When a deal collapses, it’s rarely in the boardroom. 

The truth is, exits succeed or fail in the years beforehand. On Kluster’s Next Exit podcast, five senior finance leaders shared the hidden levers of value creation, from clean data to leadership alignment that separate successful exits from failed ones. 

Their stories revealed a consistent truth: exits succeed or fail long before the deal room. This article distils those conversations into five lessons that every CFO should carry into their next chapter.

Meet the experts:

1. Dan Bowyer (Partner, SuperSeed)
2. John Henderson (Deputy CFO, MIQ)
3. Sun Choi (Consulting CFO)
4. Marie Charpentier (CFO, Accredit Solutions)
5. Richard Simons (CFO, IDX)

1. Clean Data Is the Foundation for Value

Every CFO began with the same warning: if the numbers cannot be trusted, everything else is at risk. Buyers and investors will forgive periods of underperformance or missed opportunities. They will not forgive unreliable data.

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John Henderson described the finance function as operating under three “hats”: operational (ensuring compliance, tax, audit, and working capital discipline), commercial (supporting growth and profitability), and strategic (articulating the value creation plan). In all three, clean data is the starting point. Without it, forecasting becomes meaningless and management credibility evaporates.
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Marie Charpentier echoed this sentiment. In her words, “building a finance team without clean data is like trying to build a house without foundations.” At several high-growth businesses she joined, early reliance on ad-hoc processes later created major problems during audits and fundraising. Investors demanded GAAP or IFRS alignment and scalable systems before trusting the numbers.
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For Sun Choi, who specialises in working with early-stage SaaS companies, the first step in any engagement is reconstructing the financial history. “If your historicals aren’t right, your forecast will probably be wrong”. His point was echoed across all five interviews: forecasts, valuations, and even credibility rest on accurate historicals.

No matter how compelling the growth story, investors and buyers will test it against the numbers. If those numbers are incomplete, inconsistent, or opaque, valuation will suffer, or worse, the deal will collapse.

📌Takeaway for CFOs: Make data quality the first priority. Audit readiness, system scalability, and compliance discipline are not optional tasks. They are the foundation of credibility, and credibility is the currency of any exit.

2. Forecasting Is the Language of Trust

Forecasting is where numbers become narrative. It is how CFOs communicate credibility to investors, boards, and management teams. Consistent delivery against forecasts builds confidence that compounds over time. Missed forecasts, even once, can unravel that confidence overnight.
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Richard Simons has lived this repeatedly in private equity-backed environments. He stressed the importance of linking forecasts to real commercial data. Pipeline conversion rates, sales cycle lengths, and average order values should not be anecdotal; they must be evidenced by CRM data and historic performance. Without this discipline, forecasts become speculative and lose credibility at the board level.
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John Henderson framed forecasting as a balancing act. CFOs must be close enough to the business to understand the operational levers that drive outcomes, while avoiding the trap of drowning the organisation in reporting demands. His approach is to establish a predictable cadence, automate where possible, and use management time to focus on actionable insights rather than raw numbers.
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Dan Bowyer, from the investor’s perspective, reminded us that different capital providers value forecasts differently. Venture capital tolerates volatility and pivots; private equity demands predictability. But in both cases, the ability to demonstrate a repeatable forecasting process is what separates credible management teams from those who are simply hoping for growth.

Forecasting is therefore less about achieving perfection and more about maintaining transparency. Variance must be explained clearly. Trends must be visible and defensible. Above all, the numbers must be able to withstand scrutiny.

📌 Takeaway for CFOs: Treat forecasting as a core trust-building exercise. Build repeatable processes, tie assumptions to verifiable data, and be prepared to explain outcomes with clarity. Trust in the numbers is trust in the team.

3. Growth Versus Profitability: The Shift Toward Discipline

For much of the last decade, rapid revenue growth was celebrated as the ultimate measure of success. Profitability was often postponed, justified by the assumption that scale would solve everything. That era is over. Today’s investors want to see evidence that growth and profitability can coexist.
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John Henderson observed how market expectations have shifted. Revenue growth alone once commanded high valuations. Now buyers interrogate gross margin conversion, EBITDA trajectory, and cash generation as closely as top-line growth.
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Sun Choi pointed to the growing prominence of the “Rule of 40”, the principle that a company’s growth rate plus its profit margin should equal or exceed 40%. Once a shorthand applied mostly to SaaS companies, it is increasingly being applied across technology and services sectors. Growth without a credible path to profitability is no longer enough.
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Marie Charpentier offered a clear contrast from her own career. In her time within a VC-backed company, the board focused relentlessly on scaling headcount and revenue. In her current private equity-backed role, EBITDA dominates the conversation: “EBITDA is the word that comes up most often in board meetings.” Cash discipline, efficiency, and operational leverage have become central to valuation.

This shift does not force CFOs to choose between growth and profitability. Instead, it demands balance. Growth is still valued, but it must be matched with a credible path to sustainable profit. That balance has become one of the defining signals of a well-run company.

📌 Takeaway for CFOs: Pursue growth where the economics are sound, but always demonstrate a disciplined path to profitability. The ability to prove both is now a key driver of valuation.

4. People, Alignment, and Energy Are Often the Real Risks

Financial models dominate due diligence checklists, yet the CFOs we interviewed consistently warned that numbers are rarely the reason deals fail. Human factors such as leadership alignment, energy, and resilience often prove to be the real risks.
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Dan Bowyer argued that companies seldom “run out of money” in the literal sense. What they run out of is energy. Founder fatigue, leadership misalignment, and burnout are silent but destructive forces. He cautioned CFOs to watch carefully for the third year of a growth journey, when the initial adrenaline often fades and cracks begin to appear.
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Sun Choi highlighted boardroom misalignment as a frequent deal-breaker. Even strong financials cannot compensate for disagreements over valuation or exit strategy. His advice: surface these tensions early, before entering a transaction.
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John Henderson stressed the role of the CFO in building genuine partnerships with leadership peers. A finance function that dictates reporting without listening creates friction. A function that enables, supports, and fosters trust instead creates alignment and momentum.
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The message is clear. Behind every successful exit is a leadership team that shares energy, direction, and conviction. Where those qualities fracture, no spreadsheet can repair them.

📌 Takeaway for CFOs: watch the people as closely as the numbers. Ensure leadership energy is sustained, alignment is genuine, and trust is protected. These intangibles often decide whether a deal crosses the line.

5. Market Cycles Change, But Fundamentals Endure

Markets shift from exuberance to caution. Cheap capital fuels inflated valuations one year, while higher interest rates demand operational discipline the next. Yet through all these cycles, the fundamentals of value creation remain constant.
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Dan Bowyer predicted that every company will eventually become an AI company, but warned against superficial adoption. Investors are already asking how artificial intelligence is embedded into operating models, not just marketing decks.
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Marie Charpentier made a similar point. AI has become a common checkbox in investor presentations, yet she stressed that clean data, operational efficiency, and recurring revenue streams remain the true drivers of outcomes.
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Richard Simons reflected on the post-COVID years, when cheap money drove deals at unsustainable multiples. In today’s environment of higher interest rates and longer hold periods, private equity sponsors expect value to come from operations, not financial engineering.

Cycles will continue to turn, but businesses that can demonstrate cash generation, resilience, and scalability will remain attractive. Fads rise and fall, yet fundamentals sustain value.

📌 Takeaway for CFOs: Embrace innovation, but never lose sight of the building blocks that endure. Reliable cash flow, strong margins, and recurring revenue will always outlast market cycles.

The CFO as Architect of the Exit

From early-stage SaaS ventures to billion-euro private equity-backed businesses, the CFOs we spoke to shared one unifying lesson: exits are not won in the final weeks of negotiation. They are won in the years beforehand.

Clean data, credible forecasting, disciplined growth, leadership alignment, and sound fundamentals are the levers that determine value. Neglect them, and no amount of process expertise can recover confidence. Protect them, and the business enters the exit process trusted, credible, and positioned for full value.
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Richard Simons captured it best: “Exiting a business is two full-time jobs – running the company and running the process.” Without a well-run company, the process has nothing to stand on.

For CFOs, the imperative is clear. Build credibility through reliable data. Prove discipline in growth and profitability. Safeguard leadership energy and alignment. Strengthen the fundamentals that withstand every cycle.

Do this, and when the next exit comes, whether IPO, private equity sale, or strategic acquisition, the company will be more than ready. It will be trusted, respected, and valued at its true potential.

Build Investor-Ready Forecasting with Kluster

Exits are shaped by years of decisions, not weeks of negotiations. Kluster equips CFOs with forecasting tools that surface risks, highlight opportunities, and strengthen investor confidence from day one.

See Kluster in action: https://www.kluster.com/book-a-demo