionships to set the firm up for success and capitalize on market opportunities through 2024 and into 2025. In 2023, Gancman was also instrumental in the closing of Cityview’s seventh discretionary fund focusing on mul-tifamily value-add and development oppor-tunities in gateway markets throughout the US. He helped create strategic initiatives to support Cityview’s rapid growth, including the launch of Cityview’s opportunity zone fund platform.
ANN KE
Chief of Finances / Chief of Operations
Cancer and Blood Specialty Clinic
Ann Ke has had a transformative impact on Cancer and Blood Specialty Clinic’s success. The organization has consistently experienced incremental growth, and most recently doubled its gross revenue between 2020 through 2023. Ke’s efforts in establish-ing a robust company structure, policies, and procedures have significantly improved oper-ational efficiency and customer service. Ke has also focused on enhancing employ-ee benefits and infrastructure, securing com-prehensive medical, dental, vision, and 401k plans. She has bolstered employee support by providing additional central services, ensur-ing that staff is well-equipped to perform their roles effectively. Her commitment to the team is evident through initiatives aimed at enhancing employee well-being and pro-fessional growth. She has diversified revenue streams by spearheading initiatives to obtain ACHC accreditation and MIPS compliance, aligning the Clinic with pharmacy and Medi-care regulations. Also, her work in clinical trials and research has generated additional gross revenue and elevated quality of care.
ROB LEFF
CFO
Nativo
Rob Leff, who serves as chief financial officer for Nativo, has raised $17 million in specialty financing from capital IP to be able to invest in Nativo’s next stage of growth. Among his other achievements has been his work refinancing an East West Bank asset backed loan to provide additional liquidity and flexibility to the business. He and his team have upgraded business intelli-gence capabilities so that they now have real time dashboards on all key metrics for every revenue stream with drill down capabilities to dive down into client and sales person level with BI reporting capabilities. This allows them to see at any point what’s happening. Leff has also managed the business’ financ-es to grow top line 15-20% in a relatively flat market. He has also performed a significant amount of Salesforce system implementations with Gong, Ripple and LinkedIn – and has upgraded GTM capabilities.
EUGENE MOORCROFT
CFO
Servicon Systems, Inc.
Over the last several years, Servicon’s growth has accelerated beyond any other point in its history, with the company doubling in size in a short few years. Eugene Moorcroft was hired as the company control-ler during the pandemic. He demonstrated such capability in that role that he was quickly promoted to CFO. He was tasked with transforming the finance function within the organization from a mid-market, founder-driven company to one that can successfully manage and direct the growth of a national operation. This operation includes several thousand employees, various state regulations, union contracts, and different vertical market sectors with varying levels of compliance and more. He has come up against internal resis-tance – an organization that is eager to learn and grow, but often defers to habits from its less professionalized past – and has navigated that with patience, adaptability, and a stead-fast commitment to the company’s family- oriented, people-first culture.
PRIVATE COMPANY CFO OF THE YEAR (EMERGING) FINALISTS
JASON CRAYNE
CFO
Criteria
Jason Crayne is an experienced financial and operational executive with 19 years of work experience. He specializes in management consulting, mergers and acqui-sitions, finance, process improvement, and acquisitions integration. Now serving as CFO of Criteria, Crayne has a strong track record of helping organizations achieve business goals. Crayne believes in finding and developing great people who work together to achieve success. His areas of expertise include finan-cial operations, management, and reporting, M&A and corporate development, opera-tional and financial improvement, systems implementation, debt financing, and capital raising. At Criteria, he has led reorganiza-tion planning for the full business including a 25% expense and headcount reduction resulting in an immediate pivot to sustained EBITDA profitability. He also sponsored AI investments including authorization of incremental budget authority to spend on AI “proof of concept” projects.
SEAN CUNNINGHAM
Chief Financial Officer
Integrated Capital Management
Sean Cunningham is a highly accom-plished CFO with more than three decades of financial management experience in the real estate investment, development, and property management industry. Today he serves as CFO for Inte-grated Capital Management, a company that represents certain US commercial real estate investment interests of the Disney family and numerous other affluent households around the world, as well as multiple registered investment advisors, high net worth individ-uals and foreign capital sources. As CFO, Cunningham oversees all aspects of the firm’s financial functions including fund accounting and control, investor back office, reporting, SEC and FINRA compliance, insurance, audit and tax matters, and corporate finance activities. Cunningham is part of Integrated Capital Management’s leadership team and played an instrumental role in the launch of the com-pany’s debut private equity real estate fund, which was oversubscribed with more than $30 million in equity commitments.
JOE STILPHEN
CFO
Reel Paper
Joe Stilphen is the CFO and COO at Reel Paper. Under his leadership in 2023, net sales grew 25%, gross profit grew 100%, and gross margin percentage points grew by 20. All of these results were achieved with spending less money than in 2022. He instilled a strong focus on operational discipline, starting up the entire budgeting program, implementing a FP&A strategy to maintain, track and hold people accountable to different budgets. He put cost savings ini-tiatives in place for every supplier that Reel worked with, talking about reduction in cost and scaling efficiencies as they grow. These actions led to the huge growth and contribu-tion margin shown. Stilphen put in place sales channel guide-lines on what price Reel was willing to sell at to which channel, in order to optimize margin and profit. This system to optimize revenue and profit didn’t exist before his arrival to Reel.
ROBERT WARD
CFO
Fry Reglet
Fry Reglet’s CFO Robert Ward oversees finance, IT and purchasing for Fry Reglet. Upon arrival, he looked at backend security and updated and changed the level and responsibility of IT in size and complexity of department. He brought in Power BI and emerging technologies. In the last year he brought on a qualified programmer to bring in a proprietary system to help bring custom-ers the fastest in the industry. Ward also brought in costing software to bring Fry Reglet up to speed. On the finance side, he has created SOPs and inserted them into the organization. He also added pur-chasing into the fold at the company in 2023 so he can redefine the purchase process. He stepped in to cover the operational void left by a change in the company’s VP of Opera-tions role, focusing on process improvement and inventory accuracy.
STARTUP CFO OF THE YEAR FINALISTS
GREG GILBERT
CFO
The Lance Collins’ Companies (ZenWTR | MyMuse Organic | Casa Azul Spirits | Beyond Plastic | Core Foods | Recover180)
the Lance Collins portfolio of companies are six venture start-ups founded by bever-age entrepreneur Lance Collins, including ZenWTR; the first ever premium water brand packaged in ocean bound plastic; MyMuse Organic inspired sodas; Casa Azul organic pre-mium tequila and tequila sodas; Core Foods refrigerated snacks and bars; Recover180 organic sports drinks; and Beyond Plastic, a cutting edge bioplastic R&D business transforming single use plastic with patented 100% marine biodegradable plastic alternatives. Greg Gilbert joined Lance in April 2023 amid a myriad of business challenges. Gilbert was instrumental in transformation of these businesses, which included co-leading multiple capital rounds, including two founder’s rounds for all businesses culminating in over $50 million raised during 2023-2024. He also created a reimagined shared services function (finance, HR, accounting, legal, governance); hiring nine headcount and relocating the team to Long Beach from Orange County to better align with business needs.
STASY PASTERICK
CFO
Universal Hydrogen
stasy Pasterick serves as the first CFO of Uni-versal Hydrogen, a VC backed company with the mission to decarbonize aviation. As former CFO of Nikola, Pasterick came in to create a professional finance organization and provide the business tools needed to become financially disciplined and financially aware. As a capital intensive start up in the pre-revenue R&D phase, Pasterick has made these strides with limited resources. Pasterick elevated the finance organization and executives from simply being in the business and helped them to work on the business. The company didn’t have detailed cash forecasting and Pasterick implemented a 13 week cash forecasting immediately. This allowed her to provide the executive team business visibility which has helped them create a timeline for stra-tegic actions. She also implemented zero based budgeting to help with timeline development to manage revenue and spend.
NONPROFIT & PUBLIC SERVICE CFO OF THE YEAR FINALISTS
HUNTER PALETSAS
Global Chief Financial Officer
Motion Picture Association
As global CFO for the Motion Picture Association (MPA), Hunter Paletsas’ objective is to make sure he maintains a good relationship with the CFOs of the lead-ing studios, so they’re aligned and understand the ROI on their investment in the MPA, which is substantial. Paletsas is always thinking of ways to continuously improve – making things better and more efficient. In addition to MPA’s finance and accounting, the IT team also reports to Paletsas. He has worked hard to upgrade the association’s IT systems and business processes to be leading-edge. He is currently implementing global workflow and project management tools, communication tools, as well as a new general ledger this year. He has also introduced a global cor-porate card and payment programs to give departments access to real-time budget data. Paletsas is also evaluating options to optimize the MPA’s legal entity structure, identifying ways to further every dollar’s impact.
DENNIS SANTIAGO
CFO
New Community Investments
Since joining the New Community Invest-ments team in 2023, Dennis Santiago has taken on the critical tasks of developing and overseeing the company’s budget and financial forecasts, ensuring they align seam-lessly with strategic goals. His commitment to accurate and timely financial reporting has been crucial for informed decision-making at the executive level. Moreover, his efforts to identify inefficiencies and implement process improvements have streamlined financial operations, leading to substantial cost reduc-tions without compromising quality. He has strengthened and improved the organization’s financial stability as a community lending institution. His initiatives have directly contributed to revenue growth, positioning New Community Investments for long-term success.
EDWARD SWALLOW
Senior Vice President; Chief Operating Officer; Chief Financial Officer / Treasurer
The Aerospace Corporation
Ed Swallow is the senior vice president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer / treasurer at The Aerospace Corporation, an El Segundo-based nonprofit with $1 billion in revenue and more than 4,200 employees nationwide. As Aerospace’s CFO, Swallow is leading his sixth business transfor-mation during a critical time for its customers, such as the US Space Force and NASA. With the increasing presence of China and Russia in space, as well as with the democratization and commercialization of space nationally and around the world, the US’ needs have shifted dramatically. Aero-space has had to transform its business and financial operations to meet this modern demand. As CFO, Swallow has been the leader tasked with this responsibility – piv-oting to mission outcomes like ensuring the warfighter has the information needed to succeed.
EMERGING LEADER OF THE YEAR FINALISTS
CHRISTOPHER CRAWLEY
Chief Financial Officer
Hofman Hospitality Group
While the Hofman family have success-fully run Hofman Hospitality Group for decades, they are forward-thinking and knew they needed to change and modernize to compete and succeed in today’s environ-ment. To revamp the company’s infrastruc-ture, systems and processes, and perhaps most importantly, guide the entire team to new ways of doing things, the owners brought in Christopher Crawley as the new CFO. The Hofman Group hired Crawley because he is a highly experienced finance professional with extensive expertise
in finance, accounting and technology implementation and management, and his leadership style is optimistic, adaptable and flexible, and he’s honed his ability to bring people together, communicate well and man-age through change while helping set people at ease. Crawley’s impressive achievements since then have improved the company’s bottom line and operating systems, but per-haps even more importantly, was the change management he led from a cultural level for the organization.
KELLAN DAHLQUIST
CFO
72andSunny
When Kellan Dahlquist started in 2019, 72andSunny was at an inflection point – the advertising industry was changing significantly from a large retainer model with clients to much more project-based engagements. The company learned how to manage utilization and billability in this new environment – instead of a customer fully buying out a team, they now had to manage their teams much more closely to ensure they were billable, successful, and maintaining high service. Among other improvements, Dahlquist helped spearhead an increase in tooling and education. The team implemented a system called Kantata, formerly known as Mavenlink, to give real time data to depart-ment heads and account leaders on how they are managing their teams. It provided visualization and other tools that didn’t exist previously. Prior to this, the team would build models and dashboards in Excel that were not updated in real-time.
NATALIE TESTA
Vice President, Finance
Jadu AR Inc.
Jadu AR is a mobile augmented reality game studio. The entity was established in 2019, and Natalie Testa joined the company in October 2021 as employee number 13. Today, the company employs 45 team members and has recently launched its first global product. As vice president of finance, Testa plays the role of an ‘eagle.’ She takes all aspects of finance, operations and HR man-agement under her wings. Testa excels at traditional financial duties such as creating and maintaining budgets and forecast models, identifying cost savings, conducting treasury planning, overseeing financial reporting, and providing timely and actionable reporting for Jadu AR’s C-suite and Board of Directors. From day one, Testa made an impact by setting up processes, establishing strategic relationships with sup-pliers, and procuring insurance policies to protect the company. Across the entire busi-ness, Testa balances today’s requirements and tasks with planning for future success.
JORDAN WEITZEN
Chief Financial Officer
Pacvue, Inc.
As CFO, Jordan Weitzen has played an instrumental role in driving Pacvuve’s success across various fronts, showcasing exceptional leadership and strategic acumen. In his capacity, Weitzen oversees a broad spectrum of critical functions including financial planning and analysis; accounting; corporate development; legal; business intel-ligence; security; and IT/business systems. Under Weitzen’s guidance, Pacvue has witnessed remarkable growth and operational enhancements. In his inaugural year, Weitzen spearheaded initiatives that resulted in a stag-gering 30% revenue growth, an over 300% increase in EBITDA (with margin expansion of 22 percentage points), and a 200% increase in operating cash flow margins. Weitzen has also been pivotal in fostering a culture of strategic alignment and decision-making. He initiated and led the establishment of a struc-tured cadence of operating meetings, facilitat-ing focused discussions on key strategic initia-tives with the CEO and COO in addition to the regularly scheduled operating discussions with the entire leadership team.
TURNAROUND ACHIEVEMENT CFO OF THE YEAR FINALISTS
ERIC CHEN
Chief Financial Officer
Pacific Production Services LLC
pacific Production Services provides film permitting services for a wide range of clients and events. Eric Chen joined two years ago when the company hit the lowest point in its 35 year history. COVID-19 shut down the entertainment industry and cut off Pacific Production Services’ primary revenue stream. When the world started to emerge from the global pandemic, the Hollywood Writers’ and Actors’ strikes prevented the revival of film production. Chen took charge to stand up a complex ERP, right-sized the accounting team, rede-signed the operating platform, drove multi-stage operation optimization and helped find alternative revenue streams, turning the company around from both financial and operating standpoint. Chen has many responsibilities, including raising funds, business strategy, financial planning, investor relations, compliance, risk management, day-to-day accounting and tax planning. He has made a tremendous impact, with revenue projected to increase from $8 million in 2023 to $17 million for 2024.
CAMERON STEWART
CFO
West Coast Fitness LLC
in December 2020, amidst the challenging onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Camer-on Stewart joined West Coast Fitness and its private equity owner, Castenea Partners of Boston, as chief financial officer. The timing was pivotal, occurring just after a significant leveraged buyout that doubled the company’s size to 47 Orangetheory franchises across California and Ohio. The pandemic forced closures and operational restrictions that drastically impacted operations, including complete closures of all California locations for 18 months and a staggering reduction in workforce, affecting 600 employees. When Stewart stepped into the CFO role, his first actions were to establish financial transparency by producing detailed loca-tion-level financials and assessing the total corporate cash burn rate. After 3.5 years of relentless effort, West Coast Fitness has emerged more resilient and profitable, with revenues exceeding $55 million. Membership levels have rebounded to 75% of pre-COVID levels, and the workforce has been almost fully reinstated.
MARC SUIDAN
CFO
Backblaze (Formerly Beachbody/BODi)
At Beachbody, Marc Suidan has led a massive cost restructuring that has reduced the revenue break even from over $900 million to under $500 million. Impressively, and under Suidan’s guidance, the company created $250 million of cost savings in two years on a revenue base of $527 million in 2023. This was all accomplished without negatively impacting the company’s growth prospects. Under Suidan’s fiscal stewardship, the organization has been launching numerous revenue generating initiatives that are repo-sitioning the company to grow at much lower sales and marketing costs, including a new freemium model, and the ability to purchase the content without being limited to a sub-scription only model. A turnaround is not just about cutting costs, but also re position-ing the product for growth. The company’s tech is seeing great adoption, with it being, for example, named the 2023 “best fitness and workout app” by CNN.
JOHN YOO
CFO
Evite
John Yoo took a business that barely broke even to now generating over multiple millions in profit every month. When Yoo was recruited to become CFO of Evite, the company was struggling and still trying to navigate through COVID which decimated the business. User activity had declined by over 90%. When Yoo joined Evite in September of 2022, he rebuilt FPA, Accounting, Tax, and Analytics. He fixed all of the systems and workflow via Oracle Netsuite so Evite could enable an audit process. He hired a new all-star Finance team, and his impact on the overall culture is felt business-wide. He worked directly with the CTO to optimize the invitation template which resulted in a massive improvement in event conversion. He changed Analytics by helping establish accurate reporting, including vital testing data, enabling the Product team to deliver record adoption in Evite’s Premium product, driving record revenue.
PRIVATE COMPANY CFO OF THE YEAR (LARGE) FINALISTS
STEWART ARMSTRONG
Chief Financial Officer
Mission Cloud
Stewart Armstrong has significantly impacted his current company’s success through innovative leadership and clear communication. One of his notable achieve-ments is creating, along with his team, a financial model that empowers the company to manage the business effectively. This model provides a robust framework for financial planning and decision-making. Armstrong’s approach to communication sets him apart as a leader. He conveys com-plex financial information in a personable and easily understandable manner, avoiding jargon and speaking in relatable terms. This clear and straightforward communication style helps all employees, regardless of their financial expertise, grasp the company’s financial status and objectives, fostering a more informed and engaged workforce. Armstrong leads his team to provide clear and useful insights. By encouraging his team to think creatively and analytically, he ensures that the organization benefits from well-rounded and actionable recommendations.
MARC GOLDBERG
CFO
Partner Engineering and Science, Inc.
,arc Goldberg has dramatically impacted Partner’s current success by implement-ing several new initiatives such as collaborating with IT for expanded cybersecurity protocols; his visionary thinking and strategic approach has transformed Partner’s data management system; and spearheading acqui-sitions and incubating the newest Partner valuation advisor’s exponential growth of four employees to more than 80 in less than a year. Goldberg, as a cyber policy thought leader in the commercial real estate industry, has implemented a range of protocols to safe-guard the organization from cyber and fraud threats. These measures aim to practice sensitive client and employee data, financial assets, and mitigate potential reputational, financial, and legal risks. Protocols he has implemented collectively work towards establishing a robust cybersecurity framework within the organization, protecting sensitive data, financial asset, and reducing the poten-tial for reputational and financial losses.
JENNIFER LOO
Chief Financial Officer
Tala
As the first chief financial officer of Tala, Jennifer Loo plays a key role in ensuring the company’s long-term profitability while providing financial access to the global majority. Prior to Tala, 52% of the world’s population was overlooked by existing finan-cial systems, leaving $10 trillion in untapped economic potential. Loo is at the forefront of helping Tala unlock this potential by deliv-ering core financial services such as instant access to credit, savings, and payment trans-actions through a seamless mobile app. Loo manages a global team of 40 across six countries, oversees the company’s capital markets efforts, leads the development and expansion of Tala’s service portfolio, and manages equity and debt fundraising. Loo’s strategic counsel, data-driven strategy, and customer-centric approach have been pivotal in helping the company navigate the pan-demic and major macroeconomic shocks – a feat many fintech companies have struggled with – while growing the business and sup-porting continuous innovation.
NICOLE MALOZI
CFO
BeautyCounter
Nicole Malozi joined BeautyCounter in June 2023. The company was under financial pressures as operating expenses continued to increase year over year at
a greater rate than a revenue decline. In the first three months, Malozi reviewed all expenses and cash out flows. She reduced operating expenses by $15 million, by making surgical reductions in professional fees, low ROAS marketing initiatives and unnecessary temp resources. She also implemented inven-tory and non-inventory PO process reviews. She asked the planning teams to cancel early stage inventory POs and to phase receipt of upcoming POs to meet demand and this gen-erated $10 million in working capital savings and reduced YE inventory balance from $29 million to $18 million. Malozi also worked with HR to review the headcount in all departments and by lever-aging insights from prior companies, they reduced headcount by 32%. Malozi also reset the business plan and achieved the revised, realistic forecast.
MOST INNOVATIVE FINANCE TEAM FINALISTS
MURAD
Tosupport long term growth within the Murad brand, April Houlehan has imple-mented foundational solutions to solidify the backbone of the organization. She imme-diately assessed the inventory position of the brand and initiated many new processes and controls. In particular, she kickstarted a project with IT to build out an automated database of inventory at 26 manufacturing locations and tied this to the internal demand plan to streamline visibility into expiration and excess. Houlehan currently owns FP&A, Accounting and Global Data Analytics. She drives her team to be knowledgeable in all three arenas; ensuring the team members are true business partners, rather than support functions. To do this, she cross trains the teams by assigning special projects outside their normal daily functions, assigns spe-cialized online training such as Power BI development, and injects her team in cross functional meetings to serve as subject matter experts across the organization.
ZEFR, INC.
At Zefr, Inc., head of finance Stephanie Kraft has played a pivotal role managing significant restructuring initiatives and oversaw three major M&A transactions, securing the company’s profitability and growth. Her innovative financial modeling and optimization of financial systems using tools like NetSuite and Salesforce exemplify her strategic thinking and technical expertise. Under Kraft’s leadership, the teams she oversees have been instrumental in driving continuous improvement and innovation across the organization. By leveraging a combination of strategic foresight and hands-on execution, Zefr’s finance teams have implemented a myriad of initiatives aimed at streamlining processes, introducing new pro-tocols, and harnessing emerging technologies to propel the organization forward. One sig-nificant achievement has been the introduc-tion of streamlined processes in Accounting, Finance, HR, and Facilities, which have not only optimized efficiency but also enhanced cross-functional collaboration. Additionally, the team has been at the forefront of adopting and integrating new technologies and tools.
