Derek Baker Email & Phone Number

Lehi, Ut, Us

New York, Us

Before I joined Circle, I was a customer of their product; The FP&A Hub hosts our community on Circle's platform. Having personally benefited from their amazing product, I had to shoot my shot when an FP&A position opened up, and I was lucky enough to get the job!It's an exciting time to be at Circle. I'm getting a breadth of experience as we go international, multi-product, and move up-market - all at the same time! Circle began as a traditional SaaS company with a product-led GTM motion. As we move up-market we have built out a Sales team with a traditional sales-led motion.As Circle's business model continues to evolve, I'm excited to leverage my skillset in the following areas:- Creating customer P/Ls to analyze pricing, acquisition channels, and upgrade paths- Project modeling for the big bets we're making- Scaling the Finance function as we continue to layer more complexity on the business

Boston, Us

Cashboard facilitated many relationships that have accelerated my personal and career development. One of those relationships is with Paul Barnhurst (The FP&A Guy). He approached me in Summer 2023 about building an FP&A community with him and our 3rd co-founder, Liran Edelist.Having had many experiences in my career where I found myself out of my depth with little leadership, I could see how impactful a community would have been for me. We started Plan Buddies as a place for professionals to share knowledge, network, mentor, and grow together.Currently, we are focused on content generation and member acquisition. I started a quarterly event called "FP&A for Startups" where I meet with FP&A leaders at high-growth companies and discuss issues relevant to our field.Check it out at www.plan-buddies.com.

Lehi, Utah, Us

I went to Neighbor primarily to learn from their 3x CFO. The biggest thing I learned was that I knew more about finance than I realized, and I had a solid foundation in Corporate Finance. That said, I still learned so much during my time at Neighbor. I learned how to: make Finance a trusted business partner, work cross-functionally and get things done through people not on my team, and steer the business via the FP&A process.Neighbor is the hardest problem I've ever worked on. Neighbor is the Airbnb of self-storage, and the hyperlocal nature of the marketplace was an exciting and complex problem to solve. Some cool problems I got to work on:- Rebuilt the financial model and integrated the supply and demand model (i.e. Are we acquiring enough supply to meet demand?)- Validated and modeled a new business unit to acquire distressed real estate and convert into self-storage to list on the Neighbor platform- Assisted with fundraising and due diligence (very meaningful experience, but details withheld for privacy)- Instituted core FP&A processes (annual budget, quarterly re-forecast, monthly finance reviews)

Lehi, Ut, Us

Clientbook was one of Cashboard's first customers (they were my consulting client for about a year), and when we decided to shut down Cashboard, Clientbook asked me to come work for them.I was the first finance hire at Clientbook, and I built the fundamental finance processes from the ground up. I implemented a real-time KPI report, built rolling monthly forecasts, annual budgeting and planning process, wrote their revenue recognition policies, and instituted basic internal controls. I also worked on multiple strategic projects such as building the investor financial model for their Series A round and venture debt. I partnered cross-functionally with other departments such as implementation, product, and sales and marketing to help them measure, track, and improve their KPIs.By working on these projects, I was starting down the track of finance leadership in high-growth startups. I recognized that I had never seen what a Finance function should look like in a startup, so I started to look for an experienced startup CFO to learn from.

Provo, Ut, Us

I worked at Savvi Legal all throughout my time in college. I loved taking the knowledge I learned in the classroom and immediately applying it in the real world.I wore many hats at Savvi, but, along with the CEO, I took the lead on all finance-related projects. Some cool things I did:- Built the company's first 3 Statement Model- Define, calculate, and automate metrics reporting- Built Series Seed pitch deck- Sourced, negotiated, and closed $xxxK in alternative financing- Established core FP&A processes (annual plan, quarterly forecast, monthly finance reviews)My time at Savvi gave me a love for startups and helping founders succeed. This experience was foundational to me starting Cashboard, and Savvi was our very first customer. Savvi was a launchpad for every career experience thereafter.

Provo, Ut, Us

This was my first finance experience and exposure to the world of startups. From day one at Savvi, I knew I loved the startup environment. I'm very grateful they took a chance on a college freshman with no experience.Savvi Legal provides a legal workflow solution to help founders incorporate their company, manage their cap table, hire employees/contractors, create and maintain a deal room for due diligence, and raise money.

Ah Cashboard - this was a fun time! While working at Savvi Legal, I was approached by founders in our co-working space to build financial reporting and modeling solutions like what I built for Savvi, so I began consulting.After getting a handful of consulting clients, I realized I was pulling the same data from the same tools for each of my customers. So I started a SaaS with my brother-in-law (technical co-founder) to integrate with those tools and replicate my reports and models.We launched in January 2022 and got 15 beta customers - about half were paying us a monthly subscription. We targeted early-stage startups where finance was still founder-led. Our product automated SaaS metrics reporting and had a light forecasting tool to project revenue and cash runway. If you remember during 2021 and 2022, VCs would give money to anyone with a warm body. We started seeing our competitors who were about as far along as us raise millions of dollars and quickly outpace our product development. We realized that we either needed raise money like everyone else or spend our energy and effort on different projects. We ultimately chose the latter.Some very important lessons and skills I learned:- How to perform customer research and prioritize product decisions- Basics of software development and how to work with engineers to build a product- Creating sales pipeline and outbound prospecting- Building a business is really hard, but just as exciting and fulfilling

United States, Us

Working for a large enterprise helped me realize that I love startups. I had a great experience at Clark Construction, however, I learned that startups are where I belong. Some cool things I did during my summer at Clark:- Rebuilt annual planning reports in Power BI, automating 90% of manual data entry and simplifying planning process for stakeholders- Led Power BI trainings for entire FP&A team (8 people)- Analyzed competitors' financial statements to find weaknesses in liquidity and margin profile enabling Clark to bid more competitively- Automated monthly reporting package with VBA saving hours of time every month

Houston, Tx, Us

Working at InGeneron is when I learned I loved Corporate Finance. InGeneron is a biotech startup specializing in STEM Cell Therapy. I was given a summer project to learn Power BI and create a financial dashboard for measuring operating performance and monitoring liquidity.I learned how a financial modeling works inside and out by integrating our 3 Statement Model within our Power BI dashboard. This allowed us to reduce re-forecast times each month and create more accessible reports for executives.I created reports to best monitor the company’s use of capital in relation to its progress towards the company’s goals. I coordinated with cost center owners to create forecasts for future expenses to determine the company’s financing needs.

My dad started his own oil & gas exploration company, kindling my love for entrepreneurship and startups.

Finance

Education record