Finance and operating executive · Park City, Utah
Companies outgrow their decision systems before they outgrow their markets.
I find where growth has outrun the infrastructure, then rebuild the model, metrics and operating cadence around it. I have done that at eighteen people and at $1.5 billion.
Most interested in technology and tech-enabled businesses where hardware, software, services or acquisitions have made the business harder to run than the org chart suggests.
Let's chat about what you're building or tell me what's broken →
pre-revenue → $300M
Openpath, employee #18
$7M → $174M
Avigilon Alta, four years
$1.5B+
Portfolio, twelve companies
~4 dozen deals
M&A diligence and integration, ten years
The record
Three widening scopes rather than three jobs. Openpath Security became one half of Avigilon Alta, and Alta was two of the twelve entities in the video security portfolio by the time I stepped aside.
Openpath Security
Employee eighteen, pre-revenue. Built finance, HR, legal and operations through an 84-person organization, a $36M Series C and the $300M sale to Motorola Solutions.
2018 – 2026
Avigilon Alta
Motorola Solutions
Formed from Openpath Security and Ava Security. Recurring-revenue metrics, capital allocation, and the business case behind the portfolio's largest commercial deal. Revenue $7M to $174M, ARR $7M to $62M over four years.
2021 – 2026
Video Security Portfolio
Motorola Solutions
Twelve companies, Alta among them, spanning cloud, hardware, SaaS and channel. Unified OpEx and cloud-cost governance across $200M+ of spend, demand-planning and S&OP modernization across $800M+ of inventory. $1.5B+ in revenue, growing 10% year over year.
2024 – 2026
Virtual Enterprises
Independent Director
Sixteen years as an independent director, eighteen with the organization, chairing both Audit and Strategy. Thirty-five thousand students a year learn to run a real business.
2010 – now
Earlier
Deloitte, Green Dot, OpenX
Big Four audit foundation at Deloitte, SEC reporting and investor relations at a public company, and IPO-prep finance at a multinational private company.
2008 – 2017
Building
I build things to solve problems I actually have.
Alice
Relationship portfolio
I could not keep 2,264 relationships straight in my head, so I built something that could. Alice remembers every conversation, notices who has gone quiet, and each morning tells me where the next hour is best spent and why it thinks so. Eight days from empty file to running, with AI as the build partner.
Running
PolarAIs
Founder
I have run integrations with no tool that tells the CFO what the end-state entity structure should be or what it costs to get there. Six working prototypes, validating with finance and integration leaders before the platform gets built.
In discovery
Evidence strip — system captures, redacted
The ranked list: who is overdue, why, and what is owed next. Names blurred, everything else live.
Entity readiness scored the same way every run, auditable back to the data that produced it.
Fit
Where I am useful, and where I am not.
I am useful where complexity is rising faster than the operating model: acquisitions, mixed hardware and recurring-revenue economics, margin pressure, or a business professionalizing for its next stage. I am probably the wrong hire if you need a controller, a pure cost-takeout CFO, or finance kept in the back office.
Outside work
I live in Park City with my wife and two kids.
I am usually outside. Skiing most of the winter, in the garden through the summer, on the river when the fishing is good, and in the mountains with my wife, the kids and the dog whenever we can be. I also spend a fair amount of time with founders, helping them build the financial and operating systems they will wish they had started earlier, and with Virtual Enterprises and other work in our community.
Contact
msandfordboone@gmail.com