Kenton Chow

Kenton Chow

Kenton Chow joined FLG in 2015 and has over 25 years of CFO experience as both a CFO,  COO & Board member of various private and public technology companies, including software, fintech, biometric identification, big data analytics, IoT, e-commerce, security, retail, networking, and computer systems.

Kenton (Ken) adds value to companies by leveraging his experience and expertise in corporate and financial strategy, rapid growth and scalability, equity and debt financings, IPO, investor relations, SEC and financial reporting, mergers & acquisitions, operations, IT systems infrastructure, sales ops, restructurings, strategic partnership development, customer support, and international operations.  Additionally, he provides mentoring and coaching to executives.

During his career, Ken has successfully raised approximately $1 billion in private and public financings and completed over $2.5B in M&A transactions, including leading the IPO of Cobalt Networks (NASDAQ: COBT), which was 30X oversubscribed, and its subsequent acquisition by Sun Microsystems for $2.0B.

Ken was the CFO at Jumio, a biometric ID company, where he helped grow the company over 100% in revenue and over 20% in EBITDA during the COVID-19 pandemic and increase valuation over 4x.  Previously, Ken was the Chief Operating Officer at RetailNext, the leader in SaaS-based predictive retail analytics, focusing on financial, operational, partnerships aspects of the company.  During his tenure, revenue increased over 4x and Ken raised over $100M in financings, converted the company to a SaaS licensing strategy, while scaling the finance, operations, customer support, deployment and project management organizations.

Earlier in his career, Ken was the Chief Financial Officer at Wine.com, the largest e-commerce retailer of wine in the United States.  Ken also provided executive leadership as the Chief Financial Officer at Nominum (security software, acquired by Akamai), Aurora Networks (optical networking, acquired by Pace, Ltd), Azul Systems (enterprise computer systems), Catena Networks (telecom equipment, acquired by Ciena), and Cobalt Networks (Linux-based servers, acquired by Sun Microsystems).

Ken currently sits on the Board of Directors of Alliant Credit Union (7^th largest credit Union in the U.S) and the Planet Bee Foundation, a non-profit.   Previously, Ken was a board member of MODCAM (IoT Visual Systems based in Malmo, Sweden) and The Craftsman Union (marketing agency), and served on the Leavey Business School Advisory Board at Santa Clara University.

Ken earned a B.S. in Commerce in Finance and a MBA, both from Santa Clara University, and is a CPA (Inactive) in California.

“When I become CEO of TapInfluence in 2015, I knew there would be challenges trying to evolve the culture and changing the business model from a managed services business to a software as a service (SaaS) business. Most fail because of the amount of discipline required to stay the course despite potential disruptions in revenue, team dynamics, and customer relationships. As we evaluated the prospects of a new funding round, I needed a CFO who could be a leader and trusted business partner that was credible with my board of directors and potential investors, strategic to develop our business models, scenario planning and forecasts, and operationally focused to evolve to a SaaS business model. I was extremely pleased that my FLG Partner, Ken Chow and I closed our funding round with our board’s support at a strong valuation and on time. This made a huge difference for our business and could not have done without FLG’s support.”

PROMISE PHELON, CEO, TAPINFLUENCE