Branden K. Soo

Profile

About Me

I'm the first AI Specialist hired into any corporate function at VXI Global Solutions, and a Spring 2026 graduate of USC's Marshall School of Business and Leventhal School of Accounting with a joint degree in Accounting and Finance. My focus is the intersection of finance and AI: understanding how finance work actually gets done, then changing it with tools that hold up to an auditor's review.

Now: Applied AI in FP&A. VXI is a Bain Capital portfolio company and one of the largest independent operators in the BPO space, with roughly 40,000 employees worldwide. I'm embedded on the Global Finance and Accounting team, report to one of three VPs of Finance, and own both the strategy and the hands-on build, with no existing AI function to inherit. Day to day, I partner with directors across departments to map workflows and decide where AI genuinely helps. I've completed a contract intelligence project and am currently working across pricing, billing, invoicing, cash applications, and capacity planning.

None of that would make sense without what came before. Before VXI, I built experience across five fields, each one adding a piece of how I approach finance and AI:

AI Training & Evaluation: This is where I learned how AI actually reasons about finance. At AfterQuery (YC W25), an AI research lab, I was recruited by the founding team onto one of its first projects, then trained frontier AI models on financial analysis, accounting, and professional documents alongside CFAs and CPAs. I authored the 10-K analysis and finance tasks used to benchmark how leading models reason, and earned a spot on AfterQuery's top repeat-expert list.

Sports Law: This is where I learned to find what others miss. As a legal intern at ATHLAW LLP, I supported partners representing retired NFL players in disability and retirement benefit litigation against the NFL, running open-source intelligence audits and due diligence, including a multi-month risk audit of a Hall of Fame client.

Founding CFO: This is where I learned to own the numbers. At WCHype, a California wholesale and resale business, I laid the financial groundwork from day one, forming the LLC and opening accounts and credit lines, then built the finance and accounting function as revenue grew from $10K to over $2M a year. I secured $1M+ in credit facilities through staged financing, audited tax returns prepared by outside firms, and trained the bookkeeping team.

Retail Finance & Operations: This is where I learned how a business really runs on the ground. At Sole and Laces, a multi-location California sneaker and streetwear chain, I started as inventory manager, sourcing $300K+ and managing $3M+ in inventory, and led the move from Shopify to Lightspeed POS. I then moved into financial and legal strategy, recovering $200K+ from defaulted vendors, planning over $1M in spending for tax efficiency and ROI, and drafting the agreements behind new store openings.

High-Net-Worth Tax: This is where I learned precision under pressure. At Seiler LLP (now Baker Tilly US), I processed returns across every entity type for Silicon Valley high-net-worth clients and family offices, drafted engagement letters from firm templates, and proofread returns and IRS correspondence. I worked 40 to 100 hours a week through tax season while carrying a full college course load, and was one of only 2 of 12 seasonal hires kept on.

Put together, that's the toolkit I bring to VXI: how AI reasons, how to find what's missing, how to own the numbers, how operations actually work, and how to get every detail right. Along the way, I used AI to teach myself software development and systems design, and what I care about most is where AI stops being a demo and starts changing how a business runs.