Pre-IPO to post-IPO: Why market conditions are raising the stakes for end-to-end readiness

Uncertain markets and compressed timelines have fundamentally changed what IPO readiness requires. For CFOs and executive teams, preparation should start well before and may extend beyond the transition into life as a public company. 

Key takeaways 

• Public company readiness should ideally begin 12 to 24 months before the planned IPO date and may span beyond the S-1 and possibly include transformation activities within various functions such as finance, reporting, controls, operations, systems, and governance. 

• The shift from AICPA to PCAOB audit standards commonly brings lower materiality thresholds and increased audit procedures and complexity that routinely catch private companies off-guard. 

• Post-IPO planning, particularly around forecasting capability and investor guidance, must be built out before the offering. 

The planning environment is constantly evolving

Market volatility has made IPO timing harder to both predict and manage. Interest rates, valuation pressure, sector sentiment, and investor expectations all influence when the timing for a public offering become optimal—and none of those variables are within a company’s control. 

What is within a company’s control is how prepared it is when the right conditions present themselves. And that’s where many companies are underinvesting. 

The current transaction landscape has raised the bar significantly. Investors are no longer focused solely on a clean filing. They want evidence that a company can perform under public scrutiny—that its finance function can close quickly, its leadership understands the factors impacting the reported results and can provide credible forward-looking guidance, and its controls are strong enough to hold up under future scrutiny. That standard applies from day one of trading. 

For CFOs navigating this environment, the core challenge is straightforward. You can’t build public-company infrastructure in the months before a filing and expect it to perform at the level markets demand. The work must start earlier, and it must be connected across functional areas within the organization. 

Where private companies underestimate the operational lift 

Most private companies run lean. Finance teams are smaller, reporting processes are less formal, and controls that would be standard practice at a public company often haven’t been required, and likely haven’t been established. That changes quickly once a company enters the IPO process. 

“It starts with your team,” says Anil Persad, Partner at Highspring. “The right people have a good pulse on the industry. They know the competitive landscape. They can help build the organization. What I’ve seen is that the companies that succeed are the ones that hire the right people at the right time—they hire a strong chief accounting officer, a VP of FP&A, and a seasoned controller. From there, they build out transformation teams around those people to solidify different processes and secure the right technology to help them with their close process and financial reporting. But companies going public can’t afford to stay too lean for too long.” 

One of the first adjustments involves the audit. Private companies are audited under standards set forth by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Public companies are subject to audits conducted in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which often trigger lower materiality thresholds and more extensive audit procedures. For companies that are also upgrading from a regional firm to a national auditor, the nature of the engagement itself shifts—more scrutiny, more documentation, and greater demands on internal teams that may already be stretched thin. 

Beyond the audit, companies frequently underestimate the investment required across financial reporting, systems, internal controls, and governance. Many haven’t produced quarterly financial statements under public company standards. Their close process isn’t built for the consistency and speed that public reporting requires. SOX compliance hasn’t been stood up. Internal audit infrastructure doesn’t exist. 

Each of these gaps takes real time to close. In a volatile market, where offering timelines can accelerate with little warning, that time isn’t available if the work hasn’t started. 

The practical guidance from advisors who’ve seen this repeatedly involves a 12-to-24-month runway before a planned offering, giving finance teams enough time to address gaps without cutting corners or creating execution risk at the worst possible moment. 

The capability most companies build too late 

Of all the operational demands that come with being public, financial forecasting is typically one of the more underdeveloped functions heading into an IPO. 

As a private company, stakeholder expectations regarding forward-looking performance are limited compared to those for public companies. As a public company, investors and analysts expect guidance—and they expect it to be accurate. Miss your numbers without a credible explanation and market confidence erodes quickly. Build a reputation for guidance accuracy in the first few quarters, and you create lasting credibility with investors. 

The challenge is that reliable forecasting requires real infrastructure: the right people, processes, and technology capable of producing a consistent output on a recurring basis. Building that infrastructure while simultaneously preparing a registration statement, coordinating with bankers, working through SEC comments, managing roadshows, and running the core business is an extraordinarily difficult ask.  

Investing in the following people and initiatives 12-to-24 months before going public helps position your company for success: 

People 

• Experienced CFOs and finance leaders 
• Chief accounting officers 
• Controllers 

Process

• Financial close procedures 
• Budgeting and forecasting procedures 
• Variance analysis and reporting 
• Order-to-cash processes 

Technology 

• ERP and consolidation systems 
• Forecasting tools 

Companies that wait until after filing to think seriously about forecasting tend to find themselves behind when they most need to be ahead. Treating forecasting capability as a pre-IPO priority—rather than a post-IPO problem—is one of the clearest ways to reduce execution risk in the first year as a public company. 

Pre-IPO preparation and post-IPO performance are the same conversation 

The most important shift in thinking for CFOs preparing for a public offering is recognizing that the work doesn’t end at listing. In many respects, it’s just beginning. 

The first few quarters as a public company are the most scrutinized. Investors are watching whether leadership delivers on the promises made during the roadshow. Auditors are testing whether internal controls hold under PCAOB standards. The finance organization is operating in a continuous reporting cycle with no room for the informal processes that worked in a private context. 

Companies that approach IPO preparation as a transaction project—rather than development of a future state operating model—tend to struggle in this phase. They clear the filing hurdle but haven’t built the finance function that sustained public company performance requires. The S-1 gets filed, but the necessary operational infrastructure doesn’t follow. 

The more effective approach connects preparation across finance, reporting, controls, operations, systems, talent, and governance—and treats the listing event as a milestone rather than a finish line. That means planning the post-IPO operating model before the offering. It means building an FP&A capability that can support investor guidance. It means ensuring your close process can produce results on the timeline public markets demand, and that the right people are in the right roles before the pressure arrives. 

The cost of waiting is higher than most teams expect 

In an uncertain market, the case for delaying an investment in readiness is tempting. If the offering is 18 or more months away, why build urgency around preparation now? 

The answer is optionality. Companies that maintain a high state of readiness can move decisively when conditions improve. Companies that haven’t done the work have to scramble—and scrambling under investor scrutiny, in a compressed timeline, is where execution breaks down and value gets lost. 

Market conditions don’t signal in advance when they will shift. The companies best positioned to respond are the ones that treated readiness as a sustained business priority, not a project to start when the offering felt imminent.  

For CFOs and executive teams, that means taking stock now. Assess where your finance function stands relative to public company standards. Identify the gaps in reporting, controls, and governance. Build the operating model your company needs to perform after listing—because it won’t materialize on its own once the offering closes.