Who we are

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.

Ivan Ivankovich

COO

Ivan brings more than 30 years of finance and operations management experience to his role as COO of Escalon. The firm specializes in providing finance and accounting outsource services to early to mid stage venture-/angel-/PE-backed technology companies. His industry experience includes technology, internet services, online advertising, digital media publishing and telecommunications.

Ivan previously served as Co-Founder of Full Stack Finance managing the financial, operations and growth initiatives for the Firm. In addition, he acted as CFO for multiple companies in a variety of industries at various stages of their development. Prior to founding Full Stack Finance, Ivan served as CFO of YellowPages.com and as Vice President, Portfolio Operations with Platinum Equity, a global acquisition firm specializing in the operation of technology companies. At Platinum Equity, Ivan’s primary responsibility was the management and operational supervision of its portfolio companies.

Ivan started his career with Ernst & Young, joining their audit practice in Los Angeles.

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.

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.

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

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.