Devan
Thakor
I build financial systems that explain how businesses make money. FP&A and commercial finance across forecasting, COGS, gross margin, pricing, and working capital, built into systems that improve decisions.
Finance brain, builder's hands
I lead commercial finance and operations at MS Boxes (Milestone Products), a Houston corrugated packaging manufacturer, where I connect demand, pricing, supplier cost, capacity, and inventory to forecasts, profitability, and the decisions leadership actually makes.
The pattern in my work is tracing operational reality to financial consequence. Machine throughput becomes labor cost, COGS, and a required selling price. An inventory movement becomes an accounting event, a journal entry, and a financial statement.
I also build the systems that carry that logic, with one rule: AI where it creates leverage, determinism where money is involved. COGS, pricing math, journal entries, and statements stay deterministic and testable. Coding agents accelerate implementation; governed LLMs help interpret the structured outputs. They never calculate financial truth.
Where the numbers got made
Milestone Products (MS Boxes)
- Partner across commercial, procurement, production, logistics, and leadership to connect demand, pricing, supplier cost, capacity, and inventory to forecasts, profitability, and decisions, operating during company growth from ~$1.8M to $5.4M annual revenue
- Directed commercial & financial execution of 250+ projects (~29% of company revenue), covering budgeting, profitability, and production handoffs
- Built supplier spend forecasts, purchase price variance analysis, gross margin and inventory economics, working capital, and scenario models that inform pricing and sourcing decisions
- Developed and priced 700+ custom quotations using scenario margin modeling and risk adjusted pricing
- Managed procurement across 3.5M+ units and 40M+ sq ft of raw material conversion; negotiated supplier pricing on $100K+ decisions
- Built reporting and financial tools in Excel, Power BI, and Python; owned AR, invoicing, and cash flow workflows
Grand Villa Inn and Suites
- Grew annual revenue +20% and profitability +15% through pricing optimization and cost control initiatives
- Managed a $600K operating budget, cutting expenses 12% via vendor negotiations and procurement optimization
- Reduced material waste 13% and procurement costs 10%; maintained 99% financial transaction accuracy
- Supervised full hotel operations: financial performance, staffing, vendors, and daily management
SURE™ Program (Stimulating Urban Renewal through Entrepreneurship)
- Consulted startup founders on business planning, financial modeling, and growth strategy
- Built investor presentations, projections, and funding strategies that contributed to successful fundraising
- Recognized by the Houston Comptroller for contributions to local entrepreneurship
Financial systems I've architected
Finance problems translated into deterministic models, decision systems, and governed automation.
Ember
Deterministic cost and pricing intelligence connecting material, labor, overhead, scrap, freight, tooling, and operating assumptions to fully loaded COGS, pricing, and true gross margin. The engine produces the numbers; governed AI interprets them.
Quince
Multitenant finance system connecting operational transactions to deterministic accounting: automated double entry posting on an immutable ledger, a live trial balance, P&L, and balance sheet, plus working capital and margin analytics. Architected the accounting logic, financial controls, and decision framework; AI coding agents accelerated implementation.
Lime IMS
Manufacturing cost system tracing supplier receipts through FIFO consumption and production to actual cost and realized gross margin. Lot level costing from receipt to invoice, with audit history and reversal logic.
Vendor Spend Forecast
Supplier forecast driven by historical invoice actuals across $9M, $12M, and $15M revenue scenarios, connecting revenue expectations to material spend, supplier exposure, and capacity economics.
Purchase Price Variance
Analyzed 48 supplier pricing points: 43 rose more than 7%, averaging ~9.0%. Quantified material cost pressure and margin exposure to inform pricing and sourcing responses.
Revenue Stability & Operating Risk
Analyzed revenue volatility, idle capacity, margin and volume relationships, customer concentration, and cash flow exposure to size operating risk.
Strategic Account Economics
Tooling ROI, quote conversion, customer economics, and project profitability analysis for key accounts.
Manufacturing ERP Prototype
Independent ERP prototype spanning quoting, costing, procurement, production, inventory, AR/AP, and order profitability. Early groundwork for later systems.
Free Packaging Tools
Corrugated cost estimator and packaging advisor on radiensystems.com that turn industry knowledge into inbound leads.
GEX Scanner
Python tooling for SPX/SPY dealer positioning analysis, with a weekly scanner and earnings detection.
calendar314
Journal and calendar Android app, published to Google Play end to end.
Nocturne Motel PMS
Property management system born from six years of running a hotel.
Valuation Models at Bauer
DCF, comps, and precedent transaction models for simulated M&A deals in PE/IB coursework.
The toolkit
Finance
Analytics
Financial Systems
AI
Bauer, magna cum laude
University of Houston, C.T. Bauer College of Business
Let's build something
Building at the intersection of finance and systems. Open to FP&A, strategic finance, commercial finance, product finance, and finance transformation.