Susan Kearney

Partner
Newport LLC
Email
LinkedIn


Industry experience:

  • Technology: Software/SaaS, Digital Media, Data/Information Products
  • Professional Services
  • Education

Functional experience:

  • Partner at Newport LLC, a boutique advisory firm, helping owners and CEOs of privately held, middle market companies ($10M to $100M) on growth, profitability, and preparation for fundraising or sale. Clients include software/SaaS, professional services, and consumer goods/wellness companies. For 2 years I served as Interim CEO for one of my clients, a financial software firm.
  • Chief Operating Officer at Network for Good, a $250M software and donations processing business. During my tenure, over 50,000 nonprofit customers raised almost $500 million in funds to fuel their good causes. In parallel, Network for Good’s annual recurring revenue and customer base grew significantly for the first time in several years.
  • Chief Marketing Officer at the Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB), an association of 120 North American BBBs; and President of BBB’s education foundation, The BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust.
  • Co-founder and CMO at Voxant, an online video news syndication network. Raised 3 rounds of capital totaling $25M before the business was acquired by Grab Networks (now Blinkx).
  • Owner and CEO at SalesTraction, a boutique management consultancy focused on helping software companies build repeatable processes for revenue generation.
  • Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Paragren Technologies, a software and market research company specializing in marketing automation tools for Fortune 500 corporations. Paragren was acquired by Siebel Corporation.
  • Elected Member and Chairman of the Falls Church City School Board – 3 terms.
  • Appointed Member of the Northern Virginia Community College Board – 1 term.
  • Appointed Member and officer of select nonprofit and civic boards focused on children and education.
  • Board development consultant for select nonprofits.

Key business transactional experience:

  • Strategy and transaction advisor for the owners of a financial software company. Guided the owners through the preparation process, then built the deal team and quarterbacked the sales process.
  • COO at Network for Good where we acquired assets of 2 complementary, early stage software businesses. My role was strategic analysis of the opportunities, assisting with deal closure, and post-transaction integration.
  • Founder and CMO at Voxant, which was acquired by Grab Networks, now Blinkx. My role was pre-transaction analysis and due diligence.
  • CMO at Paragren Technologies, which was acquired by Siebel Corporation. My role was pre-transaction analysis.
  • Sales executive at IRI Software, which was acquired by Oracle. My role was pre-transaction analysis and due diligence, and post-transaction integration.

What is the most important skill you bring to a corporate board?

  • Growth – Organic and M&A
  • Transactions – Fundraising (VC & PE); Preparation for Sale/Exit
  • Vision, ideas, collaboration and consensus building