Michelle Lai, Finance Expert in San Francisco, CA, United States
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Michelle Lai

Verified Expert  in Finance

Finance Expert

Location
San Francisco, CA, United States
Toptal Member Since
July 25, 2017

Michelle is a Wharton graduate with experience working on $11 billion worth of deals in the Asia Pacific and leadership roles at two successful tech startups in San Francisco and Hong Kong (backed by a16z, Khosla, Visa). She's worked with leading firms like Credit Suisse, Heidrick & Struggles, Neil Pryde, and Jardine Matheson. Michelle joined Toptal to solve problems alongside smart, driven management teams.

Career Highlights

Head of Business Development
Anchorage Crypto Custody
Chief Strategy Officer
Prenetics Digital Health
Investment Professional
Longreach Group Private Equity

Education Highlights

Certified
General Assembly
Bachelor's Degree
University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences
Bachelor's Degree
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Certification Highlights

Case Studies

Work Experience

Managing Director

2017 - PRESENT
Liberaid Limited
  • Worked on a digital health strategy project with one of Asia's largest conglomerates.
  • Conducted alternative data strategy research for a data-driven private equity fund.
  • Targeted strategic accounts in Asia and worked on the regional debit card program as the Asia Director for Bitpay, the largest crypto currency payments company.
  • Acted as the senior strategic advisor at Copper.co, a custody and trading company in the cryptocurrency space. I made introductions and worked with clients to design solutions that fit their needs.
  • Strategically advisored to accelerate transformation as a digital steering committee member at Cebuana Lhuillier, a Philippines' leading financial conglomerate. Performed division heads' tactical coaching and managed MOUs, partnership negotiations.
  • Acted as a digital consultant at FWD Insurance, an Asia born and bred insurance. My job is to throw new and innovative ideas at the CEO.
Focus areas: Insurance, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency, Digital Payments, Digital Transformation, Innovation, Business Development, CFO, Health IT, Fintech, Insurance Technology (Insurtech), Budgeting, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Financial Advisory, Financial Management, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)

Head of Business Development

2018 - 2019
Anchorage Crypto Custody
  • Worked with a great team and reached significant milestones with regards to team growth, strategic partnerships, and fundraising.
  • Helped grow assets under custody from $0 to $1 billion through my sales role.
  • Spent most of my time selling to crypto hedge funds and VC funds.
  • Worked with clients like Polychain Capital, Paradigm Capital, a16zcrypto, Electric Capital, and BlockTower Capital.
  • Managed a partnership with Facebook Libra, which was announced in June 2019. The Libra Association is a global network of financial, technology and nonprofit organizations whose mission is to propagate financial inclusion, comprising organizations like Visa, PayPal, Uber, Vodafone, Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Kiva, and Women's World Banking.
  • Launched service integrations with three partners including MG Stover, Lukka and Lumina.
  • Helped team grow from 10 to 40 persons. Joined after our $17 million Series A from Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, and stayed through our $40 million Series B.
  • Interacted with our other investors including Visa, Blockchain Capital, and senior partners at Fortress Investment Group, Blackrock, and Duquesne Capital.
Focus areas: Product Management, Business Development, Partnerships, Sales

Chief Strategy Officer

2016 - 2017
Prenetics Digital Health
  • Created investor decks and financial projections and quarterbacked the investor due diligence for a successful fundraising round of $40 million. Wrote detailed investor updates following the investment.
  • Managed a $2 million product launch, working across internal teams and the client which was a large financial institution.
  • Helped grow revenues from $0 to $10mn ARR within 12 months by doing business development/sales work with enterprise clients.
  • Developed cash-flow budgeting models and improved each cash position through working capital management. Previously, the company had poor budgeting processes and so, when growth spiked, it was constrained by its ability to project cash flows.
  • Wrote detailed management reports with analytics to assist in managerial decision making. Previously, the management reports were Excel-based and had excessive detail, making it hard for management to review progress and plan effectively.
  • Upgraded the accounting function by moving onto cloud software (QuickBooks Online), hiring the first in-house accountant, and transitioning to a Big Four accounting firm for the company's first thorough audit.
  • Set up a WOFE (wholly foreign-owned enterprise) corporate entity in China), and obtained an Internet Content Provider ("ICP") license in fewer than two months (faster than usual).
  • Reduced the risk of a stock outage by migrating the company onto a cloud inventory system (TradeGecko).
  • Worked directly with the CEO to grow the company from 20 employees to 70 over the course of a year.
Focus areas: Unit Economics, Product Management, Manufacturing, Inventory Management, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Investor Relations, Investor Presentations, Cash Flow Forecasting, Financial Forecasting, Fundraising

Chief Financial Officer

2015 - 2015
One Earth Designs
  • Migrated from desktop-based accounting (Quickbooks) to cloud accounting system (Xero) which dramatically reduced accounting and reporting costs.
  • Cleaned up legacy accounts where four different entities were managed by two different accountants which had resulted in misreporting and double-booking.
  • Managed an entire production run of a complex product (with a 100-part bill of materials) with a factory in Dongguan, China.
  • Restructured outstanding debt obligations to extend the runway by one year. A tranche of convertible notes had come due, but the company was in no position to pay them down; as such, I negotiated an extension so that creditors would revisit the situation in a year.
  • Created a cashflow forecast model to manage the cash balance, avoiding several scenarios where the company might have reached a $0 balance.
  • Negotiated payment terms with four key suppliers to support the objective of reducing working capital.
Focus areas: Corporate Restructuring, Reasonable Compensation Calculation, Fundraising, Investor Relations, Management, Audits, Financial Reporting, Debt Restructuring, Manufacturing, Financial Forecasting, Cash Flow Forecasting

Investment Professional

2011 - 2014
Longreach Group Private Equity
  • Handled the sell-side auction for the firm's largest investment which amounted to $1.3 billion by writing the investment memorandum; this involved managing the virtual data room, structuring tailored deals, drafting term sheets, and more.
  • Restructured $400 million of debt. Several tranches of leveraged buyout (LBO) loans had come due and the company had to restructure the loan despite being close to breaching several covenants. A series of negotiation tactics had to be employed to complete the deal.
  • Created fundraising pitch decks and private placement memorandums for a new $400 million fund.
  • Conducted complex IRR analysis for a deal involving more than 20 investors, nine entities, and two different types of currencies.
  • Implemented LBO analyses and created comprehensive investment committee presentations for companies in the retail and business services space.
Focus areas: Deferred Tax, Leveraged Buyout Modeling, Investor Presentations, Investor Relations, Fundraising, Investment Portfolio Management, Return Analysis, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Private Equity

Associate, M&A

2007 - 2011
Credit Suisse | Citigroup
  • Executed $3 billion of M&A deals involving brand name financial institutions in the Asia-Pacific region, including Temasek Holdings, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, DBS Group, ANZ Bank, and AIG Taiwan.
  • Built financial models on discounted cash flow, leveraged buyouts, merger consequences, and investment returns (i.e. IRR).
  • Standardized the comparables template for the team across seven different countries, building a detailed FactSet-based template adjusting for in-market idiosyncrasies (e.g., deferred tax assets, analyst coverage, and reporting cadence).
  • Managed data rooms and due diligence processes for the following: an Asia asset carve-out from six countries for a UK bank (buy-side, $550 million), a leading bank in Indonesia (buy-side, $2.4 billion), AIG Taiwan (buy-side, $2 billion), an asset manager in Singapore (sell-side, $100 million), a high growth bank in Indonesia (sell-side), and a US insurer in Malaysia (buy-side);
  • Built detailed financial models of companies and projects, including return analysis, sensitivity analysis, and valuation.
  • Developed financial analyses for deferred tax asset (DTA) utilization trades for companies in Switzerland and Taiwan.
Focus areas: Comparable Company Analysis, Transaction Modeling, Valuation Modeling, Three-statement Modeling, Financial Modeling, Leveraged Buyout Modeling, Equity Financing, Capital Markets, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)
2017 - 2017

Certified in Full-stack Web Development

General Assembly - Singapore

2004 - 2007

Bachelor's Degree in Economics

University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences - Philadelphia, PA, USA

2004 - 2007

Bachelor's Degree in Finance

The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, PA, USA

SEPTEMBER 2017 - PRESENT

Full-stack Web Development

General Assembly

Collaboration That Works

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