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David Skelton
PE-Backed Healthcare CFO & Consultant
Professional Background
David Skelton brings an impressive portfolio of nearly three decades of executive experience to the healthcare sector, particularly as a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for private-equity backed companies. Since 2002, he has thrived in environments supported by billion-dollar sponsors, leading companies through financial complexities and strategic growth initiatives across various sectors of healthcare. His extensive experience encompasses revenue management, operational optimization, and growth strategies for companies generating up to $800 million in revenue. Some of the key sectors he has worked in include dialysis services, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), in-vitro fertilization (IVF), medication therapy management (MTM), specialty pharmacy, laboratories, behavioral health, and physician practice management (PPM).
David is adept at establishing companies from their conception to successful exit strategies, demonstrating exceptional leadership and innovation. Notably, he successfully transformed a company with multi-billion-dollar enterprise value in a fully virtual corporate environment, leveraging strategic acquisitions and partnerships to maximize value. His co-founding of a tech-enabled revenue cycle management (RCM) venture, which developed a groundbreaking machine-learning software, illustrates his commitment to integrating technology into healthcare finance, effectively identifying and collecting underpaid insurance claims.
His expertise extends to assisting various companies with special projects, interim management, performance enhancement strategies, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), due diligence, capital structuring, and exit planning and execution. His skill set is comprehensive, focusing on crucial areas such as revenue cycle optimization, financial communications, and strategy development.
Education and Achievements
A proud alumnus of Vanderbilt University, David graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, earning magna cum laude honors, and followed with an MBA from the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, where he excelled in finance and accounting. His academic prowess is highlighted by his exceptional score in the top 2% nationally on the GMAT and the prestigious Wigginton Memorial Scholar recognition in finance. David's solid educational foundation has paved the way for his strategic insights and financial acumen, which are evident in his successful tenure in the finance sector.
Outside of his professional achievements, David has built a fulfilling family life—marrying his wife in 1992, and together they nurture a vibrant family with four children.
Notable Positions
Throughout his career, David has held pivotal roles in several esteemed organizations, amplifying his experience and influence across the healthcare finance landscape. Some of his notable positions include:
- Chief Financial Officer at Anodyne Pain & Wellness Solutions, Inc.
- Senior Director (Consultant) at Alvarez & Marsal
- CFO (Special Project) at SurgCenter Development, overseeing a vast network of 100 surgery centers across 20+ states.
- Co-Founder & Chief Financial Officer at Revenue Platforms, where he innovated in the financial technology space.
- CFO at National Renal Alliance, leading the company from inception to exceeding $100 million in revenues and completing a successful nine-figure exit without traditional investment banking support—saving millions in fees.
- Principal at Harpeth Capital, LLC, engaging in healthcare investment banking and commercial finance.
Skills and Expertise
David Skelton is an expert in performance improvement and possesses an in-depth understanding of financial operations, corporate finance, and M&A. His comprehensive set of skills encompasses several critical areas, including:
- Performance improvement
- Financial operations management
- Corporate finance and M&A strategy
- Revenue cycle intelligence and optimization
- Financial modeling and forecasting
- Strategic growth and planning processes
- Equity and debt procurement strategies
- Physician joint ventures establishment
- Business intelligence analytics
- Acquisition due diligence and integration processes
- Effective financial communications
By leveraging these skills, David has built a reputation as a leader in the healthcare finance domain, known for driving value and maintaining operational excellence in dynamic business environments. His strategic foresight and extensive network have enabled him to contribute significantly to the healthcare industry while ensuring sustainable financial health for the organizations he serves.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
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Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
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Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.