#WorkItWednesday featuring Amit Bhasin (he/him), Finance Manager

Meet Amit Bhasin (he/him)

Amit currently works as our Finance Manager on the small but mighty Financial Planning & Analysis team at Grindr! After graduating from UCLA with a BA in Business Economics, minoring in Accounting, he spent a few years working in finance roles before starting with Grindr in 2020. Amit’s team supports the organization in making data-driven and financially sound decisions. Some examples of key projects that fall under their scope include building short-term and long-term financial plans, defining KPIs, tracking company performance, data analysis, forecasting, external stakeholder reporting, and much more.

Check out Amit’s Grindr story below, and take a look at our careers page to learn more about our open job opportunities.

Have you always worked in finance for the tech industry? What drew you to the tech or the dating space specifically?

Yes - I have! However, I would say that my work experience is a little broader than your typical person with my job title. I started my career in investment banking, working with clients in the technology sector on a broad range of corporate transactions… think M&A, IPOs, and other capital-raising engagements. This was where I discovered how much I loved learning about different business models in the tech space, including consumer internet, social, and online dating. After a couple of years in investment banking, I pivoted to in-house Corporate Development positions at companies in the software space. In these roles, I helped leadership teams build business cases for acquiring and investing in other companies.

I joined Grindr’s FP&A team in 2020 and have been with the company for two and a half years. It’s been such a fun experience to build and execute a monetization strategy for the company! I’ve learned so much about the nuances of our user funnel and how the health of our business impacts the way that we can show up for the queer community. Along the way, I’ve gotten to flex my technical skills and partner with talented stakeholders across the organization. Most recently, I was actively involved in taking the company public through the SPAC we completed last year. It was such a great experience to see Grindr through this pivotal transition from a private to a public company.

Tell us why you joined Grindr. What do you love most about our mission and our culture?

As a member of the LGBTQ community, the company’s mission of connecting queer people with one another resonated deeply with me. I love working somewhere with such an open and accepting culture. We are a company that values authenticity and you can really feel that in the way employees collaborate and treat each other. It’s also such an exciting time to join Grindr! We are growing and doing so much with the business – I am 100% on board with the journey.

What does a Finance Manager for Grindr do?

A lot of people think finance folks are just “excel gurus” cranking out fancy spreadsheets and aesthetically pleasing PowerPoint presentations all day. This is certainly true and I’m no exception – I’m a nerd when it comes to structuring financial models with auto-updating formulas, toggleable inputs, and conditional formatting (oh my!).

However, my favorite part of the job is the cross-functional collaboration and broad scope of work that I get to do. One day, I’ll be synthesizing input from our product team into long-term, driver-based revenue projections. On another day, I’ll partner with our data team to better understand the nuances of our operating data. It’s all very intellectually stimulating and keeps me excited about coming to work every day.

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How have you grown professionally while on our team?

Grindr is a company that is invested in its employees’ career growth. Since joining, I’ve had the opportunity to work on high-visibility projects, many of which involve C-suite level stakeholders and other leaders at the company. I’ve also played a pivotal role in growing the FP&A team, as the function’s scope and responsibilities have expanded.

It’s been so rewarding to add members to the team and help develop new talent. I am forever grateful to my manager and mentors, who really set me up to be successful at this company. I feel continuously challenged to expand my skill set and take on new opportunities to learn.

What interesting problems is your Grindr team solving for and what are you looking forward to for the future?

There are so many interesting challenges that I get to tackle in my role but, I would have to say building a framework to think through our growth strategy has been (and continues to be) very exciting. We have so many products and features we are road-mapping for our users, some of which will be entirely new offerings. With no existing data or comparable precedents for these new products, it has been challenging but fun to think through sizing the financial impact of these initiatives.

The core mission of Grindr is to connect the queer community with each other and the world around them. The more I can do to support the growth of the business, the more Grindr can do to support the global LGBTQ community. We have a lot of impactful offerings in store for our users and I’m excited to see how they play out!

Do you have a favorite memory of working at Grindr so far or a moment that stands out to you that really captures what it is like to work here?

Without a doubt, being a part of our bell ringing ceremony at NYSE on our first day of trading as a public company. I had been a member of the transaction team and there had been so much effort in making this possible. It was gratifying to see the deal come to fruition and a highlight of my career.

Not to mention, it was such a historic moment to be a part of – seeing an LGBTQ-focused company become publicly traded at one of the oldest institutions in financial services. We literally had drag artists and queer performances right in front of Wall Street!

Amit’s team is hiring! If you are interested in working for a collaborative, high-impact company, you should check out our open roles today!