Do you know someone who might be?
I know exactly what the next CEO of Add then Multiply looks like.
The question is, does she? That’s right, I said “she”.
She will be an experienced, qualified accountant with experience in dealmaking, mergers and acquisitions, and a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Saying “she” is deliberate. I’m convinced, both in my heart and in my head, that the next CEO of Add then Multiply will be a woman.
There are three reasons:
- The work we do with female founders
- The FACE methodology
- Integrity in the deals that we do
Let’s go a little deeper so you can understand a feel why I’m looking for a female CEO to take over the reins at Add then Multiply. This may be a little longer than most of our newsletters, but it’s a really important one so please grab a cup of tea or coffee, or maybe a glass of wine, find a comfortable place to sit and hear me out.
In the beginning, from 2010 until 2018, Add then Multiply was just me.
Today, in 2026, we are a team of 8 people and this year several things have happened or are about to happen in my life that have led me to decide that now is the right time to pass the baton to someone else.
I’m not retiring. That’s not in my DNA.
I will move into the Chair role, looking after a handful of long-term clients, speaking on stages and podcasts, writing and supporting the new CEO to drive the business on to its next stage.
Coming back to those three reasons, Let’s delve into each of these a little deeper.
Working with female founders
In the summer of 2019, shortly after my 1st book, Add then Multiply was published, I was speaking at an event focused on SME businesses. My talk was about raising equity funding to grow your business, and after my talk a woman came up to me and asked why so little funding went to female founders. I replied that I had no idea, but that I would find out.
About a week later, I was in a meeting with the CEO of the British Business Bank. We had met at a business event earlier that year and this was a follow up to that meeting. We had a wide-ranging conversation, and towards the end I asked her if she knew anything about the level of funding that went to female founders. With a wry smile, she reached down to the bottom drawer of her desk and brought out a bound research report that the bank has published: UK VC and Female Founders. The bank had looked at all UK venture capital deals in 2017 and grouped them by gender of the founding team.
The findings were stark:
- 75% of pitch decks were submitted by all-male teams, and they got more than 89% of the money invested.
- 20% of pitch decks were submitted by mixed gender teams, and they secured 10% of the money.
- 5% of pitch decks were submitted by all-female teams, and they received a paltry sum, less than 1% of the money.
Less than 1% of money going to female founding teams. I had no idea that the situation was that bad, and I was outraged.
Not long after that, I met with a friend at the London Stock Exchange whom I had known from the time when I was the CFO of a couple of public companies that were listed on the exchange. I knew the stock exchange had put in a great deal of effort to ensure that every one of the top 350 companies listed had at least one woman on their board. I wanted to get her take on this statistic from the world of venture capital. After some discussion, I asked her if the stock exchange would host an event in its theatre, and she agreed. My social enterprise, Funding Focus was born.
We ran our first event at the London Stock Exchange on 25 November 2019, and over a hundred people attended. From the start, our approach has been to focus on the women who have successfully raised funding. Telling their stories, and providing learning and advice that can be shared with others to increase their chance of securing funding. The pandemic forced us to go online in 2020 and 2021, and then we were invited back to the London Stock Exchange in March 2022 as part of its week-long celebration of International Women’s Day. At that event, I announced we were going to raise a fund that would invest in female founders. Unfortunately, we were unable to get the fund away. Undaunted, we continued our work supporting female founders, and our next conference will be on 25 November 2026, the 7th anniversary of that first event. This is important work that will carry on.
In the intervening period, I gave a TEDx talk “The Fight for Fairer Funding” which has over 3 million views, and my 2nd book, Funded Female Founders was published.
But the level of funding to female founders hasn’t changed. Pitchbook has published data on this going back to 2008, and the level of funding to female founders in the UK and Europe has only once been more than 2% (in 2008 it was 2.4%). Today it stands at just 0.9%. In the United States it has never broken through 3% and today is just 0.7%. The situation hasn’t changed in 18 years, and that’s not good enough.
In the consulting side of Add then Multiply, most of our clients have at least one female founder.
The FACE methodology
In 2016, I enrolled in a programme called “Key Person of Influence” run by Daniel Priestley. As part of the programme, I developed the FACE methodology: Fund, Acquire, Consolidate, Exit. It was based on skills and experience I learned as the CFO of three companies in the noughties: an American PR agency that had expanded into Europe and the two public companies that were listed on the stock exchange. During that 10-year period I raised about £100 million and bought or sold 17 companies. Those learnings have been distilled into a methodology that is designed for entrepreneurial companies.
Not long after the KPI programme completed, Daniel called me. He had a couple of companies that he wanted to acquire but he didn’t know how to get the deals over the line. He wanted to know if I could help. Within a couple of months, both deals were completed, and I became the fractional CFO of his company, Dent Global. Today I’m the fractional CFO of all Daniel’s companies and our team support many of them in the day-to-day finances. Daniel and I have completed 9 M&A deals (both acquisitions and exits) and we’ve created 4 new software companies where we’ve raised funding from angel investors to build the tech and scale the companies.
The work we do with clients implementing the FACE methodology requires a balance of commercial rigour and a human touch. These transactions our clients are involved in are often things they’ve never done before, and they can have a significant impact on them, their lives and their businesses. That balance is critical in seeing both the deals and the people go through successfully.
Doing deals with integrity
When you read in the press or watch in the cinema about people who do deals, they often come across as being brash, crass and sometimes heartless. Think Richard Gere’s character in Pretty Woman or Leonardo di Caprio’s in Wolf of Wall Street. For them it’s all about the money. They don’t care about the people. They think of them and their businesses as targets.
We look at the human beings and the stories behind them and their companies. For us, doing deals with integrity is all about connecting on a human level with our clients and guiding them through transactions that can have life-changing implications.
For those three reasons, I am convinced the next CEO of Add then Multiply will be a woman.
What about those life events I mentioned?
It’s funny how certain years have several events that can change the course of your life. For me those years have been 1983 and 2026.
In 1983, I graduated from university, turned 21, moved out of my parents’ house, married Kate (whom I met when we were 17) and started my career with Price Waterhouse (now PWC). It was the beginning of a career that took us from the west coast of Canada to Zurich (in 1987) where our two daughters were born, and then to London (in 1993) where we have lived ever since.
Earlier this year we made an emergency trip to Canada. Kate’s dad, who is 91 and blind, had a bad fall and cracked his pelvis. He has recovered somewhat but he’s now living in a care home. His health is slowly failing. Since then, Kate and I have had some serious conversations about priorities in life. On my birthday next month, I’ll be singing “will you still need me, will you still feed me…” We will celebrate our 43rd anniversary in August. Most importantly, at the other end of life’s spectrum, in September our grandkids will be turning 2 and 4. I want to play more than a passing role in their lives.
For the better part of the last 10 years, I have worked seven days a week. That is no longer sustainable, nor is it desirable. As I said at the beginning, retirement is not in my DNA, but I have agreed with Kate that it’s time to step back from the CEO role at Add then Multiply and find someone new to take the reins and drive the company to its next level. I will stay involved as Chair, while also being able to spend more time with the people I love most in this world.
Let’s look at Add then Multiply today
Today we are a team of 8 people, 4 men and 4 women working virtually from the UK and South Africa.
We work exclusively with entrepreneurial businesses and do two things:
- Run fractional finance teams, from bookkeeper to CFO, to support their growth by providing proactive, sound financial management and strategy. We are not an accounting firm. We work inside our clients’ companies, behaving like we are part of their team.
- Support the established companies that want to scale exponentially using our FACE methodology.
There is tremendous potential to grow the business, both organically and by acquisition.
I remain committed to launching a fund that will invest in female founders, and it will become the bleeding heart of the company.
We operate from a set of core values: equality, fairness, growth, integrity and love. These values guide us in everything we do.
That leaves me to ask the question I asked at the beginning of this newsletter:
Are you the next CEO of Add then Multiply?
Do you know someone who might be?
If you think you are or you know someone who might be, I’d love to hear from you.
Please reach out to me on dbh@addthenmultiply.com and send me a 1- minute video explaining why you are the right person for the role and sharing a story of a challenge you have faced and how you overcame it.
David B Horne
Founder of Add Then Multiply & Funding Focus
Add Then Multiply is a fractional finance and business scaling consultancy helping founder-led businesses at £1M–£10M+ to Fund, Acquire, Consolidate, and Exit.
