Meet Andrea Marzullo

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Andrea Marzullo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Andrea , really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I found my purpose when I realized the impact entrepreneurs have on the region. I greatly admire them.

Let me tell you how I got into the entrepreneurial world. It all started in Trenque Lauquen in 2011. My husband, Juan, joined his family’s accounting firm (specializing in agribusiness) and set up an office in Buenos Aires. They worked hard to build their brand, create a community interested in improving agribusiness management, and expanded across Argentina.

Juan got fascinated by how technology can transform even the most traditional industries. He started designing services for Agtech startups and soon realized that startup founders are very different from traditional clients—they move faster, have changing needs, and look at the world as their market.

Bringing in these new clients and creating tailored services led to the firm’s split. That’s when I stepped in to help manage the business while ensuring we continued to provide a great service to our clients.

Since then, I have fallen in love with their passion, resilience, and ability to see problems as opportunities. A quote that resonates with me is, ‘Life is too short to not put your soul into something.’ Entrepreneurs embody this. By sharing my expertise in business management, finance, and administration, I connect with their goals and feel part of their journeys, while also pursuing my own path as a founder.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I have a beautiful child, Alfonsina, and I’m expecting my second child, Mateo. I’m Argentine, a lover of horses and dogs, barbecue and good wine, friends and good stories. If I had to choose a place in the world, it would be the Argentine Patagonia. Today, I live in Miami, but whenever I can, I try to go back.

I have always been an entrepreneur. I’ve worked in different industries, always striving to lead the business to its highest performance. However, as I mentioned at the beginning, my journey into the professional service business and startups has a bit of a love story. I started getting closer to the venture capital ecosystem when I met my current husband, a great entrepreneur whom I am very proud of. During one of his many challenges and difficult moments, he asked me if I could help him solve a management problem in one of his companies. And that scenario of chaos, due to the rapid growth of the client portfolio and absence of processes, was precisely what motivated me to embark on entrepreneurship. I knew I could bring order even in the midst of chaos.

And beyond the chaos of the beginning, it was an incredibly intense learning process. I believe that during those months, I learned more than in my entire career. The connections I formed with colleagues, who are now friends in the ecosystem, were strong. It was motivating to see the hopeful faces of founders who approached us for advice, even if they didn’t fully understand how we could help them. Listening to them passionately talk about their projects (even though I admit, at first, they all seemed impossible to me!) made me want to assist them in any way possible. Whether through our services, those of others, or by inventing new ones! But always with the spirit of contributing to making their dreams a little more achievable.
By training, I am an accountant. That’s why if there was one thing we could help with, it was providing support to manage their financial, accounting, and tax affairs as efficiently as possible. Thus, we developed solutions understanding the challenges and dynamics specific to their companies. They may be SMEs, but with complexities very similar to those of a multinational corporation.

Today, at CFOStartup, we are strategic advisors and allies, enabling startups to be investment-ready. From pre-seed to exit, we provide the support they need to scale and expand from their home country to anywhere in the world.
Just to mention a few of our solutions, we offer international taxes, soft landing, CFO services such as Controller Latam and CFO as a Service, transaction services, valuation analysis, virtual data room, fundraising support, due diligence, legal services, among others.

Additionally, we have developed a network of partners throughout the region, including service providers, VCs, accelerators, incubators, and organizations supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem across the region. We are highly active in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and continuously offer mentorship, workshops, and training to our partners’ communities.
Our focus is to provide comprehensive guidance that goes far beyond the service or solution founders may need at a specific moment. We see ourselves as strategic allies who can also connect them with key players and support them in all their challenges as they grow.

An important step we took as a company and team is that in July 2024, we merged with Legal Ventures. Legal Ventures is a company specializing in legal advice for VC-backed startups with over seven years in the market and a strong presence in Peru and Mexico. Their talent pool in the region with legal know-how and the incorporation of technology in service delivery makes their offering a competitive and highly valuable option for founders and VCs.
With this alliance, we strengthen our Legal services line, bringing the expertise and knowledge of a team with whom we share the same vision: to support the development of entrepreneurs in the region by offering high-quality professional services.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The four qualities I focus on developing are:

Continuous Learning: Recognizing that we don’t know everything is the first step to being better prepared. I firmly believe that the more I learn, the more I realize how much more there is to know. Formal education periods in universities or institutions are not enough. We learn every day and throughout our entire lives.

Resilience:The ability to adapt to changes and understand that plans may change, but not the purpose, intentions, or desire to keep growing.

Purpose: Eventually, things get tough. Having a clear purpose ensures that no matter how difficult it seems, there is always hope and a way to realize our ideas.

Surrounding Oneself with the Right People: If I’m the most knowledgeable person in the room on a topic, then I’m definitely in the wrong room. Surrounding myself with people who know more than me, who have diverse experiences, and whom I admire is my way of growing and pushing myself to do better.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

I believe it’s exhausting to be great in every aspect of our lives. It’s a lot of pressure that can distract us from focusing on what we truly excel at or what we feel passionate about. I believe in self-awareness to recognize our strengths and maximize them to the fullest. And in the humility to acknowledge our weaknesses and surround ourselves with people who complement us.
I think it’s worth being so good at something that you cannot be ignored, rather than investing too much energy in being “good enough” at many things.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cfostartup.la
• Instagram: @cfostartup
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cfostartuplatam?trk=ppro_cprof
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4YH8uKMMUHhWxIHDPizKrg