WeddingWire's new CFO Mike Beach has joined the wedding planning platform startup at a crucial moment. Just three months ago, CEO and fellow Blackboard veteran Tim Chi completed the acquisition of Wedding Planner S.L., putting WeddingWire in more than a dozen countries worldwide. Now, having gone through the on-boarding process at WeddingWire, Beach is ready to get to work.
"WeddingWire reminds me a lot of Blackboard in the early days," Beach said. "The people here are really passionate about what they are doing."
As for what Beach intends to do at WeddingWire, he said it's mainly about taking what works about the company and moving it to the next level. That means more clients, more sales and possibly even more mergers and acquisitions, Beach said.
"I'll be focusing on scaling up the company, building the infrastructure for even more growth," he explained.
The decision to hire Beach didn't entirely come out of nowhere. Beach and Chi had kept in touch since they both left Blackboard, and Chi broached the idea of Beach coming on board a while ago.
"We've been talking about it on and off for the last year," Beach said.
After nine years as CFO at Blackboard and four years as COO and CFO at Digital Signal Corporation, Beach is bringing plenty of experience with the kind of growth he said he sees With the Wedding Planner acquisition complete, Beach said he has come on at the just the right moment to amp up WeddingWire's financial side.
"We've acquired a great operation. Now we can enlarge them," Beach said. "There's so much potential here [in the wedding industry]. The whole market's been largely untapped."
Beach unsurprisingly wouldn't say whether his hiring is a sign of an upcoming IPO or not, but his experience at upping revenue and size at his previous companies could be an early hint at where WeddingWire might be headed.
"I've had the good fortune to join now," Beach said. "We'll see what comes next.
