FinOps Certified FOCUS Analyst

FinOps Certified Practitioner

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Master's degree

Managed large agribusiness development projects funded by the World Bank and USAID

Project Manager

I joined Scoot's board to help the team think through the process of translating oceanographic insights into real-world business outcomes that can be managed with the traditional tools of finance and reinsurance. In July of 2020, I resigned from the board to continue that work full time as Scoot's Chief Investment Officer.

Director

Our team of ocean scientists is making a revolutionary product, one that requires resources and planning. I support that effort by forecasting our finances (FP&A), venture fundraising based on those forecasts, and incorporating feedback from our forecasts into strategic decisions like how we price our products. I also do the little things that keep a multi-national corporation running from negotiating with vendors, to figuring out how to optimize our cloud computing spend.

I'm proud that in my time as CFO, we've gone from a point where the command of our finances was a liability to today where partners clearly see that we're diligent and detail-oriented stewards of capital.

Chief Financial Officer

In 2018, Jon (the CEO of Scoot) contacted me about my PhD dissertation on transferring ocean risk. We hit it off and I joined Scoot both as an advisor and an investor. At the time, Scoot was focused on the value that new software and hardware could add to the analysis of ocean conditions. Together we took the first steps toward finding the companies that could use those insights to drive profit and sustainability.

Advisor

In 2017, Nephila's weather team (where I worked) rebranded as Nephila Climate. So check out my Nephila Climate role for details on the work I did.

Portfolio Analyst

Scoot's team of oceanographers and engineers are bringing new insights to firms working on the sea. Historically, that work was been profitable but volatile thanks to a host of risks unique to the ocean. As CIO at Scoot, I helped make marine assets insurable and investable. To read more about our work follow the link below.

https://scootscience.docsend.com/view/s/n5usvvjc2rmwbbfw

Chief Investment Officer

Dissertation was on the prospects for traded risk markets based on the climate phenomenon El Niño and other related climate indexes.

Full dissertation available at http://directclimatemarkets.com/dissertation.

Research sponsored by:
- University of Kentucky
- U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Comission
- U.S. Borlaug Fellowship in Global Food Security – sponsored by USDA/USAID (Feed the Future initiative) to work with the World Bank Treasury developing traded El Niño/La Niña risk products
- National PERISHIP award – National Science Foundation-supported grant for dissertation research

Developed the most comprehensive statistics to date on the lifecycle of new derivatives as part of a graduate research project related to Dodd-Frank financial reforms for the CFTC’s Office of the Chief Economist.

Researcher

As CFO of a data-centric start-up, I was shocked by a set of high cloud computing bills. Looking for help, I found great tools designed for experts….which I wasn’t. My fallback were services with confusing bills and focused on only a small part of my cloud spend. That is we founded Authors of Boston. We help companies quickly and easily get the security they want using lines of credit backed by insurance.

Founder | CFO

I was part of a team managing a large portfolio of weather and climate linked risk on behalf of institutional investors. Nephila Climate is the set of funds within Nephila that handles risk that sits outside the models traditionally associated with reinsurance natural catastrophes (quake, wind). So my job often involved building new quantitative models of risk as needed.

My primary focus was on agricultural risk. Specifically, I spent much of my time on India's national agricultural insurance scheme. We have been reinsuring that scheme since it's inception in 2016. Seemingly overnight, it grew to become one of the world's largest agricultural risk transfer schemes in the world. As the scheme grew, so did Nephila Climate's footprint in Indian agriculture. At times, we were the largest reinsurer of Indian crop risk besides GIC Re, the national reinsurer.

Senior Quantitative Strategist

Priced, modeled, and sold world’s first insurance against catastrophic El Niño to Peruvian microfinance bank, Caja Nuestra Gente
-Sold commercially priced hedge – 95% of risk transferred to US reinsurer, Partner Re
-First regulated insurance using a predictive index (sea surface temperatures from the US government’s NOAA) 
- Supported by grants from the Gates Foundation, the United Nations Development Program, and the German international development agency, GIZ

Praedicat is a company using advanced data science tools to search for the next asbestos: an emerging threat that could upend the world of casualty insurance. At Praedicat, I was the first catastrophe modeler, leading the research and development of the Nekomodel, the world's first forward-looking casualty catastrophe model.

Economist

As the CFO of a start-up I was frustrated by the cost and uncertainty in forecasting cash. Now I offer the tools I wish I'd had.

Founder

PhD in Ag Economics (Kentucky). Former Lloyds' underwriter at Nephila. CEO of Authors of Boston, valuing businesses.

Know about Grant Cavanaugh's work experience, education, bootcamps, certifications, and much more. Grant Cavanaugh