Overview

Ember Search identified AllSpice.io’s first Head of Finance in 63 days, delivering a Series A SaaS finance leader with enterprise go to market, fundraising, and full stack finance build experience.

At a glance

Days to 
first introduction

Days to 
completion

Candidates mapped 
and approached

Ember 
screens

Shortlisted
candidates

Client
interviews

The outcome
Hire

The company

AllSpice.io is a Series A collaboration and AI platform transforming hardware and electronics design. Often described as GitHub for hardware, the business provides version control, workflow automation, and AI driven tooling for electronics teams building complex circuit boards and hardware systems.

The company had recently raised a $15M Series A led by Rethink Impact and was transitioning from an early PLG motion into enterprise sales.

Stage: Series A

Funding: $15M Series A

Operating footprint: San Francisco HQ, hybrid team

Business model: Enterprise SaaS serving hardware and electronics teams

The challenge

AllSpice needed its first in house finance leader at a critical inflection point post Series A.

The founders were managing finance internally alongside an external bookkeeper, but the company was preparing for aggressive growth toward a Series B. The hire required someone who could both operate strategically and build foundational infrastructure from scratch.

Own FP&A, board reporting, forecasting, and fundraising readiness

Convert reactive financial models into proactive strategic decision tools

Design scalable invoicing, revenue operations, and financial systems to support enterprise contracts

Act as a true thought partner to the CEO while operating as an individual contributor

Bring SaaS metric fluency, enterprise sales understanding, and growth orientation

The profile required balance. Too junior, and the hire would lack strategic depth. Too senior, and they would not be willing to operate hands on in a 20 person company.

Process

How Ember Search ran the search

We ran a founder led, partner executed search focused exclusively on San Francisco based SaaS finance leaders with Series A to Series C experience.

Because AllSpice was building toward a Series B and needed both speed and precision, we prioritized candidates who had personally built finance infrastructure at early stage companies rather than inherited scaled systems.

Built a targeted market map focused on enterprise SaaS leaders who had scaled from Series A through Series B

Leveraged warm relationships to move quickly and drive high signal early conversations

Screened heavily for growth orientation rather than restructuring or cost cutting bias

Tested for willingness to operate as a hands on individual contributor while maintaining board level presence

Ran a tight funnel to preserve quality while maintaining speed

Result

Why this hire worked

Justina brought exactly the blend AllSpice required. Most recently, she served as Head of Finance and Operations at Freshpaint, where she scaled revenue from 20x and headcount from 15 to 100 employees and partnered with the CEO to raise a $30M Series B. Earlier in her career, she worked in private equity and investment banking giving her strong transaction rigor and capital markets fluency. Critically, she had already been the first in house finance leader post Series A.

Justina Ramoskaite, Head of Finance

Testimonial

“We were really impressed by the quality of the Head of Finance candidates Ember Search presented. Each candidate brought the right mix of strategic thinking and hands on experience, which made our evaluation clear and straightforward. The team was responsive, consultative, and made the entire hiring process feel effortless.”

Valentina Ratner, Co-founder & CEO

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