Ismael Cherkaoui
Part-time CFO for fast growing tech companies
Salary / Daily rate
Paris, France
Freelance, open to permanent contract
Can come onsite
Skills
Languages
About me
Intro
Finance expert with extensive experience in CFO advisory, fundraising, and financial platform development. Built finance functions from Series A to Series B, contributing to 42M€ in equity fundraising, while advising on M&A transactions exceeding $1B. Offering strategic financial leadership with deep expertise in FP&A, reporting infrastructure, and financial data optimization for growth-stage companies.
Work experience
CFO / AI Systems Advisory
Marje
Jan 2022 - Present
4 years 10 months
Paris, France
marje.tech
Part-time CFO
Ynstant
Apr 2024 - May 2025
1 year 2 months
Paris, France
Cofounder - Sales & finance
four40.work
Jan 2023 - Dec 2023
1 year
Paris, France
The AI-powered knowledge graph for customer facing teams to 10x revenue generation and customer delight. four40 turns your meeting notes, convos, unstructured knowledge into data available in your CRM, Datawarehouse and preferred tools... ▪ Owned pre-seed fundraising ▪ Owned sales, signed 2 long-term design partnerships + built a warm commercial pipe ▪ Led go-to-market strategy (pricing, value proposition, use-cases...)
Finance Director
FairMoney
Sep 2019 - Jun 2022
2 years 10 months
Paris, France
The leading digital bank for Emerging Markets across Africa and Asia serving the next 2 billion. Backed by European & American investors, with a team of 250 people across France Nigeria, and India. Built finance function of the company from Series A (10m€) to Series B (32m€) across 3 entities in France, Nigeria & India : ■ Contributed to debt and equity fundraising operations ■ Built FP&A practice (CLTV/CAC, UE, Budgeting, Provisioning etc) ■ Built and led Financial Reporting ■ Built and led Treasury & Cash operations
M&A Transaction Services - Associate
Mazars
Mar 2016 - Oct 2019
3 years 8 months
Région de Paris, France
■ Carried out in-depth financial analysis (P&L, balance sheet, cash flows, business plan assessment, working capital normalization, EBITDA & net debt adjustment) ■ Performed buy-side/vendor financial due diligences for corporates and investment funds, notably: - Advised Ipsos on its acquisition of Synthesio ($50m), a social listening specialist - Advised an undisclosed bidder on the acquisition of Idex ($1bn), the French district heating & cooling leader - Advised AccorHotels and Edmond de Rothschild on the acquisition of Potel & Chabot ($100m sales), a premium catering house - Advised on acquisitions in various sectors o/w telecoms, ICT, manufacturing ... ■ Vendor assistance to AccorHotels through the sale of 57% stake (€4.6bn) in investment arm AccorInvest.
Tech Private Equity/VC - Analyst
Quadrille Capital
Jun 2015 - Nov 2015
6 months
Paris, France
■ Participated in the strategic and financial due diligence for global investments across Tech and Energy sectors ■ Contributed to the BlaBlaCar’s $160m financing round at $1.2bn post-money valuation ■ Performed financial analysis on funds as per Quadrille’s fund of funds investment strategy
M&A | Telecom & Tech - Analyst
Lazard
Feb 2014 - Aug 2014
7 months
Région de Paris, France
■ Participated in the sale process of Telkom Kenya (Orange’s Kenyan subsidiary @ €200m EV) ■ Led data room, Q&A process on a mandate of a major French telecom operator ■ Realized pitch books in the telecom sector in the EMEA area ■ Contributed to financial valuation: DCF, trading multiples and comparable transactions
Management Consulting - Analyst
Accenture
Jul 2013 - Dec 2013
6 months
Région de Paris, France
■ Designed automated DWH/reporting service for Société Générale CIB post-trade processing utility
Education
HEC Paris
Master 2 (M2)
2015 - 2015
1 year
Télécom Paris
Grande Ecole
2011 - 2014
3 years 1 month
EURECOM
Master's degree
2012 - 2013
11 months