Joelle Fox, Engage and Tech Square Ventures’ CFO, has spent her entire career walking entrepreneurs through the part of business they often want to avoid: the numbers. As a PWC-trained auditor, Joelle began working with startups while still with the Big 4 accounting firm. She eventually took the leap to join one of those startup clients, internet services company iXL, where she worked on over 40 acquisitions and helped take the company through an IPO.
After iXL, Joelle’s husband, a PhD physicist, decided to start a company: Velocity Medical Solutions, a software provider for cancer clinics. With a physician and a developer as his co-founders, they had a stellar team for building the best product… but not so much to run the actual nuts and bolts of a business.
Joelle stepped in, developing a lean financial strategy to focus heavily on cash flow. She set up health insurance plans, stock options & employee agreements, rented office space, established a contracting process with large health organizations, and ultimately took Velocity through an acquisition by a publicly traded strategic partner — a successful acquisition that was accomplished without having to pay the high investment banking fees that often dampen the exit process.
Now, Joelle has joined TSV and Engage to lend her deep experience to our portfolio of startups (now over 40 strong) and oversee fund administration and reporting. But we figured it isn’t quite fair for expertise like hers to be confined to a few dozen companies alone. Below, Joelle shares takeaways from a career spent at the complicated, sometimes-chaotic, and exhilirating intersection of startup and corporate.
You’ll always have to deal with numbers, but you can make them fun:
I spent the first eight years of my career in audit at PWC — a boring profession, one might think. But I had quite the opposite experience, working alongside entertaining, creative teams on fun projects including the Atlanta Olympics, Ted Turner’s film libraries at MGM in Los Angeles. Ultimately I began work on iXL, where I pursued the second act of my career and met [Tech Square Ventures General Partner] Blake Patton.
Show up ready for success… even at a startup:
Blake’s company, Swan Media, was the very first M&A transaction I worked on after leaving PWC and joining iXL. Even though Swan was a small startup, I showed up as super-prepared to perform due diligence as I had at my 8 years at PWC.
We laugh now about his records and revenue recognition policies that were kept in a file cabinet barely larger than a shoebox. But when it came down to it, Blake and the team appreciated the help I was able to provide that came directly from my experience and training at PWC.
Don’t lose your competitive streak:
Growing up in Nashville with a mom I considered “Wonder Woman” and a dad that played minor league baseball with the Cubs, I am competitive. I have an older sister (a much better athlete than me!), and my dad toughened us up in a positive, no nonsense, gritty kind of way, which has carried over into how I think about business.
Though I now compete against my own personal goals and bests, this competitive streak carries over into most aspects of my life. I like training with people stronger than me, and working with people smarter than me.
Learn all of the things:
Sometimes the path to entrepreneurship is not direct or obvious. From being around entrepreneurs and innovators for many years, I observed that they are focused and passionate about solving a key customer problem, and to understanding the details of the problem and solution.
So, pursue the skills you have, in the company with the most opportunities for learning, advancement or exposure to different specialties of your skill. Go deep and take advantage of the people around you and the training. Even though every task and late night may not seem glamorous, that deep knowledge and experience can be parlayed to your passion in the future.
So, pursue the skills you have, in the company with the most opportunities for learning, advancement or exposure to different specialties of your skill.
And then find a place that brings all your strengths to the table:
Engage is an organization that brings together the very best of what large corporations, startups, and VC investors have to offer. This role represents a perfect sweet spot of my years at both large companies and early-stage startups. I’ve been on all sides of the table, and there is amazing energy and creativity in both, and incredible opportunity to find efficient ways of working together.
Build relationships first, and a company or job second:
The best part about working at iXL was the experience of building long-lasting relationships with the entrepreneurs and founders through the 40 acquisitions we performed. We continue to enjoy trips, reunions and experiences with many of those founders, sharing life and business lessons.
