Personic's subject matter experts (SME's) have spent 5-15 years combined in Big 4 accounting firms coupled with their industry experience as CFO's, Internal Audit Directors/Managers, and VP's/Directors and Managers of Finance organizations.  They bring audit firm technical expertise to the table with an industry twist at 25% to 50% of the cost of their counterparts currently in the audit firms.

Personic is not in direct competition with an audit firm.  In fact, our SME's are a great compliment to an audit firm's work as it relates to reducing the risk profile of an audit or a special project for both the company and the audit firm.   Our SME's understand not only the technical guidance that their counterparts bring from an audit firm but they also have an intricate understanding of the "short-method" of working through audit firm politics and can apply this in a business sense to our client's immediate needs.

We believe having Personic take a seat at the table with our clients and their audit firms reduces company costs of a project by at least 25% monetarily (including the cost of Personic) and by a higher multiple as it relates to having a liasion at the table who understands how to strategize for audit firm requirements.

ANKESH KUMAR, Co-founder Personic

Ankesh is a serial entrepreneur, who has founded 4 companies in the area of business applications (Personic/AppMail), Consumer Web 2.0 (Grouptivity) and Consulting (ATsystems).ATsystems, he took from 0 to $20m in four years and sold it to TMPW. Personic went from 0 to $25m in 4 years, sold to Unicru and raised $50m of venture funding along the way. AppMail a business application company pioneered employee time off via email and received a patent for linking email and business applications. At Grouptivity, Ankesh devised a method of ranking web content by how often it’s been shared, known as ShareRank ™.

Ankesh holds a MBA from Portsmouth University in the UK and a MS in computer Science from Brighton Polytechnic also in the UK.

 

SACHI YOKOTA, Co-founder, Personic

Sachi brings over 9 years of recruiting experience as a top producer at a reputable firm and earlier recruiting experience in the staffing organization at Cisco Systems.  Sachi specializes in the placement of mid to senior level Finance and Accounting professionals.  She’s built key relationships with top Finance executives in companies ranging from Pre-IPO’s to the Fortune 500 with proven success in high-tech, medical device, biotech, solar and retail industries.

 

JOE DAVID, Co-founder, Personic 
Joe spent the last 2.5 years co-founding KroneDavid, Inc. as Financial Services Partner of this full service Finance/Accounting and IT services consulting company.  Joe served startup clients in advisory capacities such as acting CFO and led multiple project teams performing complex revenue recognition projects, Oracle integrations/implementations, IPO's, mergers/acquisitions, and VC fundraising.  Joe's specialty and value comes in reducing the risk profile for both his clients and their audit firms as a result of his project team's work.  Prior to co-founding KroneDavid, Joe served as CFO/COO of Spodtronic and was integral in the financial and operational modeling around the company's $10 million of Series B funding in October 2006, from Benchmark Capital.

Joe's background in accounting and compliance coupled with his experience in investment advising, IPO's, divestitures, M&A, and structuring of company operations allows him to be the leader, companies require during various transactions in the pursuit of growth.  Joe has consulted on the financial treatment and operational aspects of multiple acquisitions and restructurings for his clients and in his capacity as Global Internal Audit Director at Verisign, Inc., Joe was integral in the restructuring of financial and operational processes for the $273M acquisition of Jamba.

Prior to joining Spodtronic, Joe held the key position of Global Internal Audit Director at Verisign, Inc. and Sox Compliance PM at Xilinx, Inc.   Joe established the Compliance and Internal Audit departments for Xilinx, Inc. and Verisign, Inc.  Joe began has career at KPMG and Deloitte & Touche in the Audit and Assurance practice.