Renovata & Company Recruits CFO for Cinch Home Services

March 22, 2023 – Global executive search and private equity advisory firm Renovata & Company has placed Heather Williams Avior as chief financial officer of Cinch Home Services. The search was led by partner Mannie Gill and principal Tom Dunn. “Heather has more than 25 years of entrepreneurial and executive experience leading finance, legal, operations, and corporate development for high-growth companies—where she has raised capital, conducted M&A, led digital transformation, and helped build companies on a global scale,” said Mr. Gill. “She has leadership experience in the areas of finance, accounting, tax structures and treasury; privacy, compliance and IP protection; recruiting and team building; and infrastructure development and management.”

Ms. Avior was previously chief financial officer for a decade at BOLD, a collection of online resources for job seekers. Before that, she was chief administrative officer at NewDay Financial, and managing director and chief compliance officer at View Partners.

In her new position with Cinch Home Services, Ms. Avior will lead the company’s financial organization of 45 people, with a focus on optimizing finance and accounting, operations, strategy, commercial initiatives, strategic growth investments and capital.

Founded more than 40 years ago, Cinch Home Services has approximately 900 employees and nearly one million customers nationwide—and responds to more than one million service events annually. The company offers home warranties, maintenance and repair plans; digital on-demand services and tools; and a customer support network of service repair professionals to prevent, diagnose, and solve a wide variety of home-related issues.

Private Equity Search & Advisory Firm

Renovata & Company partners with financial sponsors, their portfolio companies, and public corporations to deliver leaders and investment insights. The search firm’s executive recruiting activities are focused on search assignments covering board-level mandates, which include board directors, CEOs, CFOs, and other C-suite executives, as well as investment professionals and operating partners. The firm provides strategic counsel to clients across the technology, digital, business services, industrial, consumer, and retail sectors.

Related: Renovata & Company Recruits CEO for Vivino 

Renovata & Company has relationships with over 50 of the top 100 private and growth equity firms globally. Its private equity advisory services include diligence support, backable executive introductions, and deal sourcing delivered by its affiliate, L Capital Advisors. The firm also makes equity co-investments alongside its private equity clients through its investment affiliate, L Capital. The search firm is privately held and operates from five offices across two continents: Boston, Hamburg, London, New York, and San Francisco.

Mr. Gill is the other co-founder of Renovata & Company. His practice is focused on conducting board and C-level searches for private equity portfolio companies across internet, E-commerce, SaaS and ad/mar-tech. In addition, he works with public companies on their digital transformation projects.

Mr. Dunn is responsible for developing client relationships and executing C-suite executive search assignments for growth and private equity-backed portfolio companies. He has more than 12 years of executive search experience working with privately held and publicly traded companies of all sizes from $20 million – $10 billion in revenue

Recruiting CFOs for VC/PE Companies

Executive search firm Caldwell recently conducted a survey on the CFO role to fine-tune its understanding of the skills and experiences that define success today for a CFO of a PE-backed portfolio company and, equally importantly, which attributes may sound appealing but are not essential. More than 300 private equity CFOs shared candid responses on their backgrounds and how they landed in their current role. The results provided a clearer picture of who sits in the CFO chair at many PE-backed portfolio companies, and the skills and credentials that are truly impactful in their leadership role.

When asked to describe their previous experience, 10 percent of the participants said, “I was a divisional CFO or No. 2 finance executive in a PE-backed company,” while 20 percent had the same status at a public company. Another 35 percent had been a CFO of a public or private company. And only 34 percent had been CFO of a PE-backed company. So just a third of the CFOs in the Caldwell survey had previously held a PE CFO role.

Among companies with less than $25 million in revenue, only 15 percent of the CFOs had prior experience as CFO of a PE-backed company, while 56 percent of the companies with greater than $500 million revenue hired a CFO with prior experience in a PE CFO role. In the three other revenue categories, the companies hired a CFO with prior PE CFO experience 40 percent of the time, or less. These findings would seem to indicate that hiring a CFO with prior PE CFO experience is a “nice to have,” but not a must-have credential for all companies, said the firm.

Caldwell also asked the CFOs: “What were the key factors in your hiring?” and asked them to check all relevant factors. Among the total population of participants, the No. 1 factor was industry experience, and the second factor was PE experience. Tied for third were a previous successful exit and a prior role as a stand-alone PE CFO.

Related: Renovata & Company Recruits Chief Revenue Officer for Bitmovin

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media