Wesley Kennedy · Annual Report

Part I · Letter to the Reader

To the Partners of By Glover

Most careers get summarized in bullet points. Mine is better understood as a set of operating results — because for twenty-five years, the work has always been the same underneath: build the model, pressure-test the plan, and give the person at the head of the table a number they can act on.

I've done that from every seat that matters. As a banker and research analyst, I learned how capital actually evaluates a company. As a fractional finance partner to more than twenty SaaS and venture-backed businesses, I built the forecasts, board packages, and investor narratives their executive teams ran on. And as a co-founder, I lived the other side of it — the 3 a.m. model stress, the recapitalization, the board pitch — which is why founders tend to trust me quickly: I'm not describing their seat from across the table. I've sat in it.

By Glover's promise to clients is investor-grade financial infrastructure. This report is my case that I've been building exactly that, for exactly these kinds of companies, for most of my working life.

— Wesley Kennedy, Mill Valley, California

Part II · Management's Discussion & Analysis

Results of operations, discussed in five chapters.

01

FY1999–2002 · Foundations

Foundations

I grew up in Kansas City, took a Jesuit education's discipline west, and chose a mathematics degree at Santa Clara because it opened the most doors. The first door was Silicon Valley Bank, structuring working capital for early-stage tech and life science companies — and shepherding a $25M loan portfolio through the dotcom bust with losses at less than half the department average. Nights, I earned an M.S. in Economics at Golden Gate, applying the math to live business questions.

I picked math for the option value — before I had the vocabulary for it.

Line items

Santa Clara University
B.S. Mathematics, 1999
Four-year scholarship
Silicon Valley Bank
Structured Finance Analyst, 2000–2002
$25M portfolio through the bust; loss ratio 2.2× better than department average
Golden Gate University
M.S. Economics, 2001
GPA 3.95, earned while working full-time

02

FY2002–2005 · Apprenticeship in Rigor

Apprenticeship in Rigor

To learn valuation properly, I went where the modeling was hardest. At Ziegler — the top underwriter of continuing-care retirement communities — I structured and priced over $200M of tax-advantaged revenue bonds, including the largest issuance in the industry's history at the time. At Green Street, the top-ranked REIT shop, I rebuilt the hotel group's models and cut publishing turnaround by more than half. Then technology pulled me back: at Thomas Weisel Partners I sat in a dual seat, originating $2B+ of convertible offerings while pricing option-adjusted spreads for the prop desk's arbitrage book.

Rigor is a habit you acquire in unforgiving rooms.

Line items

Ziegler Capital Markets
IB Analyst, 2002–2003
$200M+ structured and priced; record CCRC issuance
Green Street Advisors
Research Associate, 2003–2004
Rebuilt hotel models; publishing turnaround −50%+
Thomas Weisel Partners
IB Associate, 2004–2005
$2B+ convertibles originated; $500M+ debt-for-equity executed

03

FY2006–2016 · Deals, Research & the Three Cs

Deals, Research & the Three Cs

M&A at Ridgecrest sharpened the deal instinct. Leading SaaS research at Tier1 taught me how markets listen to a software story — I launched coverage on Salesforce, NetSuite, and Concur, wrote some of the first deep dives on SaaS unit economics, and a contrarian read delivered 59% annualized returns. Then I hung my own shingle as a fractional finance partner. Across twenty-plus engagements, one pattern held: the plans that raise money and survive boards are always three things — clear, compelling, and credible.

The winning story is always clear, compelling, and credible.

Line items

Ridgecrest Capital Partners
M&A Associate, 2006–2007
Merger models, accretion-dilution, BD pitches
Tier1 Research (→ S&P)
Lead SaaS Analyst, 2007–2009
First-wave SaaS unit-economics research; 59% annualized returns
WCK Consulting
Fractional VP Finance, 2009–2016
25+ companies: NAVEX (+29% forecast accuracy), Satmetrix (−50% reporting cycle, +32% accuracy), Aperia, Metaswitch (public-market readiness pre-Microsoft acquisition)

04

FY2014–Present · The Founder's Chair

The Founder's Chair

In 2014 my wife saw an unmet need — specialized training for prenatal and postpartum women — and we co-founded The Lotus Method. She built the practice; I brought the operating model, the capital plan, and the investor story. We raised over $5M, half of it non-dilutive, scaled to seven locations at peak, survived COVID through a recapitalization I led, added $4M in net annual revenue on the way back, and positioned the company for sale. I know exactly what it feels like when a decision carries real financial consequences, because for a decade the consequences were mine.

For a decade, the consequences were mine.

Line items

The Lotus Method
Co-Founder, Chairman, Head of Finance & Ops, 2014–present
$5M+ raised (half non-dilutive); 7 locations at peak; COVID recap → restored profitability; +$4M net annual revenue; positioned for sale

05

Ongoing · The Teaching Discipline

The Teaching Discipline

Teaching has been the throughline. I launched the Investment Banking Institute's San Francisco location and taught finance to aspiring analysts; at iXperience I taught American students in Cape Town and online — more than 2,000 students in all. Every class is the same exercise as every board deck: take a complicated idea and make it land. That's not a soft skill. It's the job.

If you can't explain it to a founder, you don't understand it yet.

Line items

Investment Banking Institute
Instructor & Launch Lead
Launched SF location; taught finance to 2,000+ students
iXperience
Faculty, Cape Town & online
Launched investment banking course

Part III · Segment Reporting

The business reports in three segments. By Glover's Principals need all three.

01 · Core segment

The Advisor

Fifteen-plus years as the embedded fractional finance partner to 25+ SaaS and venture-backed companies. Forecasting, board packages, scenario models, and capital plans — built, owned, and defended in the room.

02 · Credibility segment

The Founder

A decade in the operating seat: raising capital, recapitalizing, allocating scarce cash, and presenting to my own board and lenders. I've taken the exact calls By Glover's clients make, and made their trade-offs.

03 · Heritage segment

The Analyst

Banking and equity research foundations: valuation, transaction structuring, diligence, and how investors actually read a company. The investor-grade standard isn't aspirational to me; it is my native format.

Part IV · Outlook

Why Embedded Advisory, why By Glover.

By Glover's model — Embedded Financial Advisory — is the job I've been converging on for twenty-five years without knowing the name for it. The Principal role asks for someone who can own strategic finance across a portfolio of PE-backed and high-growth companies: forecasting through board reporting, capital planning through transactions, and above all, being the person the founder calls when the decision is expensive to get wrong.

Here's my case, in three lines of the reporting package:

The model line

I've been building three-statement models, rolling forecasts, and scenario plans since the dotcom era — for research audiences, for boards, and for my own company. At NAVEX my first predictive revenue model improved forecast accuracy 29%. At Satmetrix I rebuilt FP&A end-to-end: cycle times down 50%, accuracy up 32%.

The portfolio line

Multi-engagement work is my default operating state, not a stretch: I've run a multi-client fractional practice since 2009, alongside an operating company. Context-switching across accounts while keeping each CEO feeling like the only client is the craft I've practiced longest.

The trust line

Founders extend trust to people who've carried their kind of risk. I raised, recapped, and am now selling my own company. When I tell a CEO which trade-off I'd make, it comes with the weight of someone who has made it with his own capital.

The outlook, in short: this is not a pivot. It's a consolidation of everything the previous chapters built.

Not a pivot — a consolidation.

Part V · Notes to the Financial Statements

Note 1

Financial Modeling & Valuation

Three-statement models, DCF, scenario & sensitivity work, transaction models.

Note 2

FP&A & Management Reporting

Budgets-vs-actuals, variance analysis, KPI frameworks, board packages.

Note 3

Capital & Transactions

Fundraising support, diligence prep, data rooms, recapitalizations, sale processes.

Note 4

SaaS & Unit Economics

CAC/LTV, cohort analysis, retention dynamics, pricing & GTM finance.

Note 5

Systems

Adaptive Planning implementation; AI-enabled finance workflows.

Note 6

Communication

2,000+ students taught; board, investor, and lender presentations delivered for two decades.

These notes are an integral part of the preceding statements.

Part VI · Investor Relations

The next engagement starts with a conversation.

Email: wesley@siftfinance.com
Phone: (650) 796-1874
LinkedIn: /in/wckennedy
Location: Mill Valley, CA