Co-Founder, President & CEO, NOW Corporation
Lara O’Connor Hodgson co-founded and serves as President and CEO at NOW Corporation, a B2B payments company headquartered in Atlanta, GA.
Created in 2010, NOW Corp's mission, to create a world without accounts receivables (A/R), was born as a solution to an experience she encountered collecting payments from corporations for her first startup. She had co-founded Nourish, a company that produced unique baby bottles in 2009. Nourish Baby allowed parents to add formula, shake, serve, and recycle, ensuring nutrition and safety for infants and maximizing convenience for busy parents. Nourish Toddler provided spill-proof purified water for toddlers.
Nourish bottles became popular with grateful young mothers. As the buzz grew quickly, larger chain stores like, Whole Foods, placed orders. As demand for Nourish bottle grew, Hodgson learned that, unlike small boutiques that paid bills right away, large corporations relied on bureaucratic invoicing systems. It often took between 30 to 90 days after receiving a bill for the company to send payment. Such a delay in payment could severely impact cash-strapped startups.
Hodgson co-founded NOW Corp to help startups facing the challenges Nourish faced with A/R. Businesses may join the NOW Network and have access to NOWaccount, a revenue accelerator system that gives small businesses immediate access to the payment that typically was delayed for months in A/R.
From 2001-2007 Hodgson was Chief Operating Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Dewberry Capital. Previously, she was a Senior Vice-President of iXL and a senior business analyst with Andersen Consulting.
Hodgson earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. She chose to apply her engineering background and passion for problem-solving to become a serial entrepreneur and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School
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