Crescendo Partners

Team

A trusted partnership formed over nearly a decade.

Ian H. Clark

Founder, Managing Partner

Ian H. Clark

Ian founded Crescendo to help growing companies with monetization.

For more than a decade, he has helped hundreds of software companies as an advisor, manager, and investor. He most recently ran the Monetization Strategy practice at Alpine Investors. Before that, he led growth and monetization at Evernote, and was an investor with Contrary Capital and Array Ventures.

He is the author of Monetization, and his work has been featured in case studies by the Harvard Business Review.

Ian received his BA from Harvard, his MBA from Stanford, and first learned the nuts and bolts of pricing at Simon-Kucher & Partners, the largest pricing firm in the world.

When he's not thinking about pricing, you might catch him on stage with the Boston Symphony Orchestra or at the dog park with his dog Cali.

Patrick Despres-Gallagher

Managing Partner

Patrick Despres-Gallagher

Patrick focuses on monetization from the lens of product, growth, and sales execution.

Patrick joined Crescendo in 2024 after a merger with the advisory business he had founded. Prior to Crescendo, Patrick was the cofounder/CEO of Stage, a VC-backed monetization and billing automation tool for software and internet companies. Prior to Stage, he was an early product leader at Loom focused on platform growth and monetization, where he helped the company scale from <$1M to $35M in ARR in just under two years (acq. $975M by Atlassian).

Prior to Loom, Patrick was a family office investor in early and growth-stage technology businesses such as Personio, Gloat, Affinity.co, and others (TVPI > 10x). Patrick started his career as a top-performing Senior Consultant at Deloitte.

He holds an MBA from Stanford University and a B.A. with honors from Johns Hopkins University. Beyond work, he enjoys performing and attending live music, meditation, outdoor activities, and running.

Meghan Ingel

Operations Manager & Executive Assistant

Meghan Ingel

Meghan keeps Crescendo's operations running so the team can focus on clients.

As Operations Manager and Executive Assistant, Meghan keeps Crescendo running day to day. She supports the partners, coordinates client engagements and scheduling, and owns the operational details that keep the firm moving smoothly.

Meghan brings over a decade of operations and arts administration experience to the firm. Most recently, she managed the academy experience at Charlotte Ballet. She also founded and led The Market Theatre Company as its Managing Director, and earlier coordinated admissions and audition events at Anderson University.

Beyond work, Meghan enjoys gardening and spending time with her family.

Past engagements

Loom logoAppFolio logoCarta logoCloudflare logoY Combinator logoClassDojo logoHeyGen logoRender logoEventbrite logoOwner logoYelp logoPlanetScale logoLoom logoAppFolio logoCarta logoCloudflare logoY Combinator logoClassDojo logoHeyGen logoRender logoEventbrite logoOwner logoYelp logoPlanetScale logo