About us

Built for retailers. Built on math.

Cash Margin Partners is an inventory cash-recovery practice for independent, owner-operated retailers. Connect your store and within minutes you'll know — to the SKU — how much cash is trapped on your shelves.

Calculate your trapped cash See pricing

Boutique apparel on hangers in a retail store.

Our story

Unlocking the hidden liquidity on your shelves.

We specialize in one problem: cash tied up in inventory that will not sell at full price. No messy integrations, no guesswork — just straightforward retail recovery.

Why we exist

Most independent retailers carry months of dead stock without realizing it. Rent, payroll, and next season's buy are all funded by cash locked in the back room. We built this because your growth shouldn't be held hostage by inventory that isn't moving — we turn that dead weight back into liquid capital.

How we help

We bridge the gap between complex data and confident execution. By analyzing your history we send back a plain-English picture of trapped capital, what to discount, and what to move — a live dashboard, weekly alerts, and a practical recovery plan instead of another pile of reports.

Get started free See pricing

The double bottom line

Profit and purpose, on the same ledger

Why Cash Margin Partners exists, in John's own words. Recovering trapped cash for independent retailers is the business; keeping local retail healthy is the point.

Our core values

What we hold ourselves to

Guiding principles behind every line of code we write, every report we generate, and every recovery plan we hand back. No fluff, just retail truth.

An independent retail store with elegant clothing racks.

Minutes

From connect to your first trapped-cash number

Read-only

OAuth access — tokens encrypted, never sold

Every SKU

Classified against verifiable sell-through history

Week over week

Monitor alerts track inventory as it shifts

Our principles

Four commitments we won't trade away

No gut-feel decisions

Every recommendation is auditable. We show the math, the history, and the assumptions — never a black-box score.

Mathematically sound

No SKU enters a recovery bucket without verifiable sell-through history. New arrivals stay in Data Incomplete, never a risk bucket.

Outcomes over seats

If the diagnostic doesn't surface meaningful recoverable cash, you still keep the report. The execution layer is there when the opportunity justifies it.

Your data stays yours

Read-only access, encrypted tokens, and private short-lived file staging. We never take ownership of your catalog and never sell it — deletable on request.

Leadership

Board of Directors

Kelyn Brannon

Former CFO, Celestial AI

Finance & capital markets

Finance executive with decades of leadership across technology and aerospace. She has served as CFO at Celestial AI, Astra, Asure Software, and Arista Networks, and earlier helped build Amazon's financial reporting foundation as its first Chief Accounting Officer.

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Kelyn Brannon served as Chief Financial Officer of Celestial AI from 2024 to 2026. Before that, she held CFO roles at Astra, Asure Software, and Arista Networks, among other companies. At Astra, she helped take the company public through a business combination. Earlier in her career, she was Amazon's first Chief Accounting Officer and worked in audit and corporate finance at Ernst & Young. She also serves on the board of Merlin, Inc.

Jeffrey Freedman

Former Chief Administrative Officer & General Counsel, CAA

Legal, M&A & operations

Former Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel of Creative Artists Agency, where he oversaw global legal, human resources, IT, and real estate operations. Previously EVP of Business Affairs and Operations at Paramount Pictures.

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Jeffrey Freedman spent more than a decade in legal and operational leadership at Creative Artists Agency. He joined CAA in 2009, became General Counsel in 2013, and later served as Chief Administrative Officer. Earlier, he was Executive Vice President of Business Affairs and Operations at Paramount Pictures and practiced corporate finance and M&A law at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He has also served on the advisory board of UCLA's Ziffren Center for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports Law.

Advisory board

The minds shaping our perspective

Cindy Zoller

Owner, Habit Footwear and Accessories

Independent retail & customer experience

Cindy is the proud owner of Habit Footwear and Accessories. For more than a decade, she has been curating and retailing stylish, unique, and high quality apparel and accessories to a loyal following at her boutique in Studio City, CA. Habit's informal motto is, "life is short, buy the shoes" but its true superpower is providing an outstanding customer experience.

Prem Akkaraju

CEO, Stability AI

AI & technology scale

CEO of Stability AI and former CEO of Weta Digital, the Oscar-winning VFX studio behind Avatar and The Lord of the Rings, where he led the $1.625B sale of its tech division to Unity. Columbia MBA with degrees in applied math and economics; deep expertise scaling technology and AI ventures.

Sandy Climan

CEO, Entertainment Media Ventures

Media, entertainment & venture

CEO of Entertainment Media Ventures, which he founded in 1999. Former senior leader at CAA, Universal Studios, MGM, and 3ality Digital; producer of U2 3D and The Aviator, and a longtime venture investor and advisor bridging Hollywood, Silicon Valley, finance, and global corporations.

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Sandy Climan is CEO of Entertainment Media Ventures, which he founded in 1999. He previously served on the senior management team at Creative Artists Agency, and was the co-founder of CAA’s corporate practice. Sandy has held senior executive roles across the entertainment industry, including Corporate Executive Vice President and President of Worldwide Business Development for Universal Studios, executive positions in production and distribution for MGM, and as the first CEO of 3D filmmaking pioneer 3ality Digital. His productions include U2 3D, the first digital live-action 3D film, and The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese, for which he was awarded a Golden Globe and a British Academy Award. He has been an active venture investor and advisor, and has served as a bridge between Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the financial industry, and global corporations. For over 30 years, he has served as an advisor on media and entertainment to the World Economic Forum and its Annual Gathering in Davos, Switzerland. He serves on several charitable boards, including the American Cinematheque, Sands College of Performing Arts at Pace University, the Ellis Island Honors Society, and the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation.

Allen DeBevoise

Founder & Managing Partner, Third Wave Digital Partners

Digital media & venture

Two-plus decades building and scaling digital media businesses; co-founded Machinima and led it as Chairman & CEO to billions of monthly video views. Active angel investor and board member spotting emerging digital opportunities.

Asbed Kassis

Co-Founder & CEO, Alena Solutions

Product & technology

Co-founder and CEO of Alena Solutions, a digital product studio delivering first-class products for startups and established brands. BS in Computer Science (CSUN) and MBA (USC Marshall); pairs deep technical skill with strategic leadership.

Sal Siino

Investor & Operator / Private Equity

Investing & operating

Sal is an investor and operator with experience spanning private equity, media, and sports entertainment. He has served as a senior executive at major media companies, led wholly-owned portfolio companies across health, defense, and technology, and advised high-growth businesses from early stage through exit. Harvard MBA and former M&A attorney.

How the diagnostic works

How we find the cash hidden on your shelves

One OAuth click into Shopify and our engine starts mapping your trapped revenue. No complex setup, no changes to your workflow.

Connect

Connect Shopify, Square, or Lightspeed Retail, or securely upload a tabular export for a one-time diagnostic.

Diagnose

We pull your sell-through history and classify every SKU against your seasonal baseline — dead stock, slow mover, overstock, healthy.

Surface

A single dollar number — the cash trapped right now — broken down by SKU, bucket, and category, every figure traceable to your catalog.

Recover

A prioritized written plan. Optional liquidity exchange for inventory that won't move at full price — participating buyers and a guided transaction workflow.

The team

Operators, appraisers, and technologists

CMP brings sales, business development, valuation, and technology together around one job: helping independent merchants see what is tying up cash and act with confidence.

John Valenti

Founder & CEO · Cash Margin Partners

Founded Cash Margin Partners to give independent retailers the inventory-to-cash discipline big chains take for granted. Sets direction and leads the partnerships that turn unsold stock back into working capital.

Ross Blanchard

Head of Business Development · Cash Margin Partners

An Accredited Senior Appraiser with deep experience in machinery, equipment, and inventory valuation. Connects retailer needs with disciplined, evidence-based recovery strategies.

Henry Fadoni

Inside Sales · Cash Margin Partners

Brings account-executive experience and hands-on knowledge of digital products, SaaS, and AI. Helps retailers move from an initial inquiry to a practical next step.

Philip DeBevoise

Inside Sales · Cash Margin Partners

A digital-media entrepreneur who co-founded and served as president of Machinima before founding Citizine. Brings experience building platforms, audiences, and partnerships at scale.

Mason Wyatt

Cofounder & CEO · Ashlr.ai

Cofounder and CEO of Ashlr.ai, the technology company behind Cash Margin Partners' diagnostic engine. Leads the team turning raw inventory data into a defensible, auditable trapped-cash number.

Evan Deloria

Cofounder & COO · Ashlr.ai

Cofounder and COO of Ashlr.ai. Runs the operation behind the platform — keeping the diagnostic, recovery, and data pipelines reliable as Cash Margin Partners scales.

Mason Scofield

Cofounder & CTO · Ashlr.ai

Cofounder and CTO of Ashlr.ai. Architects the systems that classify every SKU and keep merchants' data read-only, encrypted, and fast.

From John's desk

John Valenti, founder and CEO of Cash Margin Partners

The view from the back room

John writes about owner-operated retail, inventory discipline, building Cash Margin Partners, and the decisions that turn products back into working capital. His recent public Posts and Notes are collected automatically on the CMP blog.

Read John's field notes Subscribe on Substack

A closing note

See your trapped cash before you commit a dollar

Calculate your trapped cash Get started free

Questions? team@cashmarginpartners.co