Kenton Chow

Kenton Chow

Kenton Chow joined FLG in 2015 and has nearly 25 years of CFO experience as both a CFO and COO of various private and public technology companies, including software, big data analytics, IoT, e-commerce, security, retail, biometrics, 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.

During his career, Ken has successfully raised over $700M 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.

Before joining FLG, 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.

Prior to RetailNext, 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), Aurora Networks (optical networking, since acquired by Pace, Ltd), Azul Systems (enterprise computer systems), Catena Networks (telecom equipment, since acquired by Ciena), and Cobalt Networks (servers, acquired by Sun).

Ken currently sits on the Board of Directors of Modcam AM (IoT Visual Systems), Union & Webster (Marketing), and the Planet Bee Foundation (Non Profit) and was a member of the Leavey Business School Advisory Board at Santa Clara University (Education: 2000-2009).

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