Founder's Story
From Deepfakes to Burn Rates: The Hidden Dangers That Break Startups (And How to Outsmart Them) | Ep 218 with Sanjay Chadha Co-Founder of SAV Associates
09 May 2025
Sanjay Chadha, co-founder of SAV Associates, brings over 25 years of global experience in corporate finance, cybersecurity, and risk management. From navigating boardrooms in Vietnam and Madagascar to safeguarding data in North America, Sanjay has advised more than 1,000 clients on building resilient, profitable companies. In this episode, he reveals the costly mistakes most founders make—plus how to prevent a deepfake disaster from taking down your business.Key Discussion PointsWhy He Left Corporate Life: The spark that pushed Sanjay to leave Big Four consulting and build a global advisory firm.Global Lessons from 7 Countries: What living and working across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East taught him about scaling internationally.How to Think Like a CFO: The most overlooked financial mistakes—and why founders must read the story behind their numbers.Cybersecurity & Deepfakes: Why AI is a blessing and a bombshell—and how one email nearly tricked his entire firm.Risk is the New Currency: Why protecting data matters more than profits in today’s tech-driven landscape.Cash Burn ≠ Growth: The trap of fast-spending founders and the secret to building companies that last.Key TakeawaysStartups don’t fail from bad ideas—they fail from poor financial fluency.If you can’t read your numbers, you can’t write your success story.Cyber risk isn’t optional anymore—one deepfake could cost your company everything.Global mindset, local agility: Scaling safely starts with structure, not size.Every number tells a story—and your CFO should know how to read it.Our Sponsors:* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Northwest Registered Agent and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: https://northwestregisteredagent.com* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com
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Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder's Story. Today we have Sanjay Chadha, the co-founder of SAV Associates. And Sanjay, you have an incredible background. We're gonna go into all these things because a thousand plus clients around the world you know, a global organization in itself, and you're helping a lot of people. So we're going to, we're going to go into all that.
But first you have, you are bringing over 25 years of extensive experience in corporate finance, cybersecurity, and risk management, which is, Those are big things nowadays. Cybersecurity with AI, risk management. I imagine every company or organization needs to understand these things.
But Sanjay, how did you get started and what was your spark that made you say, I want to be an entrepreneur and this is the company?
Thank you for having me here, Daniel. I really appreciate your time today because I think it's a great forum. A lot of people should get inspiration from my perspective and how I started this journey. So I think a place stone does not gain mass. So I was at a position in my corporate life where I was not moving. I was in a position where I was not learning anything. I had a very defined job.
which was box 10. I couldn't, you know, I didn't have the vigor room to basically either brush up on my skills, learning new things that were happening around me and, you know, felt suffocated. So I think that's where the spark came from. And I think I'm very grateful that it came because, you know, looking back about 20 years ago when I was doing my MBA, you know,
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