GAGuadalupe Albuquerque
Chief of Staff and Director of Business Operations for early-stage, venture-backed startups
San Francisco Bay Area, United States
I have been the first or near-first operations hire at venture-backed startups, joining before there were systems and building them as the company scales. At Finless Foods, I joined as employee #7, helped secure $58M+ across four rounds, and supported fundraising and back-end investor relations through every process. I ran end-to-end quarterly board meetings, produced 10+ decks per month, delivered a $4M office build-out on time and on budget, and achieved $500K+ in annual savings through vendor consolidation. At LiquiDonate, I came in as Chief of Staff and was promoted to Director of Business Operations within six months. I built financial infrastructure from zero, driving revenue recognition SOPs that produced a 97 to 98 percent accurate P&L, which directly triggered a strategic pivot that led to new enterprise clients. I also migrated payroll and bookkeeping to save about $10K per year, improved cross-team alignment with an OKR cadence, and initiated SOC 2 Type I and II certification by tightening security practices and AI tool use. I work directly with founders and CEOs, own what needs owning, and move fast without creating chaos. I care about clarity, cadence, and measurable operational outcomes that unlock growth.
Experience
Director of Business Operations
LiquiDonate
Dec 2025 – Present · 7 mths
Oakland, CA
Promoted after six months as Chief of Staff to lead all business operations. Built the company’s financial infrastructure from zero by auditing historical data and creating revenue-recognition SOPs by stream (returns donations, events, subscriptions), resulting in ~97–98% P&L accuracy and a strategic pivot to return-donations that closed new enterprise clients within months. Organized the Series A data room in 30 days (auditing ~60 documents and reconciling the cap table in Carta), migrated payroll from Gusto to TriNet PEO and bookkeeping to Burkland Associates, and implemented company-wide 1Password plus SOC 2 Type I/II initiation to unblock enterprise sales conversations.
Chief of Staff
LiquiDonate · Full-time
Jun 2025 – Dec 2025 · 6 mths
Kept the CEO focused during a critical pre-fundraising phase by managing the full business rhythm—investor communications, board preparation, decks, and quarterly reports—while bridging priorities across a 10+ person distributed team. Improved alignment across the distributed organization by introducing structured all-hands meetings and company off-sites to reduce communication overhead and misalignment across departments.
Chief of Staff to the CEO
Finless Foods · Full-time
Oct 2021 – May 2025 · 3 yrs 7 mths
Emeryville, CA
Helped secure $58M+ across four rounds by building all fundraising materials and providing back-end investor relations support through each process. Ran quarterly Board of Directors meetings end-to-end (venue, logistics, prep materials, and multi-day coordination for international attendees), keeping the CEO prepared and connected by producing 10+ decks per month for board, investor updates, and internal use. Also managed a $4M office build-out and relocation to an 11,000 sq ft facility and delivered $500K+ in annual savings by consolidating vendors and renegotiating supplier contracts.
Manager of Operations
Finless Foods
Feb 2019 – Oct 2021 · 2 yrs 8 mths
First dedicated business operations hire, building the operational foundation the company ran on for six years. Cut manual task time by 70% by implementing automated workflows (including vendor invoice self-input), reduced monthly supply costs by 30% by re-engineering supply chain processes and renegotiating key supplier contracts, and streamlined weekly all-hands meetings from 5 hours to 1 hour through agenda restructuring and communication tools across five departments. Managed annual budgets up to $1M, owned financial operations and forecasting, and built HR processes from scratch (handbook, onboarding for ~25 hires, payroll, benefits, and compliance) to lower turnover.
Account Manager
SmartPR
Oct 2014 – Mar 2018 · 3 yrs 5 mths
São Paulo, Brazil
Maintained a 90% year-over-year contract renewal rate by managing strategic client relationships as the primary point of contact for communications and deliverables across tech brands including Twitter, Netflix, Amazon, Expedia, and Waze. Expanded the agency’s revenue by building and running a new department focused on early-stage startup media visibility, creating the service offering and delivering it end-to-end. Improved team turnaround time by 20% by restructuring workflows and project prioritization across a global team of five.
Education
ESPM-SUL, Porto Alegre, Brazil
BA – Communications and Advertising, Communications and Advertising
UNISINOS, São Leopoldo, Brazil
BA – Digital Communications, Digital Communications
ESPM-SUL, Porto Alegre, Brazil
MBA – Specialization in Business Communications, Business Communications
Skills
Languages
English
Native or bilingual proficiency
Portuguese
Native or bilingual proficiency