Kenneth Kaufman
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For more than a decade Ken has built a reputation as a leader who is respected for his integrity, work ethic, and commitment to lifting people and companies to new levels of achievement. Ken has served in several leadership roles, including CFO, COO, VP of Administration, and VP of Sales, in start-ups, mid-stage companies, and large multi-national corporations. His experiences cover a variety of industries, including construction, real estate, financial services, business services, medical/dental, manufacturing, telecommunications, distribution, retail, internet services & SaaS, market research, and outsourcing.
In two of his executive roles, Ken helped a start-up grow to over $100 million in annual sales in just four years and he helped a medium-sized company almost triple its operations, quintuple net income, and sixtuple cash flow in just three years. Ken has served as a court-appointed receiver and has negotiated “workout” proceedings for several insolvent entities. He was recognized as the top producing manager in a Fortune 500 firm. He has developed and presented numerous business plans and financial models/forecasts that have successfully obtained the debt and/or equity financing required for growth.
Ken earned a B.S. in business from BYU and an MBA from the University of Georgia in finance, entrepreneurship, and risk management/insurance. His peers selected him as the most outstanding MBA student in his graduating class. Ken is a published author on business and finance topics and he has taught business/accounting/entrepreneurship courses as a part-time faculty member at UNLV and UVU. He was included in the Utah Business and Utah Valley Business Q's 2010 Top Forty Under 40 list of rising entrepreneurs and executives and vSpring's 2010 v|100 list of the 100 top venture entrepreneurs.
Throughout his career, Ken has continually served his community by serving in his church and the Boy Scouts of America. Ken is an active member of the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum. He serves as the Treasurer of the Young Founders Organization of the BYU Center for Technology & Entrepreneurship and he regularly mentors BYU business students, especially those that want to start a business. He lives in Pleasant Grove, Utah with his wife, Angela, and their six children.
Ken founded CFOwise in 2006 and currently serves as its CEO.
Recent Activity
I've had this question asked of me a lot lately: "Is it time for me to hire another employee?" I also hear questions like: "Is it time for me hire?" or "When can I add another manager to take some of the load I have been carrying?"
A little more than a year ago one of the companies for which I serve as the CFO was experiencing very good sales growth. In fact, about seven months into the year it looked like the company might hit its sales projections for the year by the end of the eleventh month, one month quicker than we forecasted.
Cash is king! So every time you make a business model change, or pivot, it should include some way to accelerate your cash flow and working capital cycle. Otherwise, it probably isn't a good pivot for your business.
There has been a trend over the last couple of years to reduce the number of days employees have to be in the office. The 9/80 workweek reduces the number of days in the office by one per every two weeks.
First, many accountants are actually great leaders in other areas of their lives, but fail to be successful leaders in business--which is one of the major angles of this article
The most common challenge I see with start-up ventures is product infatuation. The founders are usually pretty excited about their product or service, having invented it or been heavily involved in its design, engineering, or implementation. But their infatuation gets in the way of solving the cash flow problems common in start-ups--no paying customers.
Entrepreneurs face a dilemma every time they make a decision. They are constantly weighing the present and the future, trying to benefit both but often sacrificing one for the other. But that's what makes entrepreneurship so risky, right? The unknown outcomes?
Here is a look at the predictions I made for 2010 at the end of 2009 so you can see how I did
As we launch into the new year, here are the top 11 trends that entrepreneurs need to be aware of
2010 has been a very good blogging year for CFOwise®. In the spirit of planning for a great 2011, here are the eleven most popular blog posts from the year 2010:
