ThriveGrowth

Providing Fractional CFO services to various startups in Fintech, SaaS, E-commerce, Digital Marketing, and Sustainability.

Highlights:
•	Built 20+ financial models, resulting in $10m+ investments and an acquisition.
•	Collaborated with startups to extend runway by an average of four and a half months.
•	Advised on metrics dashboards, enhancing Founder understanding of unit economics.
•	Guided startups in successful completion of Seed rounds.
•	Led incorporation of India "tech hub" entity and UK office setup for an Australian fintech, including FCA license application.
•	Raised venture debt funding, extended Fintech startup's runway.
•	Advised on share option schemes using Seedlegals and Vestd.
•	Implemented financial tech stacks for scalable growth.
•	Assisted startups in expanding their operations to the US market, providing strategic guidance and overseeing the successful establishment of US subsidiaries.

Fractional CFO

SHAY CPA P.C.

Fractional CFO helping investment backed companies with a range of services from financial modelling, fundraising to systems and processes.

NatWest Accelerator

The NatWest Accelerator supports and empowers UK entrepreneurs to scale their businesses to the next level.

Mentor

Wilbe | Home for entrepreneurial scientists

Wilbe educates, builds and invests in scientists solving some of the world's hardest problems. Based in London, Wilbe works with scientists from leading research hubs from Cambridge, Imperial, Oxford in the UK to Max Planck in German.

Finance Lead

Highview Power

Highview Power is a technology company which has developed the CryoBattery, a proprietary solution to extending wind and solar energy throughout the day. The company is now positioned to roll out the technology on a commercial basis. Involved from the very early stages to c. £200m valuation.

•	Raised £55m (equity and debt) over 5 rounds, with thorough investor engagement and due diligence.
•	Pioneered go-to-market strategy for proprietary CryoBattery technology.
•	Secured £22m grant funding for commercial and innovation efforts.
•	Developed finance, legal, IT, HR functions to sustain growth.
•	Implemented scalable systems including Xero, Receipt Bank, CapDesk, and more.
•	Spearheaded Corporate Governance policies.
•	Led tax strategy, including transfer pricing, patent box, and R&D tax credits.
•	Setup US subsidiary included navigating regulatory requirements, coordinating legal processes, and liaising with local stakeholders for seamless entry into the US market.

Finance Director

ENGIE

Assistant Reporting Accountant

Publicis Groupe

Senior Management Accountant

I help you grow and scale your business as an outsourced CFO. Through the company I founded, ThriveGrowth, I get to do what I love: support startups and SMEs with my finance expertise. With nearly two decades of finance experience — six as the Finance Director of a technology startup — I know what it means to step into a fast-paced business and pinpoint areas for growth.

During my six years at the aforementioned startup, I:

•	Helped it grow from 10 to 50 people
•	Raised £55m over 6 rounds
•	Created a finance function and the necessary team
•	Enabled the company to expand abroad
•	Watched as the company almost went under and helped turn it around 
•	Grew its valuation to £200m 

Now, I bring everything I’ve learned to founders and entrepreneurs through ThriveGrowth. With real hands-on experience, I can help at each stage of your journey (startup, growing, scaling). If you need a CFO, advisor, consultant, or mentor to help you grow your company, get in touch.

👉🏽Schedule a call: https://calendly.com/thrive-growth
👉🏽Email me: enquiries@thrivegrowth.co.uk
👉🏽Call: 0203 920 8210

Rakesh Shah

Hey, I’m Daniel 👋

I’ve spent the last 12 years in Talent Acquisition, hiring across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas in sectors such as Veterinary, Technology/Digital, Retail, and Energy. My focus? Making recruitment more human, efficient, and inclusive.

Along the way, I’ve led projects that saved over £7M in hiring costs, strengthened employer branding and EVP, and significantly cut time-to-hire. I’m passionate about leveraging tech and smart processes to streamline recruitment while keeping DEIB at the core.

Always happy to connect and chat about hiring, people, and how we can do it better 🚀

Daniel Rennox

Is it just me, or is age bias quietly creeping back into recruitment?

Lately, I’ve noticed more and more job ads saying things like “3 years’ experience in Talent Acquisition”, followed by a list of responsibilities that read more like a Senior TA Partner than someone three years in.

Those descriptions aren’t just unrealistic, they’re exclusionary.

They subtly scream: “We want experience, but not too much of it.”
 
It’s code for: “We want the skillset of someone seasoned, but we’ll pay them the salary of someone early in their career.”

And that’s where it starts to feel uncomfortable.

We talk a lot about diversity, but age diversity seems to be the one that keeps getting quietly ignored. There are experienced professionals out there, with decades of knowledge, resilience, and emotional intelligence, being sidelined because they don’t fit a made-up “ideal” of what the market says they should look like.

If the role needs senior capability, call it that and pay accordingly. If it’s genuinely a junior position, then tailor it realistically.

Anything else just adds to the noise and pushes great people out of the conversation.

There. I said it.

Talent Acquisition Partner - First Opinion @ IVC Evidensia UK

Riddle me this…
I’ve just been told, with a straight face, might I add, that I’m “risking my chances of getting a new role” by posting too much honest content about the current job market.

Give. Me. A. Break.

Since when did telling the truth become a career limiter? Since when did calling out the chaos, the ghosting, the endless “culture fit” nonsense, the hiring freezes-that-aren’t-really-freezes suddenly make me unemployable?

If anything, being honest about the state of things is the bare minimum we owe people. Candidates aren’t daft. Recruiters know what’s up and so do hiring managers.

If a company doesn’t want me because I tell the truth about the industry I work in… that’s the biggest red flag of all.

Honesty shouldn’t scare good businesses. Transparency shouldn’t threaten strong cultures. And if someone’s worried that sharing the reality of the market makes me “less hireable,” then maybe the problem isn’t me. Maybe it’s the situation that we’re all politely tiptoeing around.

So no, I’m not toning it down. I’m not swapping honesty for bland, beige LinkedIn bingo posts.

If speaking the truth costs me opportunities… then they weren’t opportunities worth having.

Interviews don’t have to feel like an interrogation!

Lately, I’ve had a few interviews myself, and honestly, some of them have been rough. Question after question, no flow, no warmth, no real conversation. It felt more like a cross-examination than a chat about a potential fit.

Here’s the thing: yes, we absolutely do need to assess talent properly. That’s non-negotiable. But how we do it matters.

When you shift from a rigid Q&A format to a natural conversation, weaving questions into genuine dialogue, people relax. You get to see their true personality, their thought process, and how they actually communicate in the real world.

And that’s the gold, isn’t it? That’s where you see potential, attitude, and culture fit.

Some of the best interviews I’ve ever had (on both sides of the table) felt effortless, like a proper exchange of ideas, not a test. The candidate leaves feeling seen, and you leave with a much clearer sense of who they are.

So yes, assess skills. Ask the right questions. But make it a conversation, not an interrogation. 

You’ll get far more out of people and they’ll walk away with a far better impression of you and your company.

taplio

The Battle

Rakesh Shah

Daniel Rennox

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taplio

The Battle

Rakesh Shah

Daniel Rennox

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Daniel Rennox's LinkedIn Performance

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