Who you work with
A career of fixing the mess, then building the system
Shawn has spent more than two decades in financial leadership across public accounting, corporate finance, two private equity exits, and a pharmaceutical IPO, including building the financial operations behind specialty pharmacy companies through real growth. We lead with stories, not a wall of titles, because what matters is whether we have lived your problem.
| John C. Todd II, P.C. | Senior Auditor (from 2003, about 4 years). A Phoenix CPA firm auditing charter schools, school districts, governments, and not for profits. The foundation of his audit experience. |
| The Apothecary Shops and Avella Specialty Pharmacy | Senior Accountant to Accounting Manager (about 5 years). A specialty pharmacy of about a dozen locations and roughly $50M revenue. He closed three years of books under GAAP, led a conversion to Microsoft Dynamics, and the company reached a clean audit and a sale to private equity. |
| Integrity Rx Specialty Pharmacy | Controller to Executive Vice President of Financial Operations (about 5 years). A fertility pharmacy he helped build from concept to a $50M operation, navigating about 40 state permits, implementing Intacct, and helping sell it to private equity in about 4.5 years. |
| A national fractional accounting firm | Head of Accounting then CFO (2019 to 2026). Built and grew service verticals, ran a 40 plus hour accrual workpaper monthly close for a publicly traded pharmaceutical company, and led the healthcare, biotech, and technology vertical. |
He was also featured in Ramp's Accountant Spotlight series.
Beyond the numbers
The Hawaiian shirt is not a costume, it is the point. Relaxed and warm on the surface, rigorous and exacting underneath. Shawn is drawn to the water, which is where the Island Waters name comes from, and he brings that calm to the moments when a founder's numbers feel anything but calm.
How we are built
A modern firm by design
Senior judgment is the product, and a carefully built operating system lets one experienced operator deliver it with the speed and consistency a much larger team would need. That keeps your cost down and your turnaround fast, and it means the judgment you are paying for is always a human's, reviewed and owned by a human, before it ever reaches you. The machine drafts, the Principal signs.
What we stand for
Calm in the storm
When the numbers turn scary, you get a steady hand so you can decide from clarity, not fear.
Character when no one is watching
We keep confidences absolutely and own our mistakes fast.
We advise, you decide
Senior judgment said plainly, then the decision handed back, because it is your business and your call.
The boundary, said plainly
We are not a CPA firm and we do no attest work, no legal advice, and no investment advice. Your taxes are handled by a tax partner we trust, under a separate engagement, with Island Waters as your single point of contact through preparation and filing. We will always tell you when something belongs with your attorney or another licensed professional, because swimming in our lane is part of how we protect you.
Questions founders ask
About the firm
- Are you a CPA firm? Do you do taxes or audits?
- No, Island Waters is not a CPA firm, and we do no attest work, no audits, reviews, or compilations. We do not prepare or file taxes ourselves either. Instead, we outsource your tax work to a tax partner we trust, under a separate engagement you pay directly, while Island Waters remains your single point of contact through both preparation and filing. We lead with two decades of lived operator experience rather than a license.
- Do you provide legal or investment advice?
- No. We are not attorneys or investment advisers. On a contract, a financing, or a transaction, we work alongside your attorney and your other advisers, bringing the financial side while they handle theirs.
- How do you keep my financial data secure?
- Client financial data is treated as sensitive from day one, on a locked down, encrypted workstation, with managed identity, secrets in a dedicated password manager, and an encrypted network. We never collect sensitive financial data through this website.
- How does AI factor into your work?
- AI is how we keep the cost down and the turnaround fast, not the thing you are buying. The line we never cross is simple: the machine drafts, the Principal signs, and nothing reaches you without a human's eyes on it first.
The first step
Have a conversation.
No pitch, no pressure. Just a straight talk about where you are and whether we can help.
See If We Are a Fit (15 minutes)