Context

A founder-led ecommerce business, post second PE round, with aggressive EBITDA targets and a defined three-year path to a potential public offering. With no historical financial benchmarks and a newly formed board, the company needed its first CFO — a leader capable of bringing institutional discipline to a rapidly scaling environment without slowing growth.

The Mandate

Secure a CFO with prior experience in high-growth, low-infrastructure environments, including a track record of taking a company public. The profile required the credibility to partner with the founder-CEO and a newly formed C-suite, the rigour to embed financial discipline ahead of IPO readiness, and the pragmatism to do both at pace.

Our Approach

We aligned with the board, CEO, and functional leaders to codify the mandate into a scored evaluation rubric covering technical capability, IPO experience, and cultural adaptability. The market map spanned ecommerce, consumer, SaaS, and digital-first companies, prioritising candidates who had scaled organisations from early-stage growth to public-company readiness. Long-list development, structured screening, and stakeholder alignment ran in parallel to keep pace with the board's timeline.

The Outcome

A PE-experienced finalist slate was presented within 45 days. The placed CFO had previously led a company through a successful IPO and brought the financial discipline and governance maturity the business required.