Tillo: How Fyn delivered continuity during a CFO transition

Tillo is an API-driven rewards and incentives platform that connects businesses with a global network of over 3,000 brands, enabling them to easily distribute digital gift cards and rewards to customers and employees. 

Tillo’s purpose is to simplify the process of managing rewards programs by providing a single integration point, accessing a wide range of popular gift cards and managing distributions across various markets and currencies. 

Founded in 2016, Tillo has rapidly become a market leader in the digital gift card space, connecting global brands with an ever-expanding network of partners. 

Why Fyn was brought on board

Private equity ownership often brings a new tempo: sharper reporting cycles, greater investor scrutiny, and higher expectations around discipline and performance. When this collides with leadership change, the risks multiply. 

Earlier this year, Tillo faced exactly this situation. The business was in the middle of appointing a permanent CFO but needed credible, PE-ready cover in the interim.

The requirement wasn’t for a dramatic turnaround or sweeping change programme. What Tillo needed was something subtler, yet just as critical: a safe pair of hands to keep the finance function operating smoothly, preserve trust with investors, and provide stability for the internal team during a period of transition.

The brief for Fyn

During this period of transition, the brief for Fyn included: 

• Ensure leadership reporting and board materials landed on time and to the expected standard.
• Provide day-to-day support and mentoring for the in-house finance team, helping them stay confident and effective under pressure.
• Act as a clear and professional point of contact with investors, managing expectations and information flow during this period of change.
• Deliver a clean, structured handover to the incoming CFO, with no disruption to business rhythm.

How we solved the challenge

The priority was speed without compromise. Within days of the brief, we provided Tillo with a shortlist of candidate profiles, each with slightly different backgrounds so the business could balance cultural fit with technical requirements.

When a couple of early frontrunners moved off-market, we pivoted quickly, deploying an interim CFO who combined private equity experience with deep exposure to high-volume transactions. 

The mandate was clear: this wasn’t about implementing new systems or launching a 100-day transformation. It was about protecting cadence, maintaining quality, coaching the existing team, and ensuring internal and external communications remained consistent and credible.

What Fyn delivered

• Continuity without drama. Leadership meetings, KPI reviews, and board packs all landed on time, every time. The interim presence gave investors and management confidence that nothing would slip.
• Team-first leadership. Rather than focusing only on outputs, the interim CFO invested in the team itself by mentoring individuals, removing blockers, and creating the breathing room needed for the business to focus on growth.
• Clear investor communications. All inbound requests, queries, and data pulls were managed cleanly, ensuring investors received what they needed, when they needed it, without pulling focus from the wider business.
• Orderly handover. When the new permanent CFO arrived in early August, they inherited a finance function that was fully up to date, with no backlog, and a clear set of materials to build on immediately.

For this short duration, Tillo didn’t need a revolution, they needed reliability. Our experience and understanding of client needs helped Fyn protect business rhythm and ensured the new CFO had the freedom to set their own agenda once embedded in the business.

Why Tillo benefited from the support

There were three main advantages to Fyn stepping in to help Tillo. 

1. Zero downtime across leadership reporting and board cycles.
   
   
2. Investor confidence maintained through a delicate ownership transition.
   
   
3. A faster ramp for the new CFO thanks to a documented, orderly, and drama-free handover.

Why Tillo chose Fyn

Tillo chose us for a combination of speed, pragmatism, and collaboration. Being Brighton-based with strong overlapping networks meant we could connect quickly and present vetted senior profiles almost immediately, giving the business confidence that the interim solution would be credible from day one. Just as important was our pragmatism: we focused on delivering exactly what was asked for, rather than reshaping the brief into something more ambitious, and that discipline proved valuable. Finally, the collaboration with Tillo’s leadership was critical—they made fast, confident decisions and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with us, creating the partnership spirit that ultimately drove the success of the engagement.

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