North Pole Security

North Pole Security is tackling one of the hardest problems in cybersecurity: making proactive endpoint protection usable at scale. Most tools rely on detection and response — reacting after malware is already on the system. Workshop, North Pole’s flagship platform, flips that model by helping companies control what software can run in the first place.

Built by the creators of Santa, Google’s widely-adopted open source allowlisting tool, Workshop turns proven prevention techniques into a scalable, intuitive platform. With automation, smart approvals, and enterprise-ready features, North Pole Security makes it possible for any organization to stay a step ahead of threats.

Fractional Strategic CFO

The Growth-Minded CFO Podcast

Growth-Minded CFO is a podcast that uncovers what the most effective, growth-focused CFOs do differently to drive businesses forward. 

Together with my co-host, Alex Louisy (CEO of Upflow), we interview top finance leaders to learn how they’re breaking out of the traditional mold and leading from the front as strategic partners. We’re exploring how today’s best CFOs are using financial insights to make big decisions, fuel growth, and guide their companies to new heights.

Subscribe to learn what makes these CFOs stand out and how they’re transforming the role into a key engine for business success!

Podcast Host

James Equities LLC

James Equities is a New York City real estate development firm specializing in transitional, permanent supportive, and affordable housing for formerly homeless and low-income New Yorkers. 

Founded in 2023 by Douglas James, previously COO of The New York Center for Urban Community Services, Senior Advisor to the NYC Comissioner of Consumer Affairs, Deputy Comissioner and General Counsel for the NYC Department if Homeless Services, and Researcher for the US Department of Treasury.

Lauren Pearl Consulting

I started LPC as a side-project while founding a different company. But it turns out, help from an ex-CEO with 13+ years training as COO, CFO, and Chief of Staff is something a lot of folks need! Growing this business is now my full-time mission!

—

LPC is the solution for when it feels like your startup has gone off the rails.

They say you fake it until you make it as a founder. But for some founders, it might feel like you’re faking it a little too often.

Making mistakes is par for the course when you’re just starting out.

But what happens once you have a staff to pay? Are you willing to bet everything you’ve built on winging it? In this hostile financial environment, the stakes are even higher!

My clients don’t worry about faking anything.

They have an experienced expert on staff who clears blockers, sets a clear path, connects them to the most trusted tech and partners, and ensures everything is set up to scale according to best practices.

Want proof? 

Only 18% of first-time founders succeed. Since LPC's inception, 75% of paying clients have closed funding or become more profitable.

For a stage where most VC firms and accelerators are satisfied with 1/10 startups making it, 8/10 is unprecedented. I was honestly a little shocked to discover this stat...

The numbers speak for themselves: This works.

CFO Advisor, Teacher & Author

NYU Stern School of Business

Lead consultant on the first cohort of the NYU Stern AI Innovation Accelerator Program.

An 8-week program led by NYU Stern School of Business, providing mentorship, tailored consulting, networking opportunities, and other tools to 10 award-winning post-Series A Korean AI startups seeking market entry and/or growth in the United States.

https://www.nyu.edu/research/research-centers-and-institutes/global-ai-frontier-lab/ai-innovation-accelerator-program.html

Lead Consultant

Pearl & Elmore

Is your remote or hybrid team thinking about doing an Offsite this year?

How do you make sure it's: 🚀 The Offsite That Changed Everything 🚀
And not: 😱 The Offsite That Wasted Everyone's Time? 😱

Pearl & Elmore offers tailored offsite programming for businesses that really need their offsite to count. A power team - an Organizational Psychology PhD from Columbia and a Big 4 Consultant and MBA from NYU - has joined forces to build a new playbook for offsites that transform teams. Whether you need to hype people up, work on challenges in team dynamics, co-create a new company strategy, or simply get everyone on the same page, Pearl & Elmore's data-driven techniques are designed to ensure that this will be the best offsite conversation your team's ever had.

DM me or reach out via the Pearl & Elmore website on our company page to learn more!

Co-Founder

Ship Essential

Ship Essential is a low-climate impact logistics startup based in NYC that offers ground-breaking last mile delivery solutions, especially for ecommerce brands. They leverage an advantage in real estate and partnering with urban delivery providers to unlock services other 3PLs cannot: faster delivery, omnichannel capabilities (pop-up stores, pick up, etc), and a premium customer experience. 

I joined Ship Essential as their Fractional CFO, helping them optimize operations, reporting, and pricing. In a market where few retailers are getting ANY investment, I also created their pitch deck, data room, and investor outreach plan, resulting in $1M+ in seed capital.

Roost Homes

Now owned and operated by acquirer, Wake Design & Development.

Roost Home sells innovative and beautiful carbon-neutral prefab homes via a seamless buying experience that saves home-buyers time & risk, creating a healthier home and planet. 

Winner of the 2021 NYU Stern Venture Fellowship

Check out available homes and find your Roost! buildaroost.com/models

CEO & Co-Founder

Trail of Bits

Notorious worldwide in the infosec community, Trail of Bits is the most famous security company that you’ve probably never heard of (hackers hate Linkedin).

Started in 2012 by a group of prestigious hackers, ToB now partners with DARPA, the majority of Big Tech, and many of the other Fortune 100 to solve novel security challenges no others are capable of addressing.

I joined ToB as their first full time non-engineer in 2017 when they were just 10 hackers doing $1M in annual. Over 4 years, I worked alongside the CEO to grow the company into the dominant industry giant they are today.

Director of Strategy & Finance

Head of Strategy & Operations

Deloitte

Based in the Retail Practice, I specialized in tech transformation projects for large apparel retailers.

Senior Consultant in Strategy and Operations

Numbers-Driven Business Strategist & CFO Creating "Aha" Moments for Growing Teams

TESTIMONIALS:
"Lauren has been so amazing to work with. She takes a wonderful approach to consulting where I feel like I have a true partner in the business."
David Sitt, CEO @Ship Essential

"Lauren is superb at what she does. She has the ability to teach and show founders of any type what they need in a way that is easily understood. I would highly recommend Lauren to any startup needing to get a better handle of the company they are building."
Andrew Hendela, Co-Founder @ Karambit.AI

"Lauren’s consulting has acted as a backbone towards creating a sustainable company. The biggest result has been a clear plan towards earning new business—knowing how much outreach needs to be made in order to close deals."
JT. Green, Founder & Executive Producer @moltenheart

MY CREDENTIALS:
13+ years working in startup leadership, 3X startup founder, 2 years with Deloitte strategy, an MBA from NYU, and I’m the resident startup Finance expert at the New York Berkeley Center for Entrepreneurship

MY WHY:
I watched my family's 184-year-old small business go bankrupt. 
It remains my most valuable business lesson to date. 
I've been on a mission to save other amazing companies from the same fate ever since.

I’m just going to say it:
Everyone hates Excel.

Now, don’t get me wrong - Excel is an amazing tool.
It’s revolutionized how we do math in business:

- Streamlines complex financial calculations
- Enhances data accuracy and precision
- Facilitates dynamic scenario modeling
- Boosts collaboration and data sharing
- Accelerates decision-making

But there’s a dark side.

- Hidden mistakes are easy to make
- The more complex it gets, the harder it is to follow
- It triggers a near Pavlovian reaction of eyes immediately glazing over.

That’s why my #1 recommendation to founders who need complex financial models is:
Start outside of Excel.

With pen and paper.

(Yes, really.)

Before you come at me with, “OK Boomer,” I’ll prove it:

Which one feels more doable in the next 5 minutes?

A. You jot this down:
Revenue = # of customers last month × traffic growth rate assumption × average cart size

OR

B. You open a 3000+ line formula-heavy template created by an accountant
 ...and try to make it work for your unique business


Most founders don’t instinctually think in spreadsheets.
So why would you start there?

Start on paper.
Thank me later.


—----
👋 Hi, I’m Lauren. A 3x Founder-turned-CFO nerd who writes about building better companies.
🔔 Enjoy this content? FOLLOW for more!
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Lauren Elizabeth Pearl

CFO & Strategic Advisor to Startups & Small Businesses | Cohost of "The Growth-Minded CFO Podcast", powered by Upflow | Author of "The Daily CFO" newsletter - subscribe below!👇

Just wrapped an incredible few days at AFP (Association for Financial Professionals) 2025 in Boston, and I’m leaving even more energized about where the CFO role is headed.

Our session was essentially a live episode of The Growth-Minded CFO Podcast plus a recap season recap. I had the privilege of speaking alongside my fabulous co-host Alex Louisy, where we shared the biggest trends we’ve been hearing from CFOs throughout 2025 and what we expect will shift heading into 2026.

We were joined on stage by two brilliant Boston-based CFOs, Huimin Li, and Tim Kelly, who offered powerful perspectives on leading fast-scaling companies, building technical trust, and managing changing stakeholder expectations. 

We typically record the pod in a closed studio, so we don’t really get to interact with our listeners. 
This live experience was wild! 🚀
Real-time feedback from the audience on what they liked, what they learned, and many new listeners excited to hear from leaders in our past and future interviews.  

My biggest takeaway: 
In the face of great uncertainty, CFOs need to be more curious and adaptable than ever.

Huge thank you to Bryan Lapidus, and Thomas Hunt for inviting us to speak and welcoming us as first-time conference attendees. We’ll be back!

Grateful to everyone who joined the conversation in Boston - See you on the next episode of The Growth-Minded CFO!

—-----
👋 I'm Lauren. I’m a 3x Founder-turned-CFO who writes about building better companies.
🔔 Want more startup CFO tips & resources like this? Hit FOLLOW.
📬 Tired of LI and prefer a newsletter? SUBSCRIBE (link in profile).

🚀 Excited to share that North Pole Security  is celebrating its one-year anniversary this month! 🎉

It’s been so much fun working with this team over the past year. What started as a 20% project inside Google has grown into a fast-moving startup, backed by a16z, and already supporting enterprise customers. 

Check out all the progress made to-date on our new blog:
https://lnkd.in/e8Tjw77y

(And keep it bookmarked for future posts where I may temporarily take off my CFO hat and get nerdy on endpoint security again... 🤓)

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What a great time I had at Climate Week NYC 2025 this past month! 🌍

Between meeting new climate-focused founders and connecting with finance pros who are committed to bridging capital and impact, it was an inspiring week full of fresh ideas and momentum.

Some of the standout moments were thanks to friends and trusted climate experts:

- Adaptation in Action - hosted by Laura Fox (with Streetlife Ventures) - was a fast-paced PechaKucha style showcase featuring 8 climate-tech startups tackling flood resilience, heat mitigation, resilient infrastructure, insurance & parametric finance, and more. 

- New Climate Futures at Newlab - curated by Sydnee Grushack and the Newlab  team - felt like an adult science fair for climate tech. Panels ranged from scaling energy storage to deploying software for climate innovation, with lightning talks and deep dives throughout the day. 

Both events underscored a few themes that I keep returning to: resilience needs capital, technology is only part of the solution, and collaboration across sectors is essential.

Huge thank-you to Laura, Sydnee, and all the organizers who turned ideas into conversations, and conversations into possible action. I’m energized to bring some of those ideas into the work I do, and to keep building bridges between climate innovation, investors, and implementation on the ground.

Did you attend NYC Climate Week too?
I’d love to hear what inspired you!

—----
👋 Hi, I’m Lauren. A 3x Founder-turned-CFO nerd who writes about building better companies.
🔔 Enjoy this content? FOLLOW for more!
📬 Want my newsletter? SUBSCRIBE (link in profile).

“Sales fixes everything” is dead.
And your CFO knows it.

This is true, whether you’re bootstrapped or VC-backed.

Why?

Because it used to be the case that we grew at all costs.

Capital was cheap and easy,
So there was no need to grow profitably;
If you had lots of customers,
There was an investor ready to foot the bill for a promise of future ROI.
​
 > That isn’t true anymore. <

Going it alone without capital support? You’re sure as heck going to need to get profitable quickly.
Working with banks? Bankers need to see profit (as always).
And now even VCs want to see profit and growth simultaneously to give you another round of funding.

And what does this have to do with CFOs?

Everything.

Because the CFO is the key role in the company with the skills & information to optimize for net profitability.
​
- Not your senior business developer.
- Not your Head of HR.
- Not your accountant.
- Not your salesforce.
- Not your engineers.
- Not your data team.
- Not your CMO.
- Not even your wizkid in the FP&A department.
​
Profitability is the new North Star.

And optimizing for profitability (And ROI)

Is our job.

—-----
👋 I'm Lauren. I’m a 3x Founder-turned-CFO who writes about building better companies.
🔔 Want more startup CFO tips & resources like this? Hit FOLLOW.
📬 Tired of LI and prefer a newsletter? SUBSCRIBE (link in profile).

Founders: You’re not too busy for finance-
You’re avoiding it.

To busy founders, Finance can feel like another thing on the To Do list
- A thing you don’t have time for
- A “nice to have”
- A low priority
- To be swept aside when things get too hectic
- Something you're procrastinating on.

Here’s the thing:

Finance isn’t something “To Do"".
Finance is something To Know:

- What’s the revenue number your startup needs to hit this month to break even?
- What will that new feature need to achieve to be worth the investment?
- How many more customers do you need to convert this quarter?
- How many SKUs can you afford to make this season?

Don't know for sure?
That's not procrastination; It's ignorance.
And it will kill your business.

What numbers should be written on your wall or seared onto your brain?
👆 
That’s how you use finance
To make your business win.

—----
👋 Hi, I’m Lauren. A 3x Founder-turned-CFO nerd who writes about building better companies.
🔔 Enjoy this content? FOLLOW for more!
📬 Want my newsletter? SUBSCRIBE (link in profile).

GMCFO is headed to Boston! 

I’m very excited to be speaking at AFP 2025 next week, (produced  the Association for Financial Professionals) alongside my fabulous The Growth-Minded CFO Podcast cohost, Alex Louisy!

We’ll be diving into the biggest CFO trends we’ve been hearing from guests of the pod throughout 2025, and sharing what we predict will shift heading into 2026.

Joining us on stage are two incredible Boston-based CFOs, Huimin Li, and Tim Kelly, who will share their perspectives on leading with growth-minded finance strategies.

📅 AFP 2025 | Boston
🕥 Monday, October 27 | 10:30 – 11:30 AM
💬 Session: The Growth-Minded CFO: What We Learned from Interviewing Top CFOs in 2025

If you’ll be at AFP this year, come say hello!

Loved this conversation about Scaling with Fractional Executives, presented by F3 (Founders, Funders, Fractionals) and J.P. Morgan at Fabrik this week!

A few takeaways:
- Fractional leaders give founders access to senior-level expertise way earlier and at a fraction of the cost.
- There’s often a gap between what founders want (hands-on execution) and what they need (strategic leadership). And confusion on who can do what.
- The Fractional space is getting CROWDED, and clarity of value is more important than ever.

It was great connecting with peers across the ecosystem and trading perspectives on how this model is evolving. While experiences and opinions varied, the discussion reinforced for me that there’s still enormous opportunity for Fractional leaders who deliver measurable outcomes. 

And that there's still some room for new entrants who want to kick the fractional tires :)

Thanks to the organizers and speakers for sparking such an honest conversation about where the industry’s headed!

—-----
👋 I'm Lauren. I’m a 3x Founder-turned-CFO who writes about building better companies.
🔔 Want more startup CFO tips & resources like this? Hit FOLLOW.
📬 Tired of LI and prefer a newsletter? SUBSCRIBE (link in profile).

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