After building her experience with several well-known accounting companies throughout Columbus, Michelle Galligan stepped out on her own and founded ViaVero, an accounting company proving special projects consulting. The firm focuses on building relationships with clients and approaching projects with an out-of-the-box mentality. ViaVero services middle-market to large companies, while also providing recruiting services for upper-level accounting positions.
Galligan comes from a family of entrepreneurs and knew it was only a matter of time until she joined the ranks. We recently spoke with her to learn more about her background and what ViaVero can offer to businesses.
Q: Tell us about your personal and professional background as it relates to ViaVero.
I am the CEO and Co-founder of ViaVero Consulting, a professional services firm providing accounting project consulting to middle-market and large, public companies. I started my career in public accounting with Ernst & Young and my prior roles include Program Manager for the Financial Leadership Rotation Program at Nationwide and Director of the Columbus practice of a publicly-held international accounting project consulting practice.
I serve as the Columbus Advisory Board Chair of Bad Girl Ventures, and as a Board Member of BGV Inc., a non-profit providing training for women starting businesses and offering a micro-loan opportunities to participants. Additionally, I am a Board Member of Beagle Bioproducts, a local biotech company. In early 2011, I was appointed to the Small Business Council for the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, and currently sit on the Board of Entrepreneur’s Organization. I am also on the Advisory Board for the Ohio State Student Commercialization Board. From 2009-2010, I served as President of the Board of Directors for CASA of Franklin County, a not-for-profit organization that trains community volunteers to advocate for abused and neglected children in court.
Q: What was your inspiration for becoming and entrepreneur and launching ViaVero?
I believe I’m hard-wired to be an entrepreneur, which ultimately means I’m doing what comes most naturally and is the most fun for me. I have known I would be an entrepreneur since I was young, perhaps since starting a babysitting business when I was 11 and subcontracting my neighborhood paper route. My father, mother and brother have owned businesses and I have always been drawn to the idea of building and creating enterprises.
Q: What services does ViaVero offer? How are you breaking the norm of what other service providers in your industry offer?
Our primary service is special projects in accounting, primarily for large, public companies. We also do some specialized recruiting for $100K+ accounting positions. Recently, we had a third-party interview a number of our current, past and prospective customers. They described our differentiator to be our authentic approach to our partnership with our customers. We have figured out how to create strong, mutually-beneficial partnerships. Because, unlike our competitors, we’re not a public company so we can take an out-of-the-box approach to our services and really focus on how to help our clients get things done.
Q: Who is your customer base and who can benefit from your services?
Most of the project work is with the large, public companies in town. We provide search services to the large companies but we’ve also had success placing C-level people with startups and emerging companies.
Q: What kind of support have you seen from the local community?
We’ve always received a lot of support from the local community. Our competitors are mostly international, publicly-held companies. It helps us out that people like to do business with local companies. Plus, everyone loves a good entrepreneurial story!
Q: What’s next for ViaVero?
We’re currently looking at both geographic and service line expansion, both driven by customer requests. We still have some market to capture in Columbus and it’s important that we grow at a rate that allows us to maintain the same level of partnership we currently offer. We’ve also talked about building some technology to support our business and the professional services industry – that could also be fun!
For more information, visit viavero.com.
Photo by Pam Reece.
