Clearco CEO and founder, Michele Romanow is resigning from the company as it announced yet another set of layoffs.
50 employees, just under 30 percent of the company, are affected in the new lay offs.
Clearco, officially known as CFT Clear Finance Technology Corp., now brings its headcount to 140 people. It had 500 employees last July.
The layoffs span departments across the company, impacting a mix of junior and senior employees.
“We hired too quickly last year,” Ms. Romanow said in an interview. “We grew in too many markets, we were trying to build too many products.”
Replacing Romanow as CEO is Andrew Curtis, a New York-based investment banker who has 20 years of experience in investment management and financial services. Curtis has been working with Clearco since last summer and will assume the role effective immediately.
Ms. Romanow, a star of TV’s Dragons’ Den, said the decision to step down was hers, 11 months after she replaced co-founder Andrew D’Souza as CEO.
“I told the board, ‘I think it’s time we have someone that knows and has operated in these economic conditions and has a wealth of experience in finance and capital markets so we do not make mistakes there.’ ”
Mr. Curtis “built my trust; it was abundantly clear we needed someone like him. We 100 percent got the right person.”
CRO Mark Steinman is leaving the company to pursue other ventures, according to Romanow.
“I have been in plenty of situations like the one Clearco faces,” Mr. Curtis said. “You have a fundamentally strong business with attractive prospects, but which is going through some growing pains and facing a different macroeconomic environment than we’ve all been used to. You look at situations like this as dislocating and disruptive, but also as presenting extraordinary opportunities.”
