rossmathews

Established the finance function for a hardware manufacturing startup that leverages AI and biometrics. Provided critical financial analyses, month-end updates, internal controls, and decision-making support to the CEO, Sam Altman, and external stakeholders. Supported fundraising efforts as the company secured over $200M in Series B and C financing. Collaborated in investor presentations, financial models, and due diligence. Created the inaugural budget process to plan operations as headcount tripled and monthly costs doubled within 6 months. Modeled a $100M budget to effectively manage cash runway, inform fundraising needs, and advise critical investment decisions. Supervised 8 FP&A and Accounting Analysts across the US and Germany. Reviewed US & German journal entries, monitored and issued feedback on Germany’s monthly financial forecast, and reconciled intercompany transactions with accounting. Supported the Go-to-Market team’s expansion into over thirty countries in 12 months. Provided analyses and guardrails for $50M of hardware and growth spend in 2022. Transitioned the company books from QuickBooks to SAP and updated the chart of accounts. Maintained reporting continuity while transferring the books over 8 months. Worked with HR to establish employee travel & expense policies and implemented TripActions to facilitate travel. Resulted in 25% savings in average employee spend. Automated the collection of new vendor information, invoices, and purchase order requests. Resulted in 95% fewer vendor double payments and clear information storage.

P&L owner of the Behavioral Health (BH) line of business – forecasted the full P&L and uncovered margin improvement opportunities as revenue and demand grew by 90%. Developed Board Meeting material and led Monthly Financial Reviews to deliver BH finance & operations updates to the CEO, CFO, and other key executives. Worked with the BH General Manager to diagnose long patient wait times. Devised an action plan to hire regional providers, resulting in lowered wait times by 14 or more days. Created the first Therapy and Psychiatry P&L – partnered with Accounting and Data Science to allocate P&L data to issue the first report of financial KPIs by BH practice. Assessed historical patient cohort retention rates to accurately forecast the expected volume of follow-up visits. Increased overall visit and revenue forecast accuracy by 75%. Modeled provider capacity – critical for optimizing the staffing of doctors needed to meet demand. Improved gross margin by 1% and stabilized wait times.

Promoted to own the P&L of the Bike line of business, managing $100M of revenue. Optimized revenue & bookings forecasting, product pricing decisions, and the usage of marketing spend. Boosted forecast accuracy from 40-50% to 80-90%. Leveraged Anaplan for management reporting in support of financial consolidations to the full Lyft P&L. Provided updates to the CFO and IR team ahead of earnings calls. Financial point of contact for bikeshare expansion. Helped oversee the expansion into two additional cities while negotiating terms that saved the company $200K in annual costs. Worked with Data Science to continuously improve weekly reporting. Diagnosed an error in monthly membership revenue recognition which elevated forecast accuracy by 10%. Assisted merger integration activities as Lyft acquired Motivate International – negotiated the fees Lyft paid to operators and provided accounting integration support.

Sole finance point of contact for the Bay Area subsidiary of Motivate, built the budget, provided variance analysis, and reported month-end results to the General Manager. Worked with all department heads to report monthly results, conduct strategic scenario planning, and consolidate financial results with the corporate headquarters in New York. Managed all headcount decisions. Optimized the hiring of operating staff and saved 33% in Operations headcount spend. Instrumental toward building out the electric bike staff.