About Us

Our financial professionals understand how startups work in evolving industries. Early Growth’s founders have all started, run and exited multiple businesses. We know the frustration of entrepreneurs seeking to change the world but getting bogged down by unending trivia – like paying bills, sending invoices, running payroll and finding insurance.
We’ve also held executive roles at corporations including General Electric, HP and McKinsey & Co. So we knew big companies had the luxury of essential business services being run smoothly in the background. Why shouldn’t startups enjoy this same convenience of a hassle-free back office?

In late 2020, Early Growth was acquired by Escalon Services, the leading one-stop shop for back-office solutions. Together, the combined companies are the largest and best-known Essential Business Solutions provider to customers in more than 40 countries. Our EBS services comprise FinOps (bookkeeping and accounting, taxes and CFO services), PeopleOps (HR, benefits, recruiting and payroll) and Risk (business insurance).

Leadership

Ruby Sahiwal

Ruby Sahiwal

CEO

A seasoned entrepreneur who successfully started, managed, or exited four companies, Escalon was born from Ruby’s first-hand frustration with backoffice tasks while bootstrapping companies.

Additionally, Ruby has held strategic and operating roles at General Electric and McKinsey & Co. As the chief operating officer of Ketera Technologies, a Kleiner Perkins-funded American Express spinoff, Ruby created the first on-demand provider of spend management solutions and increased the revenue by tenfold. He also served as the COO of VerticalNet Solutions, where he built the division up to 300 employees and over $12 million in revenue in less than a year.

Ruby earned an MBA in strategy and economics from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in aerospace and mechanical engineering from SUNY Buffalo.

Venus Bakhtiari

Venus Bakhtiari

VP of Sales

Venus is a Sales and Business Development leader who has more than twenty years of experience focused on business planning, driving sales, and coaching high performance sales teams. She has demonstrated a track record of surpassing quota year after year. Venus is highly detail-oriented and identifies herself as a committed team player.

Prior to joining Escalon, Venus worked as a Northern California Commercial Manager at Tennant Co. where she was responsible for managing customer relationships through multi-channel business. During her tenure, she provided her input for creating channel partnerships within key vertical markets of Education, Healthcare, and Hospitality and established new relationships with clients. She has also been a District Sales Manager at Paychex Inc in her previous engagements.

Venus holds a Bachelor of Science from San Jose State University.

vipul-

Vipul Barbhaya

COO/CFO

Vipul Barbhaya is a Managing Director in Riveron’s Advisory practice providing M&A consulting services to private equity investors, investment banking clients, and corporations.

Mr. Barbhaya has over twenty years of experience in business, many of those advising clients on a range of transaction advisory services, including buy-side and sell-side financial due diligence on standalone platforms and carve-outs of business segments, financial modeling, merger integration, post-deal integration assessments, validation of merger synergies SPA reviews, NWC optimization, negotiation of NWC targets and post-close NWC disputes, and assessment of potential off-balance sheet exposure.
Mr. Barbhaya has led multiple sell-side engagements, both domestic and international for investment bankers, private equity groups and strategic sellers and his experience includes analyses on normalized working capital, divestiture exit readiness, and review of acquisition agreements and business plans.

Maureen

Maureen Cheong

Head of PeopleOps

Maureen is a seasoned Human Resources executive with over two decades of experience. She has in-depth experience in all aspects in Human Resources (HR) working with high growth companies at different stages of their growth cycles. She began her career in Boston, Massachusetts where she partnered with venture backed startup companies on building out their C-suite and engineering teams and later joined the HR team at Saks Fifth Avenue. She then moved to Los Angeles, California where she held executive HR roles at Oversee.net, BeachMint/The Lucky Group and TWO NIL.

In October 2016, Maureen joined Full Stack Finance to start and build the HR Practice. The dedicated team focuses on establishing solid HR infrastructures and applying best practices to growing teams. She now leads Escalon’s PeopleOps team – HR, Payroll, Benefits and Recruiting.

Maureen holds a BS from Babson College. During her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, traveling, and as a foodie, she is always in search of the perfect bite.

Anjum Tunuli

Anjum Tunuli

Chief Tax Officer

Anjum brings over 17 years of accomplished tax executive experience to Escalon. His breadth of work includes domestic, multi-state, and foreign tax experience, including tax compliance, audit, research, and tax planning activities within public accounting firms. Prior to Escalon, Anjum spent 10 years as a Senior Tax Manager for Klarin and Associates.

Anjum is a CPA and has a B.A. in accounting from the California State Polytechnic University – Pomona.

Ryan Johnson

Ryan Johnson

Head of FinOps

Ryan brings nearly a decade of experience helping clients successfully navigate toward additional rounds of funding, M&A deals, and cash-flow positive operations.

Ryan has a B.A. in accounting and Finance from the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.

Over

5000

clients depend on Early Growth

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