Email template: a portfolio CFO proposing a data licensing fit screen to the CEO

When should a portfolio CFO send this email?

Send it when you want one small, bounded decision from the CEO: permission to run a metadata-only fit screen on the company's records, with the sponsor copied. The screen lists systems, years of history, peak headcount and contract restrictions. It moves no records and puts no number on proceeds.

The CFO is a natural sender. You already own the systems budget, the retention questions and the board pack, and a CFO is one of the people who can act as a company's authorized sponsor with SourceX, alongside the owner, the CEO or another authorized representative. The person proposing the screen can also run it.

Copying the sponsor matters in a PE-backed company. McKinsey's Global Private Markets Report 2026 finds that multiple expansion and cheap leverage have faded and that operational value creation is now likely the primary source of private equity returns, so deal teams are looking hard for operating levers. A sponsor who hears about a records screen from you, early and in writing, will not be surprised by it at the next board meeting.

If the board has already asked for an AI review, the AI readiness assessment template has a data asset section that the screen can feed.

The two-paragraph email to the CEO

Keep it to two paragraphs: what the opportunity is and is not, then the specific ask. Each line below is one line or paragraph of the email.

For alternative subject lines that stay factual, see introduction email subject lines.

Two shorter variants

When the CEO has already raised AI

When the sponsor replies asking what it is worth

How to personalize it

What the metadata-only fit screen covers

Every item is a fact about the company's records, not the records themselves.

• Peak full-time headcount and the year it peaked, contractors excluded
• Systems in use and retired: email, Slack or Teams, shared drives, CRM, ERP and finance, support desk, engineering tools, operations software
• Years of history in each system, and whether archives from retired tools still exist
• Who can run exports, and whether a vendor contract limits them
• Customer, vendor and outsourcing contracts with confidentiality or data-use clauses that could restrict licensing
• Any data that is mainly consumer personal information or medical records (flag it; it needs a clear licensing basis or de-identification before it can be considered)
• Whether any of the data has already been licensed for AI training
• Who would sign, and whether board or lender consent is needed under your governing documents or credit agreement

The company fit checker gives a preliminary, non-binding read with no contact details required, and who qualifies sets out the full baseline. A pass on either is a signal, not an approval.

Acting as sponsor, and what to check first

As sponsor you are the company's authorized point of contact with SourceX, which in practice means coordinating the data inventory and taking price and terms back to the CEO and board. Nothing is binding until the company agrees price and terms and signs, and de-identification and redaction requirements are agreed with the company before any work begins.

Two checks belong on a CFO's list before the screen turns into an application:

1. Authority. Confirm who can sign a license of company assets under your delegation of authority, operating agreement or bylaws, and whether your credit agreement needs lender consent.
2. Accounting. Ask your auditors early how a license would be recognized. Deloitte's revenue recognition roadmap on licenses explains the ASC 606 distinction between a right to use intellectual property as it exists when granted, recognized at a point in time, and a right to access it throughout the license period, recognized over time.

This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm with your own counsel, auditors or tax adviser before acting.

If a license does close, the sponsor may want to mention it to investors; the quarterly LP letter template shows one factual way to describe it. Sponsors who want the portfolio-wide view can start with the private equity operating partner guide.

Follow-up timing

When the CEO approves contacting SourceX, the introduction email builder drafts the outbound note, or the CEO can apply directly at sourcex.si/apply.

If you are also a SourceX partner

Some portfolio CFOs register as partners to introduce other companies, such as peers' businesses elsewhere in the sponsor's portfolio. Partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 per referred company. The reward is paid only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee, it is never deducted from what the company receives, and no reward is guaranteed.

Your own employer is a different case. A reward tied to a deal you are steering as an officer is a personal financial interest: disclose it in writing to the CEO and the sponsor and clear it under your employment agreement and the company's conflicts policy before the screen starts, or take part purely as the company's sponsor.

What never to include in the email

• Records, exports, screenshots, sample tickets, or customer and employee names
• A proceeds estimate, a price range or a comparison with publicly reported data deals
• Any suggestion that a buyer is lined up or that a passing screen means approval
• Typed reward amounts, or anything implying the CFO is paid out of company proceeds
• Names of AI companies presented as likely buyers

Next step

Send the two-paragraph email this week and run the screen once the CEO agrees. For your own company, the CEO or you as sponsor can apply at sourcex.si/apply. To introduce other companies in your network, register as a partner.