Veteran Money Man Derrick Lee is Ridge’s New CFO
It’s official as a whistle: Derrick Lee is coming aboard as CFO to make sure Ridge is on point, down to every decimal, dollar sign, and dotted line.
Derrick joining the Ridge Familia means that we’re saying goodbye to Lorra Stone, our longtime CFO who is semi-retiring and cementing her status as a bona fide Ridge legend. Lorra, who will still be around to advise the firm as needed, is as confident as we are that Derrick will have no problem keeping our LPs happy.
Prior to Ridge, Derrick held down CFO positions at Mohr Davidow Ventures and Wildcat Ventures. At both firms he did everything short of playing the banker in Monopoly — portfolio company valuations, quarterly closes, LP reporting, annual meetings, helping with financings, term sheets, exits, and much more. He even pulled double-duty as a consulting CFO at Learn Capital this year. The man knows money like Scrooge McDuck.
An East Bay soul hailing from Oakland, California (#TownBusiness), Derrick landed his BA in Economics from Berkeley before kicking off his finance career at State Street Corporation. For postgrad, Derrick grabbed his MBA in Business Administration from Arizona State, but he remains loyal to his Golden Bears, along with the 49ers and Golden State Warriors.
Derrick the CFO is pretty cool. But getting to know Derrick the person is like a Goodwill trip full of unexpected treasures. When he’s not wearing his finance hat Derrick works on cars and tinkers with wood, geeking out over obscure woodworking tools (who doesn’t love a good spoke-shave?). The second coming of Emeril Lagasse, at dinnertime you’ll find Derrick in the kitchen smoking brisket, slathering BBQ sauce on ribs and pork shoulders, then busting out the Semolina to make his own pasta. Between all of these hobbies Derrick excels at his other full-time job: fathering his two young kids.
Derrick’s hiring is exciting in itself, and so is the big picture of what we’re building at Ridge: a modern, founder-focused firm that provides hands-on support to early enterprise startups in building huge, healthy businesses. Over the past thirteen months we’ve added Derrick, Brendan Baker, Yousuf Khan, Susan Stella, Kamil Saeid, and developer/data junkie Andrew Cove to our Ridge Familia. In other words, we’ve attached another talented component to our Voltron robot and our portfolio will reap the benefits, as will all the exciting enterprise companies we have yet to meet.
Everyone, please unmute yourselves, pause your podcasts, and let out a hearty Ridge welcome for our new CFO Derrick Lee!
