SW

Stuart West

CFO at Grammarly

San Francisco, California

Work Experience

2020

  • Chief Financial Officer

    2020

2017 - 2023

  • Advisor

    2017 - 2023

  • SVP of Operations and CFO

    2012 - 2020

    Business lead responsible for finance ($460 million of primary and $250 million of secondary financings with financial and strategic investors, 10+ U.S. and cross-border acquisitions including Tumblr, six years of audits including first audit), business intelligence (including hands-on development of React/Hadoop/PHP metrics system), HR (scaled from 100 to over 1100 staff in 70+ countries), marketing (including first advertising campaigns), legal, international, for a subscription / SaaS / freemium business. Part-time software developer and manager of dev teams.

2008 - 2015

  • Board member

    2008 - 2015

    Long-term member of the 10-person governing board of the international non-profit behind Wikipedia, which through a 100,000-person global community provides online educational resources in 285 languages to over 500 million people worldwide each month. Served in various board roles including Vice-Chair of the Board, Treasurer, Audit Committee Chair.

2011 - 2012

  • Executive in Residence

    2011 - 2012

    Advisor to venture capital firm that provides seed, venture and growth-stage funding to top technology companies.

  • Chief Financial Officer

    2010 - 2011

    Drove finance and business for digital textbook startup with $75 million of venture capital funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Raised $40 million strategic round from Intel Capital to fund major strategic shift.

2008 - 2009

  • Chief Strategy Officer, Head of Corporate Development/M&A

    2008 - 2009

    Led corporate strategy at publicly-traded internet search distribution company with $200 million revenue.

2006 - 2008

  • Vice President

    2006 - 2008

    Led business operations and finance for products including Mail, Messenger, and the Yahoo home page at global internet leader.

2000 - 2006

  • Acting Chief Financial Officer / VP Finance

    2000 - 2006

    Progressively increasing leadership roles at publicly-traded leader in digital video recorders during team growth from 85 to 500 people, paid subscriber growth from 73,000 to 4.4 million, and revenue growth from $4 to $260 million. Raised over $250 million in five public equity offerings and three debt transactions.

1999 - 2000

  • VP of Business Development

    1999 - 2000

    Led strategic partnerships and revenue generation at online invitations startup backed by VCs Mayfield Fund and Institutional Venture Partners.