Shad Spears is a Chief Business Officer at Pepper. Colleagues describe them as "Shad worked directly for me for the five years that I was at HYLA Mobile (in my role as CFO). Soon after we joined the firm in 2014, he became a trusted thought partner. Shad quickly built a reputation for pragmatic leadership and gained wide respect by the firm’s finance organization, senior management team, board of directors, and external stakeholders. He has a very effective communication style that cuts to the heart of any problem, and then drives quickly to a solution, and that is exactly what we needed to drive sustained growth. While at HYLA Mobile, Shad rapidly rose through the finance organization, with his scope steadily increasing, until 2019 when he assumed the role of CFO upon my departure. As he grew into the CFO role, he was highly regarded for his growth-oriented approach to the role, while also ensuring that all new business was fiscally sound. At the same time, he also led our operations team, partnering with other leaders to drive efficiencies and innovation that helped create significant M&A interest from other parties. After years of sustained effort, in Dec 2020, together with the CEO, he led the company through a highly successful acquisition by Assurant, capping six years of continuous improvement to both top and bottom line. After countless hours in the trenches together, I consider Shad to be a great friend and someone that I hope to have a chance to work with again. He is an absolutely top-notch finance executive, and would be the ideal CFO for any growth oriented company." and "Shad and I worked together for many years while he was CFO of Hyla Mobile. We were a private equity-backed company with a demanding board, strict cash controls, and ambitious growth targets. Shad deftly navigated all of these priorities throughout a tremendously dynamic 7-yr period that yielded strong topline growth, even stronger profitability growth, culminating in our successful acquisition by a strategic acquirer. At all times throughout his tenure, Shad led our financial decision making with clarity and conviction, backed by detailed analysis, deep data, and common sense. While I was responsible for driving growth, Shad was my most trusted partner in ensuring that such growth was profitable and sustainable. His adherence to fundamentals was my anchor, while his creativity/flexibility was my fuel to bring in more business. As most business development executives can attest, their CFOs are not typically their best partner in growth, but Shad is truly unique in his versatility. Shad's ability to maintain rock solid fiscal controls while driving rapid growth is extremely rare in CFOs, and I was lucky to have him in my corner. I can strongly endorse Shad for any CFO role or strategy role in any sized company or industry."