David W. Rowat has served variously as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer to over 70 companies in the high technology industry in the past 25 years. He has a broad functional background with a specialty in operations, financial controls, finance, strategic planning and Board governance.

Currently, he is engaged part-time at Strategic Exits Corp, a boutique M&A advisor acting solely to advise founders and CEOs on selling their technology companies.

David Rowat has developed a thought leadership position demonstrating why virtual companies sell for more and their founders retain more of the proceeds. His work has been referenced in the Harvard Business Review and he anticipates publishing a case study for the Harvard Business School in late 2020.

Virtual companies have no physical head offices. Everyone works remotely. Virtual companies reduce expenses and can scale more quickly. They need to raise less money. They attract the best employees worldwide. At exit, virtual companies are more profitable and growing faster. The founders retain more of the equity. Consequently, virtual companies sell for more, and the founders keep more of the proceeds.

• form a virtual (all-remote) company with no head office.


• Maximize your portion of an exit transaction.


• Keep expenses low so that you can bootstrap the company as much as possible from internally generated earnings.