Ross Findlay
Verified Expert in Management Consulting
Management Consulting Expert
London, United Kingdom
Toptal member since November 24, 2022
Ross is a former banker turned tech startup executive, experienced in business operations and advisory and operational finance. He started his career in investment banking, advising and supporting private equity investors in London and Sydney. He then moved to a tech startup, joining the two founders as their first employee and taking on the COO role. Most recently, he ran finance for a Sydney startup. Ross's background also includes freelance experience advising companies on finance matters.
Career Highlights
Case Studies
Financial Model for New Site Rollout
Financial Model to Support a Tech Startup Equity Raise
Expertise
- Business Operations
- Corporate Finance
- eCommerce
- Financial Modeling
- Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)
- Fundraising
- SaaS
- Startups
Work Experience
Head of Finance and Operations
Fingerprint for Success
- Implemented a new billing and revenue recognition system.
- Completed a company restructure to protect the future of the business.
- Closed a funding round in a challenging capital-raising environment.
Director
Freelance Clients
- Built financial models for valuation, raising debt, and internal forecasting for early-stage startups, scaleups, and established businesses to help founders and management teams make decisions, forecast performance, and plan fundraising.
- Advised companies on fundraising, including the best use of capital.
- Worked with management teams to improve forecasting through the use of financial models.
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Boundary Technologies
- Designed, built, and launched an Internet of Things (IoT) product with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription from scratch.
- Grew the business to over £1 million in annual run rate sales and subscription revenue.
- Led a project to analyze and improve unit economics after the first year of trading, significantly improving margins and contributing to improved payback periods and the customer lifetime value to customer acquisition cost (LTV/CAC) ratio.
- Managed the due diligence process across three funding rounds for a total of £7 million investment.
- Built operational processes to fulfill thousands of customer orders, including a global supply chain of more than 300 components, third-party logistics for customer order fulfillment, and a field installation engineer network of national engineers.
- Implemented a business intelligence (BI) SQL tool and worked with functional team heads to measure what matters. Reduced customer returns by over 25% and resolution time for hardware change requests by 20%.
- Grew the team to 25 with a robust recruitment and onboarding process set-up for scaling. Improved employee net promoter score (NPS) to over 40.
- Implemented objectives and key results (OKRs) with 100% of the team reporting they understood and were aligned with Boundary's plans for future success.
Associate Director
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
- Managed over 20 transactions worth more than A$1 billion over three years with the bank.
- Provided debt to clients of the bank to finance acquisitions, primarily supporting private equity investors nationally across Australia. Worked on deals advising clients in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and equity capital raising.
- Led a team of analysts and associates, ran the legal negotiation process with private equity investors and C-suite executives, and presented deals to senior bank management.
- Built, reviewed, and interrogated financial models, led the analysis and due diligence process, and prospected for new deals, including building pitch decks with investment ideas for clients.
Associate Director
Banco Santander
- Built financial models for hotel and healthcare transactions in the UK.
- Conducted credit analysis on prospective borrowers and made recommendations to bank credit committees.
- Worked on the legal negotiations of debt term sheets and financing documentation.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Finance (First Class Honors)
University of Strathclyde - Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
Certifications
Associate Member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (AMCT)
Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT)
Skills
Finance
Financial Modeling, Fundraising, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Budgeting, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Revenue & Expense Projections, Forecasting, Three-statement Modeling, Valuation, Accounting, Market Research, Debt, Debt Analysis, Financial Benchmarking, CFO, M&A (Buy-side), Due Diligence, Cap Table Formation, Profit & Loss (P&L), Internal Financial Reporting, Cash Flow Modeling, Personal Budgeting, Pre-revenue Valuation, Cash Flow, P&L Forecasting, Revenue Modeling, Seed Fundraising, Corporate Finance, Credit/Debt, Credit Analysis, Pricing Strategy, Funding Strategy, DCF Valuation, Financial Advisory, Profitability Optimization, Private Equity
Output Software
Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides
Industry Expertise
Real Estate, Venture Capital, Early-stage Startups, Retail & Wholesale, Construction
Other
Startups, Finance, Pitch Deck Consultant, Business Models, Pitch Decks, Excel Expert, Investment Banking, Business Planning, Financial Analysis, Business Evaluation, Cap Tables, Capitalization Tables, Budget Modeling, Fundraising Strategy, Direct to Consumer (D2C), Financial Forecasting, Demand Planning, Sales Forecasting, Investments, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Sensitivity Analysis, Fractional CFO, Cash Flow Analysis, P&L Analysis, Bookkeeping, Business Consulting, Business Strategy, Mentorship & Coaching, Supply Chain, Business Operations, Legal, Human Resources (HR), Leveraged Finance, Term Sheet Negotiations, Unit Economics, Information Memoranda, People Management, SaaS, eCommerce, Small Business Consultants, Go-to-market (GTM) Strategy, Visual Storytelling, Business Model Strategy, COO, Chief Operations Officer (COO), Operations, Deal Sourcing, Value at Risk, Data Modeling, Term Sheet Advisory, Enterprise SaaS, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Treasury, Derivatives, Manufacturing, Compliance, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Strategy, Mobile Apps, Business Plan Consulting, Data Visualization, Canva, Waterfall Modeling, Marketplaces, Machine Learning
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring