Thoropass Welcomes Dicken Chaplin as First CFO

Thoropass (formerly Laika) has had a heck of a year—and things are only looking up. After raising a series B and Series C, Thoropass’s co-founders welcomed a key executive hire to manage the newly acquired runway and help navigate its growth phase. After an exhaustive search, Thoropass is excited to welcome Dicken Chaplin as our first-ever CFO!

A brief history 

Coming off a recent $2 Billion acquisition after a seven-year run with Turbonomic, Dicken has seen firsthand that talent follows talent and looks forward to helping continue to build Thoropass’s executive leadership team.  The “Turbonomic story” is a success story well-known in the startup world, and Dicken joins Thoropass at a similar stage as when he joined his former team. 

During his time at Turbonomic, he helped scale the company to $200+ million in revenue. Dicken describes experiencing different growth phases during his tenure there—including the good, bad, and ugly. As Dicken puts it, 

Dicken’s experience means he can bring new operational and commercial expertise to the team, making him an invaluable addition to Thoropass’s executive leadership team. 

Why Thoropass? Why Now?

The demand for CFOs is high, and Dicken evaluated many options before choosing Thoropass.  So, why did he choose Thoropass over all his other offers? Dicken affectionately refers to this as “The 3 T’s”: TAM (Total addressable market), Tech, and Team.

The TAM for Thoropass is enormous and growing, and security and compliance is always a top priority for all CIOs. Compliance is a rising tide and a real pain point for customers, especially SOC 2 audits. As an angel investor, he understands the pain and the need for expertise and automation in the industry.

Thoropass’s technology has proven to have incredible product-market fit, adopted by over 600 customers in just 3 years. The company’s team, however, was the deciding factor for Dicken. For Dicken, the founders and executive team at Thoropass represent the perfect mix of entrepreneurship and industry expertise, which he believes will be instrumental in his growth as a professional.

“After you raise money, you shouldn’t feel comfortable.”

As Thoropass’s newly appointed CFO, Dicken emphasizes the importance of being prudent with the company’s funds. “After raising money, it’s crucial not to become complacent and to maintain a strong balance sheet. Every startup founder and CFO is trying to extend runway in today’s macro-environment, and we are doing just that, while continuing to invest strategically for growth.”

Thoropass is a company on the rise, and with critical executive hires like Dicken, there’s nowhere but up for this rocket ship! With a focus on growth and financial responsibility, the future looks bright for Thoropass.