Jennifer Turnage is an experienced entrepreneur, executive, service provider, and consultant. She has served as the full-time and fractional Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of eight investor-backed software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies with five liquidity events. Other executive roles include Vice President and General Manager, International of ChannelAdvisor; Founder and Managing Partner of TechCXO RTP. Jennifer also served in the audit and consulting practices of PricewaterhouseCoopers. She has a history of serving as the first CFO of numerous businesses, working in partnership with the CEO to implement the appropriate finance team, systems and service provider relationships.
During these partnerships, Jennifer often:
Serves as a trusted partner to founders, presidents and CEO’s, freeing valuable executive bandwidth for high impact and high priority initiatives;
Manages cash flow to support survival, profitability and rapid growth;
Facilitates leadership team focus on business goals and results, improving the predictability of performance and achievement of plan; and
Implements strong, reliable accounting and finance organizations (teams, systems, processes, and procedures) to support real-time business decision making, efficient compliance activities and surprise-free liquidity events and M&A transactions.
Example projects and responsibilities include:
Creates Board of Directors and investor relations programs for privately held and investor-backed companies based on streamlined, effective communication.
Recognizes opportunities for strategic innovation and ways to achieve profitable growth and increased margins.
Identifies opportunities to eliminate debt and achieve profitable growth, such as accelerating billing and collection cycles to transform working capital and financial positions.
Closes debt, equity, and strategic partner financing.
Develops financial models to bridge the gap between current company performance and desired results.
Leads financial, human resource, banking, investment/cash management, financing, legal and office administration functions for the business, including management of service providers.
Communicates financial information in an easy-to-understand visual format.
Prepares budgets and financial forecasts.
Refines budgeting and forecasting models on a continuous basis.
Coordinates completion of annual audits without adjustment to previously reported results.
Preparation of annual income tax returns and timely filing and remittance of all tax obligations.
Establishes accounting and financial reporting processes and procedures, including formal monthly closing and reporting schedules.
Selects, implements and administers accounting systems (Quickbooks and Netsuite) and appropriate third-party integrations.
Implements equity accounting and stock option systems. Maintains capitalization table and waterfall models.
For multi-national entities, completes transfer pricing study, establish intercompany service agreements, manage accounting for non-US subsidiaries, implement VAT/GST systems, and multi-currency bank accounts.
Designs and implements document management system supporting on-demand due diligence responses and prompt closing of transactions.
Facilitates annual planning retreats for the leadership team, resulting in the creation of a 2-page business plan with metrics and responsibilities by team by quarter.
Jennifer is currently a member of the Board of Advisors of Marshallton Research Laboratories and the Board of Directors of YWCA Lower Cape Fear. Previous service includes the Boards of Directors of Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems and Marshallton Research Laboratories, the Board of Advisors to GrowPath and the Board of Advisors to Western Carolina University’s School of Business. She has served on the board of her family business for over 25 years.
Jennifer was a nominee for the Cape Fear Region YWCA Women of Achievement Award, a past winner of the Triangle Business Journal Women in Business Award, and a finalist for the Triangle Business Journal CFO of the Year Award. She is also the recipient of a 2018 NC IDEA SEED grant for myBeeHyve and a member of the 2018 NC IDEA SOAR program for female entrepreneurs. myBeeHyve was recognized by the NC Tech Association as a 2018 Top 10 Startup to Watch, and Jennifer was recognized as a winner of the Wilmington Business Journal’s 2019 Coastal Entrepreneur Award in the Internet category.