Career Path Of A CFO At Biomerica

It's funny, I actually started working very young at a flower shop when I was 14. That's really where it all began.

It was important for me to get financial support for my parents, but also to gain real-life experience. I wasn't exactly academic, though I did well in school.

Then I worked at a now-defunct store called Crown Books. It was like a Barnes & Noble that got absorbed by them. After that, I went to college but continued to work.

I'm a proud UCLA Bruin. Oddly enough, I entered college as a creative major because I had been building websites and doing Photoshop on the side. I even taught those skills at a community class level at UCLA.

During any breaks from school, I would find retail jobs. I've effectively always been working, which has helped build character. Working with others, often in lower-income jobs, teaches you how to navigate difficult situations when people don't treat you well.

My route was pretty traditional from that point on. I tried a marketing initiative on the East Coast, but it didn't go well. I realized that space wasn't for me.

I saw many people more talented than me and had some thinking to do. So, I pivoted into finance and accounting. Technically, economics was my major and accounting my minor, so it was a rough transition.

I jumped into it during my third year. I was very fortunate to align with Ernst & Young, now known as EY, one of the large public accounting firms, part of the Big Four. I went there for almost six years, working as a manager.

One of my goals was to get into big tech. After EY, I was fortunate to work at Broadcom. There, I was exposed to more than just accounting and finance.

I experienced accounting, finance, strategic consulting, and operational tasks. I even helped PMO a large bank and SAP implementation. This involves taking a company's core system and migrating it to a new one from scratch. It was a huge project that expanded my cross-disciplinary skills beyond accounting and finance.

After that, I took a normal progression, moving from the Big Four and big tech to mid-market billion-dollar companies, and then to startups. I worked at startups for many years, which was extremely interesting.

Working with founders, who are dreamers, and as a finance or ops person focused on execution, I saw how easy it is to lose sight of the ultimate goal. It was great to witness that firsthand.

As a result, I was at a company called Happy Money. When I left, we were considered a unicorn, a company valued at a billion dollars or more. Witnessing the hyper-growth, from a small company to 7-10 times larger in headcount, was incredible.

Now, in my current role, I am the CFO at BioAmerica. We are a publicly traded company on Nasdaq, focusing on the life science and medtech space, specifically diagnostic tests.

What brought me here is that we're trying to commercialize a new product after 10 years of investment. The company believes this is a groundbreaking product.

I'm passionate about this product, called InFoods IBS. It's a highly specific and personalized blood test for diagnosing IBS. It can pinpoint exact sensitivities, like to cranberries or walnuts, unlike other tests that list many potential triggers.

If you avoid those specific triggers for four to six weeks, you'll feel significantly better. This category creation, blending the startup mentality with an established public company, was very attractive. That's the longer career arc.