Aarish Shah: What I learned from two decades operating as CEO or CFO

Aarish Shah is Founder of EmergeONE a Fractional CFO firm for venture backed UK tech startups and scaleups (from Seed to Series B). He has spent close to two decades operating as a CEO or CFO, and now specializes in helping startups understand and act powerfully on their numbers.  In this episode, Aarish shares his insights on financial planning and analysis (FP&A) in startups and the fundamental lessons he has learned in his career. 

• His “worst budget ever” when one of his factories burnt down in Papua New Guinea
• Who he would most like to meet
• His Nothing Ventured podcast and key lessons talking to players in the venture ecosystem
• Why he likes the constant “challenges” of Series B startups over other stage companies
• The difference between "building" the playbook and "running" the playbook in startups
• How to consider your finance tech stack scales pre-seed to Exit 
• How FP&A should consider their tech stack
• Why you need to spending your money at pre-seed 
• Investing in early stage businesses in the UK
• How do we go about creating a budget and forecast for a startup?
• Key metrics I use to analyze startups 
• How startups can cope with the drying up of cheap capital
• How to get your CFO to say yes 
• Favorite Excel function
• How AI understanding is the one skill every FP&A practitioner needs 

Episode links:

Nothing Ventured Podcast

EmergeOne Fractional CFOs

hello@emergeone.co.uk (to contact Aarish)

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