Meet Everlaw CFO Wesley Pua
This week, Everlaw welcomes Wesley Pua as its new Chief Financial Officer, following the retirement of our outgoing CFO Scott Allen. Wesley brings more than 20 years of experience spanning investment banking and finance leadership at companies in satellite imaging, online education and web hosting. Most recently, he served as CFO of Bluehost and Fabric, after holding senior finance leadership roles at Udemy and Planet.
His resume tells only part of the story. Wesley has also been a punk-rock bassist, skateboarder, rock climber, dancer, and cook. Those experiences have shaped a worldview grounded in curiosity, fairness, service, and the belief that the best results come when every part of a system works together.
That perspective informs how he approaches finance, too: as a harmonious operating system across the company that helps leaders decide what to do next.
We sat down with Wesley to discuss his unconventional path to the CFO role, what drew him to Everlaw, and how he will help the company navigate its next phase of growth.
Your path to becoming a CFO wasn’t exactly conventional. How did you get here?
Growing up, I didn’t know what the C-suite was or imagine becoming an executive. But I began studying finance in college and quickly became fascinated by the field—and by how financial decisions shape the direction and growth of a business.
I began in financial services, with experience spanning investment banking, mutual funds, hedge funds, and the SEC. After moving to the Bay Area, I went from analyzing companies from the outside to helping build them from within. At Planet, I joined as the 30th employee and was the first person who wasn’t a rocket scientist. Since then, I’ve worked across early-, mid-, and later-stage companies and a wide range of business models.
“Finance shouldn’t just report where the company has been. At its best, it is an operating system—a map that helps people decide where to go next.”
But the experiences that don’t show up on LinkedIn matter just as much. I’ve played bass since I was about 12. I grew up skateboarding, dancing, and climbing, and I worked as a cook for nearly a decade. Hospitality teaches customer service, collaboration under pressure, and the satisfaction of making something tangible and receiving immediate feedback. All of those experiences broadened my worldview and influence how I operate today.
What drew you to Everlaw and legal technology?
Four things stood out: the technology, the industry, the place, and the people.
I wanted to join a company that was thoughtfully and authentically integrating AI—not simply wrapping someone else’s technology, but bringing a deep understanding of machine learning, data science, and AI adoption. Everlaw has that foundation and a strong point of view about where the technology should go next.
The mission mattered just as much. Earlier in my career, I worked at Planet, which used earth-observation satellites to help people understand changes to our planet, and at Udemy, which helps people prepare for the decades of life after formal education. I’ve learned that mission-driven work is important to me. Everlaw’s mission to promote justice by illuminating truth resonates deeply. We place enormous trust in the legal system, even though any human system is imperfect. Technology that expands access to information, truth, and justice can be profoundly empowering.
AI is a game changer for legal, full stop. We’re still at the beginning of this AI era, and the technology will continue changing quickly. I’m excited to be joining Everlaw at a time of immense growth and opportunity.
Everlaw is also homegrown in Oakland, where I live, and that feels special. Most importantly, every person I met during the process was genuine, kind, collaborative and low-ego. Finding a strong culture made up of curious, thoughtful people is rare.
You’ve described finance as an “operating system” for growth. What does that mean?
A traditional back-office finance function tells you what the weather was. It reports the numbers, explains what happened, and controls spending. That work is necessary, but it’s only a part of the story.
By the time something appears in the financial results, the business has already done the thing. Product made a decision, engineering built something, or go-to-market engaged the customer. Those financial metrics are lagging indicators. A modern CFO also needs to understand the leading indicators: What does the roadmap unlock? How do product and technology decisions connect with go-to-market? Are we showing up for customers in the best way? What tradeoffs are we making across the company?
An operating system creates feedback loops and helps people make informed decisions about what comes next. It provides milestones, goals, guardrails, on-ramps, and off-ramps. I think of it as a map: There may be many possible routes to a destination, and our job is to help the company choose the most effective one with its eyes wide open.
Is there a connection between playing bass and being a CFO?
Absolutely. The bass player usually isn’t the front person or the flashy member of the band. The job is to make the band sound good—to connect harmony, melody, and rhythm and keep everything working together.
The CFO role is similar. Sales, customer success, product, and technology are all musicians. Different people take the lead at different moments, while others provide harmony or support. My job is to understand the whole system and help those parts perform together.
Music is also deeply mathematical when you get nerdy about it. There are shapes, structures, and patterns in both music and finance. But the more important connection is that neither is about one person performing alone. The outcome depends on how people listen and work together.
You’ve worked across many company stages and market cycles. What lessons will you bring to Everlaw?
One principle I live by is: Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready.
At Udemy, I helped lead the company as it prepared to go public. That experience reinforced that an IPO is not an end point—it is a transition that demands greater rigor, visibility, and predictability. The real work is building a company that can operate consistently through whatever milestone comes next.
For a growing company, that means building consistent, sustainable, repeatable, and increasingly predictable ways of operating. We should understand how investments connect to outcomes, and be ready to respond as conditions change. The goal isn’t to optimize for one specific milestone. It’s to build the rigor and resilience to be ready for whatever opportunity or challenge comes next.
I’ve worked through different market cycles, capital-markets events, and stages of company growth. Again and again, the most interesting challenges turn out to be systems problems. The work is to understand the pieces, make the tradeoffs visible, and help people move forward together.
What would you like Everlawyers to know about how you work?
I’m deeply collaborative. I ask a lot of questions, talk to people across the organization, and rely on subject-matter experts who know far more than I do about their fields. My job is to help us get to the right decisions—and I use “us” intentionally.
I enjoy taking something technically, operationally, or emotionally complex, breaking it into its parts, and bringing it back together in a way that reduces friction. I try to bring calm, clarity, and a low-ego approach to hard problems.
I also believe in “each one, teach one.” I benefited enormously from people who offered guidance and made room for my questions, especially because I didn’t grow up with much privilege or a clear map into this career. I try to do the same for others.
Since joining Everlaw, I’ve realized the opportunity is even bigger than I understood from the outside. That creates a dilemma of choice: many paths are possible, and we get to decide which ones to pursue. I’m excited to meet more Everlawyers, understand their talents and challenges, and help enable the curiosity, creativity and technical and legal expertise that make this company unique.
