Bespoke Partners Recruits CFO for Exostar
April 30, 2024 – San Diego, CA-headquartered executive search firm Bespoke Partners has assisted in the recruitment of Rick Simpson as the new CFO of Exostar. Vice president Katelyn Quaresma, Ross Kinnaird, and Leeta Gupta led the assignment. The move comes as the company anticipates building on its record-setting success in the aftermath of its acquisition by private equity firm Arlington Capital Partners. “We’re ecstatic to announce Rick Simpson as the new chief financial officer at Exostar, signaling an exciting phase for both Rick and the Exostar team,” Bespoke Partners said in a LinkedIn post. “A big round of applause to Arlington Capital Partners for seeing the immense talent in Rick and for trusting Bespoke’s finance practice team to lead this critical search. Their unwavering dedication to finding the perfect fit is praiseworthy.”
“In addition to his core responsibilities leading all of our financially related activities, Rick will play a key role in developing our business strategies and in planning, executing, and integrating acquisitions as we embark on the next phase of our corporate journey,” said Richard Addi, Exostar’s president and CEO. “He brings a long, consistent track record of success helping companies like ours achieve their growth objectives. Right person, right place, right time.”
Mr. Simpson joins Exostar with 30 years of directly relevant experience, including the last 20 years as a CFO. In that role, he has overseen functions including strategy, corporate development, financial planning and analysis, accounting, legal, human resources, and corporate IT. He has led dozens of acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures worth billions of dollars, as well as offerings totaling billions of dollars, including public bonds, commercial paper, and other corporate finance options.
Mr. Simpson has worked for domestic and international publicly traded enterprises and private equity owned small and mid-sized businesses. Several of these firms, such as ArisGlobal and Appriss, offer Software-as-a-Service solutions targeting highly regulated industries like life sciences and healthcare. He comes to Exostar from CB Insights, a SaaS provider of data, insights, and analytics on private technology companies.
“Richard and the entire Exostar team have done an outstanding job transforming the company over the past several years to better serve an expanding customer community via the products and solutions of the Exostar platform, while staying true to their mission and core values,” said Mr. Simpson. “They have laid the foundation for rapid organic and inorganic growth. I’m looking forward to doing my part, so we continue to deliver on the promise to our customers and realize our enormous potential together.”
The Exostar platform supports exclusive communities within highly regulated industries where organizations securely collaborate, share information, and operate compliantly. Over 200,000 companies and agencies in 175 countries use Exostar to strengthen security, reduce expenditures, raise productivity, and help them achieve their digital transformation initiatives. More than half of the Defense Industrial Base, including 98 of the top 100, transact business over the Exostar platform. Ten of the top twenty global biopharmaceutical companies rely on the Exostar platform to help them speed new medicines and therapies to market.
Bespoke Partners is an executive search and leadership advisory firm dedicated to partnering with top private equity firms, including Francisco Partners, Clearlake Capital, WCAS, Insight Partners, GI Partners, General Atlantic, CVC Capital Partners, and TA Associates, among many others, to recruit software talent and assess and evaluate teams at every stage of the investment lifecycle, from growth equity to buyout. Bespoke Partners is headquartered in San Diego, and operates other regional offices in Austin, TX, and Philadelphia.
Related: Bespoke Partners Places CFO at NMI
The search firm has completed over 1,000 searches since its inception a decade ago. Its expertise includes all C-level searches across multiple functional domains, including financial officers, HR and people, marketing and technology, as well as board of directors and internal private equity operating partner searches. The firm’s expanding leadership advisory platform includes organizational due diligence as well as executive assessment and coaching.
Since joining Bespoke Partners in 2015, Ms. Quaresma has placed executives across the C-suite at public and private equity backed companies. With a focus on the finance function, she has worked with firms such as Thoma Bravo, Accel-KKR, Clearlake Capital Roper and Vector Capital in solving for crucial CFO hires. Ms. Quaresma has placed executives at companies like Bomgar, WebPT, Imprivata, T2Solutions, NetDocuments, Corel, CheetahMail, Oversight, Achieve3000, MedeAnalytics, Qognify, and Pluralsight.
Mr. Gupta is a partner in its go-to-market practice. He works with software and SaaS companies to recruit chief revenue officers, chief marketing officers, chief customer success officers, chief sales officers and other GTM leaders. With over 20 years of experience in talent management consulting and recruiting top-tier executives, Mr. Gupta most recently served as a managing director at ZRG Partners. He possesses extensive leadership consulting experience for technology companies including Fortune 500 and mid-cap public firms, as well as private equity backed and venture capital backed companies.
Mr. Kinnaird is a director for Bespoke Partners. Before joining Bespoke, he was an associate brand manager for the Dr. Pepper brand at Keurig Dr. Pepper. Before that, Mr. Kinnaird spent time at 7-Eleven, Inc. as an analytical resource working on the frontlines of the company’s digital transformation efforts.
Related: Bespoke Partners Recruits Chief Revenue Officer of PhotoShelter
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor; Lily Fauver, Senior Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
