airCFO

Helping the company to achieve our vision of becoming the premier workplace for talented, startup-minded professionals.

Worked as Finance Lead at 20+ startups to raise $700M+ in funding; companies supported include:

AI
- An AI research startup working to build a framework for ethical application of artificial intelligence ($560M raised)
- A Series B-stage autonomous flight startup building a fleet of unmanned aircraft through partnerships with NASA and prominent transportation partners ($65M raised)

B2B
- An Enterprise SaaS threat intelligence startup (exited for $80M+)
- A learning management system serving hundreds of school districts across the country (exited for $50M+)
- A Series B-stage ML DevOps platform ($32M raised)
- A Series B-stage sales enablement platform ($60M raised)
- A YC-backed, Series A-stage Compliance-as-a-Service startup ($20M raised)

B2C
- A freemium consumer mobile application achieving $20M+ in annual revenues
- A platform for helping young athletes to develop as athletes and players, aimed at leveling the playing field for opportunities in sports.

Fractional CFO

airCFO helps startups succeed by partnering with them to build & maintain world-class Finance, Accounting, Tax & People functions. In my role as COO, I was responsible for overseeing Operations, Product & Growth for the company.

Concurrently, I served as "part-time CFO" for ~10 high-growth companies who are collectively valued at over $1.5B, helping them with everything from financial modeling & budgeting to strategic advisory and fundraising support.

CFO / COO

CoffeeQ

CoffeeQ was a pay-it-forward platform for coffeeshops that enabled over 200 people to spread kindness through a cup of coffee across Cleveland. Started with the idea through social enterprise hack-a-thon GiveBackHack, and continued working on it for a few years with my friend / cofounder. We put the project on ice when both of our day jobs got too busy, but it was an awesome experience!

Cofounder

DecisionDesk

DecisionDesk was an EdTech startup that built an enrollment management platform for hundreds of graduate programs.

Director, Finance & Operations

Deloitte Consulting, LLP

Revenue Cycle Development - Major Healthcare Provider 

• Served as a member of the centrally-located National team to coordinate efforts across markets, spread knowledge between team members and track metrics to provide visibility into progress being made. 
• Constructed a four view, web-hosted Tableau dashboard to report out metrics to the project team. 
• Created a macro-enabled tool that produced a set of 13 status report slides for delivery to client executive 75% more efficiently. 
• Led and facilitated bi-weekly calls with team BA/C community to share knowledge and discuss top-of-mind issues with team members.

Mergers and Acquisitions Cost Analysis - Multinational Insurance Company

• Drove process of spend baseline construction for $1.8B in third party spend for FY14. Led the Excel analysis of spend including data cleansing, dashboard creation and population of report outlining spend details by category. 
• Validated baseline spend figures and savings opportunities through series of workshops facilitated with key stakeholders for each workstream. 
• Built a comprehensive execution playbook outlining the steps to be taken in order to realize $170M in savings opportunities identified overall.

Tableau Networking Tool Development - Internal Role

• Structured and built a Tableau-based visualization tool to enable S&O practitioners to easily seek out networking opportunities by filtering practitioners on different sets of relevant criteria. 
• Managed a cross-functional team to create this tool from scratch, which was rolled out to nearly 4,000 employees in August and expanded to include an additional 6,000. 
• Led an effort to implement ongoing enhancements, including a transition over to a new database host, an overhaul of the tool’s aesthetics, and an international expansion to Deloitte’s member firms across the globe.

Strategy & Operations Analyst

The Ohio State University

• Collaborated with Ohio State interest groups to construct and implement on-campus studies, with the objective of improving the student experience.
• Analyzed collected data using SPSS and other analysis programs to extract relevant information; report survey results in written briefs, as well as recommendations for improvement based on findings.

Student Life Analytics Associate

Helping Startups Succeed as CEO @ airCFO

airCFO helps startups succeed. 

We partner with 200+ venture-backed startups, providing them with a full-stack Accounting, Finance, Tax & People Ops partner to help them navigate their startup journeys. We give founders a team of dedicated back-office experts from day one so they can focus on growing their business.

I currently serve as CEO after having previously been COO and Head of our Fractional CFO practice. Over the past 7 years, I've supported dozens of high-growth startups as a Fractional CFO & helped them raise over $700M in capital. In my current role, I am responsible for executing on our company's vision of becoming a best-in-class partner to hundreds of the world's top startups, as well as a premier workplace for talented, startup-minded professionals.

Tabs recently announced their $65M Series B to build AI agents for finance teams. In our latest 'Funded' episode, CEO/Founder Ali shared his four-stage framework for building agents that actually work (AI startups skipping steps are NGMI):

1️⃣ Data Moat
Data foundation where contracts, usage data, and key sales information can flow in automatically and get organized by AI

2️⃣ Operational Software
Core SaaS infrastructure that humans can interact with (billing, collections, cash application, revenue recognition, reporting). This creates trust and provides audit trails

3️⃣Human-Agent Collaboration Layer
System of record where both humans and agents can work on the same operational software, showing their work so they can watch, approve, and *elevate each other*

4️⃣ Intelligent Agents
Agents can operate within this system of record to handle tactical work, and escalate appropriately to humans when necessary, acting as true coworkers rather than just automation scripts

___

It takes serious time & effort to move through each of these stages, but this feels like the only way to sustainably integrate agents into the complex, messy world of startup finance.

I'm excited to see Tabs & others continue to climb up this curve over the next few years & unlock new capabilities for airCFO & finance professionals everywhere 👊

Ali & I had a great chat about the future of finance roles, tactical fundraising tips, and why Ali still personally runs Tabs' invoicing himself. Link to the full episode in the comments.

Thank you for taking the time to chat Ali 🫡

Alex Wittenberg

CEO @ airCFO | Fractional CFO | Helping Startups Fundraise & Scale

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