The team
Operators who have been where you're going
Most of our team built or led finance, HR, and talent functions inside growth-stage companies before joining 512Financial. That experience is the service.
Bart Davis
Bart started 512Financial after watching the same pattern play out inside fast-moving companies: growth outpacing the financial infrastructure underneath it. His PwC roots and CFO roles at multiple startups, including iGrafx through a private equity transition, shaped how he thinks about timing: when to bring in fractional support, when to hire full-time, and when to start preparing for a transaction.
Under his leadership, 512Financial has grown 6x since 2022 and completed two acquisitions in 2025, bringing HireBetter and AustinPeopleWorks into the firm. He spends meaningful time evaluating the M&A landscape on both buy and sell side, for the firm and for clients. Bart has been recognized in Austin Business Journal’s Best CEO Awards and was named a 2026 YMBL Austin Under 40 winner. He is active in the Austin founder community through Entrepreneurs’ Organization.
Areas of Focus
Joel Trammell
Joel has spent more than 30 years building, scaling, and exiting companies. He has led private and public businesses, founded multiple technology companies, and built a body of work around what helps CEOs grow beyond personal effort. NetQoS, one of his most notable ventures, sold to CA Technologies for $200M after 31 consecutive quarters of double-digit year-over-year growth.
He is the author of The CEO Tightrope and The Chief Executive Operating System, CEO of XpertLoop.ai and owner of Texas CEO Magazine. Across that work, Joel focuses on helping leaders build the management systems, habits, and operating discipline that separate companies ready for the next stage from those still running on founder horsepower.
Areas of Focus
Velveth Schmitz
Velveth Schmitz is Chief Revenue Officer of 512Financial and former CEO of HireBetter, the strategic talent firm she led prior to its acquisition by 512Financial. For more than two decades, she has worked at the intersection of growth strategy, executive leadership, and talent planning, helping entrepreneurial and investor-backed companies scale intentionally. Having led and scaled businesses herself, she understands the realities leaders face as organizations grow: balancing urgency with long-term planning, building strong teams, and making decisions that strengthen both culture and performance.
At 512Financial, she leads revenue strategy, partnerships, market expansion, and the continued evolution of Strategic Talent Planning, working closely with executives, founders, and investors to help organizations think more holistically about growth, leadership, and organizational alignment. Outside the firm, Velveth serves in public office as both mayor and city council member, where her commitment to long-term stewardship and stakeholder alignment continues to shape her approach to business. She is also a member of Chief, the executive leadership network for senior women.
Kristen Tarlecki
Kristen spent a decade at one of the world’s largest media agencies, where she rose to VP and worked with global brands including Amazon, Nestlé, and GoPro across more than $2 billion in media billings. She left agency life to go deeper on the operator side, joining a Series A, AI security company as its first marketing hire and building the function from scratch. In two years, she grew inbound pipeline over 180% and earned recognition from Fast Company, Fortune, and Gartner.
She joined 512Financial in 2025 to make sure the right founders, CEOs, and investors know the firm exists before they need it. Her work spans brand, go-to-market, and demand generation, with a focus on building the relationships and partnerships across investors, founders, and the broader startup ecosystem that bring the firm its best-fit clients.
Areas of Focus
Amy Ancira
Amy’s work sits at the intersection of client experience, operational execution, and long-term partnership growth. As Chief Customer Officer at 512Financial, she leads the systems, communication structures, and delivery experience that shape how clients engage with the firm from onboarding through ongoing advisory support. With 25+ years inside growth-stage companies as both an advisor and an operator, she specializes in helping growth-stage companies build stronger operational alignment, leadership infrastructure, and long-term partnerships.
Before joining 512Financial through the HireBetter acquisition, Amy served as Partner and Chief Experience Officer at HireBetter, where she helped build and lead the firm’s client engagement model and account management strategy. She has also served as a workshop facilitator and speaker for Vistage Worldwide and is a member of Chief, the executive leadership network for senior women.
Sarah Russell
Sarah works at the place where people, systems, and growth meet. She leads the firm’s People Strategy practice, including people operations and executive retained search, and partners with founders and executive teams on the decisions that get harder as a company scales: when to hire ahead of the need, how to build cultural and operational systems that make growth sustainable, and how to design an organization that can absorb growth without losing what made it worth building.
Before stepping into client work, Sarah served as Director of Internal People & Operations at 512Financial, where she helped scale the firm from 10 to 40+ employees. That inside view of what it takes to hire well, build culture, and hold an organization together through rapid growth shapes every client engagement she leads today. She was selected as a 2024 Notley Fellow, serves as an Advisor in Residence for Austin Center for Faith & Work, and has mentored emerging women leaders through the Young Women’s Alliance.
Chris Ciani
Chris sits at the center of how the firm runs its own business while continuing to serve clients with the same financial discipline. His work spans internal finance, reporting, forecasting, financial systems, and operating cadence, alongside client-facing work as a fractional CFO and advisor.
He brings 16+ years of experience across finance, accounting, pricing, and operational improvement, with CFO and VP Finance roles for growth-stage companies before joining the firm. Earlier in his career, he worked at Deloitte Consulting, where he built a foundation in financial analysis, client engagement, and operational finance while managing a global team. That mix makes him both an internal operator and a client-facing finance leader as the firm grows.
Derek Felderhoff
Derek’s work at 512Financial mirrors what the firm does for clients: building the operational foundation that keeps a growing company coherent without losing its people, margins, or culture. He leads people operations and internal business processes, owning the systems that hold everything together as the team grows and complexity compounds.
Earlier in his career, he built recruiting, onboarding, and performance management programs from the ground up, supporting 10X growth while holding employee retention at 70% over two years. That’s what happens when you keep people at the center and treat people ops as a strategic business function with real financial stakes. Outside the firm, Derek has volunteered with Meals on Wheels for more than a decade and has a mentor relationship in its eighth year with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas, alongside his wife.
Careers
We hire operators, not generalists.
Most of our team built or led finance, HR, and talent functions inside growth-stage companies before joining us. If that's your background, we'd like to talk.
See Open Roles