Vetted Budget Management Professionals

Kerri Heinen

Screened

Principal Product Owner specializing in healthcare IT and med-tech

Mounds View, MN17y exp

“Product leader with experience modernizing legacy customer-facing platforms and delivering AI-enabled healthcare capabilities, including an algorithm to classify true cardiac arrhythmias for clinicians. Brings a structured, cross-functional approach to roadmap decisions, user engagement, and team development across engineering, UX, and Scrum teams.”

“Product design leader who has operated as both design head and product owner across retail, supply chain, and global trade platforms. Notable for turning design research into business strategy shifts, leading AI/ML workflow products with measurable adoption gains, and scaling globally distributed design teams while tying UX decisions directly to ROI.”

“CTO/enterprise architect who stays hands-on in code while leading strategy, stakeholder alignment, and team scaling. At Eastridge, established product and technology vision/roadmap, built product engineering/strategy functions, and helped launch products into global markets; most recently led GenAI product design including tech selection, infrastructure, scalability, and observability.”

“Fractional CFO/operations advisor specializing in early-stage and scaling service businesses, combining Profit First-informed cash management with lean operating systems. Known for 360-degree operational audits and translating complex finance/ops into simple dashboards, scorecards, and process maps; delivered predictable cash flow and scalable structure within ~90 days for a fast-growing startup.”

“Candidate is not currently pursuing a startup or business plan and is not looking to found a company at this time, expressing a preference for joining an existing organization. They have limited familiarity with the VC/accelerator landscape but are specifically interested in learning how companies are evaluated and how investment decisions are made.”

Regina Cherepinsky

Screened

Director-level Retail & Brand Management leader specializing in luxury fashion and beauty

Los Angeles, CA16y exp

“Brand/partnership leader with high-profile celebrity brand experience, including launching the Kardashian Kollection into hundreds of stores and hiring 50 VIP selling specialists nationwide. Managed end-to-end brand management across product, placement, and retailer/celebrity stakeholder satisfaction, and was promoted to VP of a fragrance endeavor within 6 months; also partnered closely with Revlon on an Elizabeth Taylor fragrance launch (GWP/packaging).”

Allison MacMillan

Screened

Engineering Manager specializing in programmatic advertising and large-scale backend systems

San Francisco, CA7y exp

“Engineering manager with recent hands-on technical leadership in vendor-based geo augmentation, including making a key pivot from a broken vendor SDK to an internal data ingestion approach. Previously shipped impactful Python microservice refactors that reduced unnecessary data processing/storage and improved runtime payload efficiency, and has owned on-call incidents through mitigation (scaling pods) and prevention process changes.”

Kelsey Means

Screened

Mid-level Marketing Manager specializing in marketing operations, paid media, and full-funnel growth

West Palm Beach, FL5y exp

“Paid media performance marketer with hands-on ownership of $100K+/month Meta Ads spend for a luxury jewelry brand, using creative-first testing and funnel-building tactics (e.g., giveaways) to expand retargeting pools and drive attributed sales. Also experienced structuring full-funnel systems across Meta/TikTok/Google and diagnosing Performance Max declines by refining audience signals and bidding to improve lead quality and CPL.”

“Entrepreneur building a luxury rental car company startup with capital already raised, though undisclosed. Demonstrates a thoughtful founder mindset centered on vision, growth trajectory, due diligence, and market penetration, and is actively building connections in the VC/accelerator ecosystem.”

“CRM/project management professional with RAPP experience supporting AT&T consumer campaigns, combining high-volume campaign execution with data-informed optimization. Notable for leading a 140-version direct mail/email program under urgent timelines, coordinating multiple stakeholders, and using incrementality analysis to refine targeting and improve revenue impact.”

“Engineering leader with experience owning product engineering strategy, architecture, and org scaling across hospitality/workforce management and insurance startup environments. They describe being brought in to help Fourth Inc. revamp engineering for large-scale enterprise customers, while also scaling teams at The Zebra and staying hands-on with production monitoring, performance analysis, and cross-team architectural execution.”

Andy Trus

Screened

Senior Product Leader specializing in EdTech and AI-powered learning products

Apex, NC17y exp

“EdTech product leader with deep experience across K-12 and higher education, spanning $100M-scale platform strategy, 0-to-1 learning products, and AI-enabled assessment workflows. Particularly compelling for roles at the intersection of AI and education: they built an LLM-based content QA tool that saved $2.75M and articulate a nuanced philosophy around using AI to amplify human tutoring rather than replace it.”

“Founder of an early-stage molecular diagnostics startup currently pursuing an MVP and awaiting NSF feedback on an SBIR/STTR grant. During COVID, assessed roughly a dozen diagnostic/PPE technologies and worked with interdisciplinary teams (engineering, legal, MBA, and clinical trainees) to repurpose and patent 2–3 for commercialization.”

“Programmatic media specialist who owned a $50K+/month Trade Desk DSP account for Disney movie/TV launches, leveraging PMPs and rigorous testing across audiences, deals, and creative formats. Drove 5–10% week-over-week gains in video completion rate while maintaining strict brand-safety standards, and has experience leading a team of traders and translating complex performance tradeoffs into client-ready action plans.”

“Talent Acquisition leader with WeWork experience who managed a team of 3 recruiters plus a TA Coordinator while maintaining an executive-level requisition load. Partnered closely with HRBPs on org design and workforce planning, and implemented a budget-aligned requisition approval process via a weekly hiring committee. Has hands-on C-level search experience, including supporting the CEO in hiring a CFO.”

“Talent Acquisition/Recruiting Operations leader with 10+ years driving large-scale K-12 district hiring, including staffing across 200 schools and managing thousands of candidates annually. Known for redesigning fragmented recruiting workflows and implementing ATS solutions (Lever, AppliTrack, Taleo, Oracle HCM) to deliver measurable gains: 15% vacancy reduction, 20% faster time-to-hire, 30% fewer compliance errors, and 25% faster onboarding.”

“Gameplay/systems designer who owned the end-to-end gameplay redesign of Top Spin 4 (2011)—including player states, ball physics, shot resolution, attributes, and AI—with much of that work later reused in TopSpin 2K25 (2024). Deep experience balancing realism and responsiveness for competitive multiplayer/online play, using extensive playtesting plus telemetry analysis (Tableau) to tune timing windows and core mechanics.”

Nikhil Saukhla

Screened

Director-level Operations & Chief of Staff specializing in HealthTech and venture-backed startups

12y exp

“Operations leader/advisor with experience joining a Cedar Sinai Accelerator spinout (RAIOS) at an inflection point and rebuilding the company’s internal ops “connective tissue” across HR, finance, IT, product, and sales. Uses structured frameworks (RACI, OKRs/KPIs), rapid diagnostics, and tool centralization (Gusto, BILL, Brex) to create scalable, founder-friendly operating systems.”

Edward Robinson-Adams

Screened

Executive cybersecurity and AI leader, CEO/co-founder specializing in enterprise SaaS and strategy

Boston, MA35y exp

“Operator who took a seed-funded university spin-off in cybersecurity from zero revenue and heavy losses to profitability and industry leadership, while building the full internal ops stack (HR/payroll/benefits/401k) and the initial GTM engine (Salesforce/HubSpot, SPIN + MEDPICC). Personally led fundraising across 30+ VC pitches, raising $11.2M total and delivering $98M returned to investors to date, with additional upside from a subsequent spin-off.”

“Consumer brand operator and turnaround leader who has repeatedly joined businesses at inflection points and driven rapid, measurable growth. Built BULLDOG Gin from an early-stage startup into a brand acquired by CAMPARI, then led global brand and innovation work inside a major multinational, and later reversed steep decline at BridgePort Brewing through strategy, renovation, innovation, and PR.”

“Operations leader with 8 years of experience spanning healthcare, consumer products, and financial services, now serving as a strategic operational partner to senior leadership at Point72. Stands out for redesigning complex cross-functional processes, including cutting associate integration cycle time by 4 weeks and building governance frameworks that reduced compliance risk across HR, Legal, Recruiting, and Immigration.”

“Recruiting leader who builds structured, competency-based hiring systems and can also personally run Senior Director-to-C-Suite searches. Notable for scaling a full hiring season to 175+ teacher hires and for leading a high-stakes CEO succession search, advising a board to define a new leadership vision and landing a CEO who remains successful four years later.”

“Operations and general management leader with experience spanning Citibank (Regional VP), a startup COO/GM role, and industrial operations at Tatco. Has delivered high-impact operational and technology changes including a Paychex payroll migration for 150+ employees and an ERP/subscriber migration of 200,000+ records that improved marketing execution and sales enablement, while also managing executive alignment and sensitive workforce matters.”

Allwyn Brown

Screened

Executive Law Enforcement Leader specializing in constitutional policing and public safety

SF Bay Area, California41y exp

“Law enforcement operations leader who modernized a police organization by shifting from a traditional hierarchical model to a matrix structure and driving cross-functional collaboration. Served as project manager for major public-safety technology deployments (ShotSpotter, body-worn cameras with CJIS-compliant cloud storage, LPRs, CAD/RMS upgrades) while expanding community engagement and public transparency through social and video communications.”