Vardis Accelerator is a vetted network of high-potential controllers and FP&A leaders for PE-backed companies. One agreement covers your whole portfolio. No retainer, no subscription, and nothing billed to the fund.
Book a CallMost companies you buy come with a finance function that needs an upgrade: an outsourced bookkeeper, a controller who can close the books but can't forecast, or no FP&A at all. Until that seat is fixed, your deal team is the one chasing the close, rebuilding the board package and second-guessing the cash forecast.
These roles sit in an awkward spot. They're too junior for a retained CFO search and too important to leave to whoever the CFO happens to know. So they get filled late, or filled badly, and the partner ends up acting as the controller.
What we hear from sponsors:
Every Accelerator member has been interviewed by our team before you ever see them.
We screen for what sponsors actually need from the seat: 13-week cash, lender and covenant reporting, add-on integration, audit and QofE readiness, and system migrations from QuickBooks to NetSuite or Intacct.
No retainer and no subscription. Only the portfolio company that hires pays, and only when it hires.
Most of these seats can be remote or hybrid. We recruit nationally and go on-site where the business needs it.
Finance and accounting leaders, typically with 5-15 years of experience, who have already outperformed in their current seat and want to build their careers in PE-backed companies.
CPA, Big 4 or large regional audit or transaction advisory background, now a Controller or Director of Accounting at a PE-backed company. Multi-entity consolidation, add-on integration, audit and QofE readiness, ERP implementation.
Director of FP&A or Head of Finance who has done the job inside a PE-backed company. Board reporting package, cash forecast, KPI dashboards, lender reporting, and the model behind the next CIM.
Where they come from:
A controller upgrade to fix the close, get audit-ready and get the accounting right under the new capital structure, often alongside an ERP implementation.
An FP&A lead to own the board package, the 13-week cash forecast and the KPI dashboards once the CFO knows what the seat needs.
A QofE-ready controller and an FP&A person who can build the CIM model.
An upgrade when a strong profile becomes available, or a first real controller for a founder-led business that just took institutional capital.
Or point your portfolio company CEO or CFO to us. We'll calibrate on stage, systems, location and the first 12 months of the job.
From the Accelerator bench, and run a full search alongside it where the seat calls for one.
Nothing touches the management fee.
We don't recruit out of your portfolio. Every company covered by your agreement is off-limits to us for as long as we work together.
Vardis is a boutique executive search firm focused exclusively on PE- and VC-backed companies. Across 20+ years and 400+ searches, we've helped sponsors like Bain Capital, KKR, Blackstone, Summit Partners and Platinum Equity hire CFOs and other senior leaders for their portfolio companies.
Professionalizing the finance function is one of the most common mandates in our search history, and the controller and FP&A seats are named in the brief more often than any other below the CFO. We've been solving this from the CFO down for years. Accelerator is how we now resource it directly.
We'll walk you through who's on the bench today and how the agreement works.
Book a Call with UsKnow a controller or FP&A leader who belongs on the bench? Send them to the Vardis Accelerator candidate page.
No. Accelerator covers the controller and FP&A tier. CFO searches run through our retained practice as they always have, and the same bench is where many of our next-generation CFO candidates come from.
Usually. Most sponsors we work with run these seats remote or hybrid within a region or time zone. Old-line industrial and manufacturing businesses tend to want someone on-site, and we recruit accordingly.
Whoever owns the hire. Sometimes that's the deal partner, more often it's the portfolio company CEO or the CFO building out their team. We're set up for both.
Nothing. The agreement is free to the sponsor. Fees are paid only by the portfolio company that makes a hire.