Kimberly DeCarrera
Finance and business attorney serving businesses and business owners
Combining law and accounting to serve businesses
Providing Solutions for the Next Generation of Business
Kimberly DeCarrera brings together the disciplines of law and accounting to provide clients with customized plans to reduce risk, resolve historical liabilities, and ultimately to be profitable moving forward.
The intersection of law and accounting provides a unique balance between corporate legal and accounting departments to find solutions that might not otherwise be available to practitioners of only one discipline.
Kimberly is an accomplished lawyer and accountant with more than 15 years experience representing companies of all sizes across multiple industries, including financial services, hospitality, retail, manufacturing, transportation, professional services, and health care.
Kimberly is unique as a lawyer in that she is a business person first and will use her expertise in these different areas to develop the best path forward, in a legal and financially secure method. She can serve both as an functional expert in these areas while also serving as your business coach to help you grow your company. She will help your company grow smart and strategically.
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B.S. in Business Management, Georgia Institute of Technology
J.D. in Law, Georgia State University
Masters in Tax, Georgia State Univserity
Legal Expertise
Let’s talk corporate structure and tax strategies. Where and how should your company be setup? Should you add subsidiaries or separate business units? Corporate governance is important, no matter the stage of your company.
Kimberly can draft and negotiate contracts on your behalf, from customer contracts to leases to vendor contracts to employment agreements. Need standardized form contracts for your sales teams to use? Kimberly can draft them for you! Need to review supplier agreements for terms that you cannot live with? Kimberly is here to protect you.
She has also worked with companies to reevaluate staffing, policies, and yes, even complaints. She has appeared before the Departments of Labor, Revenue, EEOC, and others representing clients regarding their employment practices. She can write or edit your HR policies and handbooks.
A true Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel.
Financial Expertise
The first big question for startups and entrepreneurs, and then every year thereafter, is how to finance the business. Can you bootstrap your way to profitability or do you need additional funds? Should those funds come from debt/financing or venture capital? How do you pick the best deal for YOU and your company? Kimberly can help evaluate and negotiate with the different financing partners to make sure that the deal is good for you.
We can also work through tax strategies, looking for credits and tax abatements to help your company succeed.
Kimberly has also worked with companies to help streamline their daily financial operations, improve their accounts payable and receivable functions, and comply with various record retention requirements. She has assisted corporations through the enterprise system transitions, including selecting and developing vendors (or creating your own!) and preserving information from historical systems that may be needed in the future during their retirement phase.
Kimberly DeCarrera is also experienced in preparing businesses for mergers and acquisitions, both from a due diligence perspective of the acquiring company and preparing the target company for acquisition.
A true Chief Financial Officer.
Operations Expertise
Does your company have solid policies and procedures? Do you know what your KPIs are? How to enforce those KPIs? Is your technology working for or against your goals?
Kimberly can help your company scale by implementing the best practices for sales and operations so that your company can strategically set goals and grow. Let’s dive into every aspect of your company to find and emphasize the strengths. And work to fix the weaknesses, whether that is through staffing, technology, or processes.
A true Chief Operations Officer.
Supply Chain Expertise
The experience does not come from just advising companies from the outside. Kimberly previously served as the Chief Financial and Legal Officer of a hyper-growth third-party logistics firm, growing headcount and revenue simultaneously during a supply chain crisis.
She was invited by the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF) to speak at their annual DEI conference – Driving Diversity & Leadership Conference to talk about current supply chain and labor issues.
Kimberly was also named as a Supply Chain Pro to Know in 2022, after leading the 3PL firm through hyper-growth including adding three new offices.
Unclaimed Property
Kimberly represents corporate holders in unclaimed property in multi-state audits, voluntary disclosure programs, and annual compliance programs.
She specializes in finding unique ways to handle past due property, through voluntary disclosure programs as well as special corporate programs to specifically target past due property. She has also represented clients through the herculean effort of obtaining waivers of interest for late reporting property from California, among other jurisdictions.
She represented holder interests as an official observer to the Uniform Law Commission’s efforts that culminated in the 2016 Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act.
Recognized as an expert in unclaimed property, Kimberly has been featured in Forbes, Tax Analysts, CBS Atlanta News, and Peachtree TV.
- Forbes: Getting to Know You Tuesday: Kimberly DeCarrera
- CBS Atlanta News: Georgia Does Little to Connect People with Unclaimed Property
- FinOps Report: JP Morgan Whistleblower Case Tests Unclaimed Property Compliance
She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and in-house corporate training on unclaimed property.
Education and Volunteer Experience
- Bachelors of Science, Management, Georgia Institute of Technology
- Juris Doctorate, Law, Georgia State University
- Masters, Tax, Georgia State University
Kimberly has previously served as president of the Georgia Tech North Metro Alumni Club and the Georgia Tech Business Network. She was also a founding member of the Dunwoody Chamber of Commerce, after the city’s incorporation.
She is also a member of CHIEF, a women’s networking and mentorship group devoted to getting women to and retaining them in the C-suite.