From Burn to Build: How Smart Founders Turn Expenses Into Growth Engines
From Burn to Build: How Smart Founders Turn Expenses Into Growth Engines
A Finanshels x Pemo Workshop
Stop cutting. Start allocating. The founders who win aren't spending less — they're spending smarter.
Most founders are told the same thing when times get tough: cut costs, tighten the belt, do more with less.
That advice is costing you your growth.
The sharpest operators in the room aren't obsessing over what to cut — they're obsessing over where every dirham is working hardest. They've built systems that don't just control spend — they redirect it. Into channels that compound. Into bets that build. Into the infrastructure that makes their next funding round or their next revenue milestone inevitable.
This isn't a session about expense reports.
This is a session about how money moves inside a business that's built to grow.
Join Finanshels and Pemo for an intimate, hands-on workshop where we pull back the curtain on the financial operating systems that high-growth founders actually use — not the theory, but the real decisions, the real frameworks, and the real mistakes that operators in this room have lived through.
Walk in with questions. Walk out with a system.
What We’ll Cover
- The Growth Allocation Framework Why cutting costs is the wrong goal — and how to rethink your P&L as a growth map, not a damage report.
- Spend Intelligence, Not Spend Control Building real-time visibility so you're making decisions from data, not gut feel. How to spot which expenses are passive drains vs. active growth drivers.
- The Founder's Budget Architecture How to structure your budget so every AED has a job — and how to reshuffle spend fast when the market shifts.
- Team Spend Without the Chaos Giving your team financial autonomy without losing oversight. Real systems, real tools, real limits.
- From Cost Center to Growth Center How to audit your current expenses and reclassify them — identifying which line items are quietly fueling growth and which are silently killing it.
- Building a Finance Stack That Scales The tools and workflows that grow with your business, so you're not rebuilding your systems every funding round.
What You’ll Walk Away With
• A simple framework to audit your expenses through a growth lens — applicable from day one
• Clarity on which of your current costs are investments vs. liabilities
• A budget structure you can implement this week, not next quarter
• Systems to give your team spending power without losing financial control
• Real playbooks from founders who've navigated growth with tight capital
• A peer network of operators solving the same problems right now
WHO SHOULD BE IN THE ROOM
This workshop is deliberately kept small and hands-on. It's built for:
• Founders and co-founders who are tired of reactive financial decisions
• Operators and team leads who want their teams to move fast without breaking the budget
• Early-stage and growth-stage CFOs who need smarter systems, not just smarter spreadsheets
• Any founder who's ever asked: "Where did all the money go this month?"
If you run a business and money flows through it — this room is for you.
Speakers
Muhammed Shafeekh — Founder & CEO, Finanshels Building the financial operating system for the next generation of MENA founders
Sonket Mangrulkar — Chief Growth & Finance Officer, Elile AI Where finance meets growth strategy — in practice, not in theory
In partnership with Pemo — the spend management platform built for modern teams
Event Details
📆 Date: 17th April 2026
⏰ Time: 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM GST
📍 Venue: Rove Trade Centre
🎟️ Capacity: Limited seats — this is an intimate, working session
About Finanshels
Finanshels is a leading professional accounting firm in the UAE, enabling founders to achieve financial clarity through clean books. From bookkeeping and tax compliance to CFO services, Finanshels supports startups with end-to-end financial management.
About Pemo
Pemo is an all-in-one spend management platform designed to help businesses track, control, and optimize expenses in real time, empowering teams with smarter financial workflows.
NOTE: We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information we provide about this event. Visit the event's website to verify details such as date, opening hours, prices and location.
