Good morning. A longtime finance executive at cybersecurity company CrowdStrike is leaving for a new CFO role at a growing AI player.
AI company Dataminr tapped Tiffany Buchanan to serve as its next CFO. Buchanan will begin her role as finance chief in early August. She succeeds interim CFO Kiran Rao. At CrowdStrike, Buchanan most recently served as SVP of finance and capital markets during a 13-year tenure that began as an accounting manager.
She joined CrowdStrike when it was pre-revenue and played a key role in strategic finance from Series A-1 to its initial public offering (IPO) in 2019. The company quickly grew to more than $4 billion in annual recurring revenue. She also helped navigate the aftermath of the company’s global IT outage last year.
“If I think back to high school, I loved watching my bank account, and I had my spreadsheets and my budget,” Buchanan said, reflecting on her path to CFO. After getting a job out of high school and putting herself through college, she landed a position at a CPA firm where she realized accounting was “always part of my DNA.”
Buchanan is set to help lead Dataminr, a real-time AI platform, down the path to an IPO. The platform analyzes more than one million public data sources—including text, images, and video—to detect and inform users of emerging events, risks, and threats. The company—which counts NATO and OpenAI among its prominent and wide-ranging client pool—raised $100 million in funding from Fortress in April and $85 million in new funding in March, following a $475 million round in 2021 that valued Dataminr at $4.1 billion.
Buchanan’s decision to join Dataminr was cemented after meeting founder and CEO Ted Bailey and experiencing the company’s mission-driven culture. “I really wanted to replicate that same feeling and excitement I felt many years ago with CrowdStrike, and I really feel as though I found that with Dataminr,” she said.
Her immediate focus is initially on building out new routes to market, targeting new customer personas, and driving product innovation. And then with the eye on going public, she’s working to strengthen Dataminr’s systems, processes, and functions to prepare for a potential IPO.
“It’s about making sure we can check all the boxes from a public reporting standpoint,” she explained, drawing on her experience guiding CrowdStrike from pre-revenue to a multibillion-dollar public company.
Lessons from the IPO Journey
Going public is “one of the most amazing experiences” an organization can have. However, the work isn’t done. “Oftentimes, the hardest part is after the IPO—getting to that predictability and public reporting cadence, being able to continuously tell the story you want to tell the public market,” she explained. Post-IPO, Buchanan stresses the importance of not sacrificing long-term success for short-term gains and ensuring that internal processes and external messaging are aligned.
As Dataminr expands internationally, Buchanan sees robust risk management and compliance as top priorities. She emphasizes the importance of identifying risks—including financial, cybersecurity, and supply chain—in areas where Dataminr’s real-time intelligence platform provides early warnings.
Bailey said in a statement that Buchanan has deep financial acumen, operational rigor, and high-growth experience, all “skills that will be instrumental.”
Mentorship and giving back
Buchanan’s preparation for the CFO seat began at CrowdStrike. She names Gregg Marston, the original CFO and cofounder of CrowdStrike, and current CFO Burt Podbere as her mentors. She believes in paying it forward.
To that end, she recently joined the board of ASAPP, an AI company focused on transforming customer service. Outside of work, Buchanan is committed to supporting foster children and families in need. “I was in foster care from a very young age and, fortunately, adopted by my aunt and uncle and was raised within my family,” she said.
Along with philanthropy, Buchanan enjoys running and spending time with her husband and children.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
