Dawn Snyder, DBA Candidate, MBA

Who is Dawn Snyder?

Dawn Snyder runs internal finance at Kruze Consulting, the CPA firm serving venture-backed startups, and brings 25 years of finance leadership to the role. With 25 years of corporate finance leadership and dual master’s degrees, she owns the firm’s cash-to-accrual conversion, compensation governance, and practice management software implementations. She holds an MBA in Finance and a Master of Education, and is completing a Doctor of Business Administration with a dissertation focusing on financial literacy. Her deep expertise in high-growth corporate financial strategy and operational unit economics ensures robust financial health, enabling Kruze Consulting to maintain elite accuracy standards while serving venture-backed founders across Pre-Seed through Series C.

Credentials and Education

• Doctor of Business Administration, Temple University (in progress, expected 2027)
• Master of Business Administration, Finance, DeSales University
• Master of Education, DeSales University

Experience

I have spent close to 25 years in finance, the last two at Kruze Consulting, where I serve as Vice President of Finance. I run the firm’s internal financial operations and finance team, and I provide leadership with accurate numbers and analysis they use to make decisions. When the finance function is accurate and fast, the whole firm makes better calls on hiring, spending, and growth.

I also lead the systems and process work that keeps the firm’s reporting accurate as it grows, including accounting method transitions and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations that streamline how the firm operates. In addition, I serve on our compensation committee to guide strategic headcount expansion and collaborate on firm partnership management. These are the kinds of projects that protect the firm’s accuracy bar and let our systems scale as the client base grows.

Much of my career has centered on high-growth companies, where the hard part is not getting started but staying disciplined through expansion. I have spent years strategically managing cash flow around investments, efficiency improvements, and headcount so a company can scale while remaining within budget.

A distinct inflection point I repeatedly observe is what happens to a company at scale. Getting a company to roughly 100 to 125 employees is generally straightforward, but scaling sustainably beyond the 150-employee mark is where most companies stall. Many remain small or grow so fast they break. Most of my work has lived in that transition, building the financial structure and discipline that let a company push past 150 and keep growing without losing control.

Areas of Expertise

• S corporation tax strategy for single-shareholder and multiple-shareholder entities
• Internal finance: enterprise budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting
• Accounting operations and month-end reporting
• Cash flow management and treasury
• Financial strategy and headcount planning
• Compensation strategy and hiring decisions
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and software implementations
• Cash-to-accrual conversions
• Scaling finance functions for high-growth companies