James Kennedy sits down with California-based fractional CFO and CPA Neeti Chauhan to trace her remarkable journey from Mumbai and Bangalore to the US tech scene and what that global experience means for SaaS and startup founders today. Neeti shares how yoga and meditation underpin her discipline and clarity as a finance leader, what it was really like working at Lehman Brothers during its collapse, and how she went from knowing no one in Bangalore to building a thriving consulting firm serving fast-growth startups.
For founders and finance leaders in SaaS and services, Neeti breaks down the key metrics (CAC, LTV, gross margin) that tell you whether you’re secretly selling at a loss, why ARR in Google Sheets is a hidden risk, and the modern finance stack she leans on to keep clients both compliant and scalable.
About Neeti Chauhan
Neeti Chauhan is a fractional CFO and licensed CPA (California) with deep international experience across India, Hong Kong, and the United States.
She began her career in Mumbai, completing her Bachelor of Commerce while simultaneously qualifying as a Chartered Accountant. After audit and assurance roles at Deloitte, she joined Lehman Brothers in Mumbai and lived through its bankruptcy and subsequent transition to Nomura, later leading a SOX implementation project in Hong Kong in partnership with PwC.
Relocating to Bangalore with no local network, Neeti founded her own consulting firm and spent more than a decade serving high-growth startups – supporting everything from incorporation and registrations to bookkeeping, audits, compliance, and strategic finance. After moving to the US, she obtained her CPA license, worked in public accounting on private equity and venture capital audits, and now focuses on fractional CFO work for SaaS and service-based businesses, blending technical rigor with a strong operator mindset.
What You’ll Learn
- From Yoga Mat to Boardroom:
How 20+ years of yoga and meditation shaped Neeti’s approach to discipline, resilience, and “showing up every day” for her clients and why that mindset matters in chaotic, high-growth environments. - Inside Lehman’s Collapse (From Mumbai):
What it felt like to work at Lehman Brothers as everything unfolded, how the Nomura transition played out on the ground, and the lessons Neeti carried forward about communication, risk, and uncertainty. - Building (and Exiting) a Firm in Bangalore’s Startup Scene:
How Neeti moved to Bangalore knowing no one, became a one-stop finance partner to tech startups, supported companies scaling from zero to eight figures, and ultimately transitioned her team and clients when she moved to the US. - Are You Selling SaaS at a Loss?
A practical walkthrough of CAC vs. LTV, why a 3:1 LTV:CAC ratio is a healthy benchmark, what a 70–90% SaaS gross margin really signals, and how to know when your customer acquisition strategy is quietly destroying value. - Why Your ARR Doesn’t Belong in Google Sheets:
The hidden risks of doing revenue recognition and ARR tracking manually, especially when contracts change mid-term, renew early, or terminate and how tools like Maxio/SaaSOptics, Chargebee, Stripe Billing, and Stripe + analytics can transform confidence in your numbers. - Designing a Modern Finance Stack for Scale:
How Neeti thinks about stitching together Salesforce, subscription billing, P2P/AP tools (Airbase, Bill.com, Tipalti), general ledgers (QuickBooks, NetSuite, Xero, Sage), close/reconciliation tools (BlackLine, FloQast), and analytics platforms (Power BI, G-Accon) into a single, reliable source of truth. - What a Strategic Fractional CFO Really Does:
Why Neeti insists on being embedded with the whole team – sales, growth, product, and finance – so she can influence pricing, budgeting, spend management, and investor reporting rather than just “closing the books in the background.”
Episode Highlights
- “Yoga taught me that if you show up on the mat every day, you get clarity and progress. I try to bring that same discipline to my clients – every day I want to give them something more valuable than yesterday.”
- “At Lehman, we were literally reading the newspapers to understand what might happen to our jobs. Within a couple of weeks the India operations were taken over – but that period of silence and uncertainty is something I’ll never forget.”
- “In Bangalore I’d have founders walk into my office saying, ‘I have an idea but no idea how to build a company.’ I became their one-stop finance partner – from incorporation and GST to telling them, ‘You’re scaling the wrong way, let’s adjust course.’”
- “In SaaS, if your CAC is greater than your LTV, you are absolutely selling at a loss. A good target is an LTV to CAC of at least 3:1 and gross margins between 70% and 90%. If you’re not there, something in your model needs to change.”
- “When you’re maintaining ARR and revenue in a big Google Sheet, you’re burning time that should be spent on strategy. Tools aren’t just a nice-to-have – they’re what free your finance team to actually help you grow.”
More About Neeti’s Role
Today, Neeti works as a fractional CFO and strategic finance partner for SaaS and service-based founders who are ready to scale. She:
- Designs and interprets SaaS metrics (ARR, MRR, CAC, LTV, churn, gross margin) so founders know whether growth is actually profitable.
- Builds pricing models, budgets, and forecasts that align with the founder’s long-term goals – not just industry benchmarks.
- Implements and optimizes finance tech stacks across CRM, billing, P2P/AP, GL, close/reconciliation, tax, and analytics.
- Partners with leadership on investor reporting, spend management, and restructuring, always asking, “If this were my business, what would I do?”
- Embeds with cross-functional teams (sales, growth, engineering, ops) to stay close to the “pulse” of the business and anticipate what’s coming next.
