theswellfund

Advisory

CFO and family office. Twenty years as the finance and operations lead for organizations from a $35M global network to a statewide education foundation with $5B in annual fund flows.

$5Bannual fund flows overseen as CFO of a statewide education foundation
43finance professionals on the largest team he led
3family offices he has worked with as operator or advisor
50+home sites in a single redevelopment he has taken through entitlement

The Swell Fund

Partner and Chief Operating Officer, family office

Scott is partner and COO of a family office centered on coastal San Diego real estate, and has worked with three family offices in all. He leads financial planning, capital allocation and daily operations across the real estate and investment activity.

  • Principal operator coordinating advisors, counsel, brokers and development teams on complex, high-discretion assets.
  • Finance, risk management, legal and insurance coordination, and governance support across multiple entities.

Statewide education foundation

Chief Financial Officer

One of five executives on the leadership team of a 700-employee statewide foundation with $160M in annual operating expenses and $5B in annual fund flows, supporting 1.9 million community college students.

  • Directed a 43-member finance department and oversaw a 100-member back-office operation.
  • Financial planning across 600+ projects funded by state, federal, corporate and philanthropic sources, with project-level and consolidated budgets, forecasts and variance reporting.
  • Ran the Investment and Audit Committees overseeing a $150M corpus with a leading institutional investment manager.
  • Directed Workday and Salesforce supporting 10,000+ annual financial transactions and 9,000+ expense reports.

Business for Social Responsibility

Chief Administrative Officer (CFO and Chief Administrative Officer); earlier Director of Operations and Controller

Led finance for a $35M global professional services and sustainability organization with offices from Paris and Copenhagen to São Paulo, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Beijing, a network of 300+ member companies, mostly Fortune 500, and a flagship annual conference.

  • Financial and contractual lead in partner negotiations with Apple, Google, Facebook, GE, Nike and Exxon.
  • Rolling forecasts, dashboards and monthly KPIs used by executives and the board to run a distributed global organization.
  • Executive lead for enterprise risk, insurance and legal oversight across multinational entities.
  • Drove the move to cloud finance and enterprise systems: Sage Intacct, Salesforce and DocuSign.

Blue Shield of California Foundation

Chief Financial and Operations Officer

Led budgeting, annual planning, treasury operations and investment portfolio analysis for a statewide health foundation with $45M in annual spend, and partnered with the board's budget, audit and investment committees.

Independent school

Chief Financial and Operations Officer

Annual budgeting, forecasting, monthly close and reporting for a 100-plus-employee independent school; oversaw the Audit, Investment, Construction and HR committees and led a cloud accounting implementation.

Insurance and financial services firm

Vice President, Finance and Operations

Financial and operational planning for a 40-employee insurance and financial services firm, as its third employee supporting two general partners. Licensed property and casualty professional.

Recognition

Ventana Research CFO Leadership Award

Recipient of the 2012 Ventana Research CFO Leadership Award for innovation in financial management and technology. Read the announcement.

Working with Scott

Fractional CFO and family office operator

Scott takes on a small number of engagements where an organization needs a CFO's judgment without a CFO's headcount: budgets, forecasts and board reporting; finance, audit and investment committee support; enterprise finance systems; legal, insurance and risk coordination; and real estate from acquisition through entitlement and disposition. Family offices, foundations, membership organizations and founder-led companies are where he has done it before. scott@theswellfund.com.

Elsewhere