About

Jeffrey Axelrod is the managing director at FinTech Alchemy.

Jeffrey Axelrod is a shaper of companies, products, projects, and teams; a facilitator of communication between stakeholders, an internal and external evangelist. Practical and delivery-focused, never hesitating to make big decisions that turn great ideas into reality.

He has been a thoughtful and insightful executive at multiple enterprise B2B companies in the role of CEO, CTO and Product Architect. For the past five years, Jeffrey has been mentoring fintech startups, helping with everything from strategy, fundraising, team-building, product-market-fit, implementation, and more.

Jeffrey was the CEO and founder of Cogency Software, the premier provider of portfolio and partnership accounting products in the alternative investment multi-manager space. For over 10 years he led all aspects of the company and ultimately brought the company to its acquisition by Backstop Solutions.

He then served as CTO at Backstop, a SaaS company servicing the Alternative Investment market. There, he was responsible for operations of a 100+ person agile SaaS Development and product team across multiple cities and counties, building and delivering product to thousands of clients.

Most recently, Jeffrey was the Executive Director at the EvoNexus Silicon Valley Fintech Incubator, and has gone on from there to mentor early-stage tech startups.

He has presented at financial industry conferences as a domain expert on topics including Selecting software for Alt-Investment shops, Liquidity and fee structures, Reporting transparency, and Operational efficiency; and was an adjunct faculty member at Columbia University for six years, teaching post graduate courses in application development and product design.

Key Credentials

  • A career of working at fintech startups
  • A large network of participants in the fintech startup ecosystem
  • Leadership experience across engineering, product, marketing, finance, and as a CEO
  • Advising seed-stage fintech startups for many years, including a role as head of a fintech incubator
  • Adjunct faculty at Columbia University's Computer Technology & Applications program for 6 years
  • Practical experience in and real-world stories from product design, software development, sales meetings, contract negotiations, client-engagements, client-exit interviews, trade-conferences, marketing campaigns, successful and unsuccessful project implementations, capital raising, and acquisition

Core principles that inform my work

  • Be yourself -- Your company is and can only be a reflection of who you are.
  • Cultivate your Uniqueness -- Don’t aim for the middle of the bell-curve. You are not a statistic!
  • Deliver long-term value -- Back up your marketing story with domain expertise, a compelling product, and excellent references.

Examples of how I help my clients

  • Telling the company story - who are you, who are you addressing, what makes you stand out - and then putting that into the website, decks and other collateral.
  • Preparation and materials review for meetings w BoD, investors, prospects, clients.
  • Team building strategy, candidate interviews.
  • Partner and prospect referrals.
  • Personal support --- What keeps you up at night and helping you to make it through.
  • My clients have called me, amongst other things: virtual co-founder, ceo-therapist, de-facto board of directors.

Aside from my tech career....

Jeffrey is a lifelong athlete, having trained in ballet, contemporary dance, yoga, gyrotonics, and road cycling. He brings the focus and disciple he developed there to all his activities to this day. Today Jeffrey focuses on the long-game of being a healthy human, which includes physical training, conscious nutrition, healthy sleep, deep family and friend relationships, and stress reduction.

Jeffrey shares an active life in San Francisco and beyond with his wife Arella, exploring performing arts, good and healthy food, yoga, long road-cycling trips, journeys to hot-springs, and a community of friends and family.