What happens if you call.

From the first call to the handoff, here is the shape of it.

Before we meet

We talk for 30 minutes. I am trying to answer two questions. Can I help you, and is my help the kind you need. The most natural fit is a company growing quickly and resourced enough to invest in how it operates. Distress can make sense. So can a company thinking seriously about selling, or about becoming an acquirer. Subscale businesses and businesses built on manual processes are a poor fit, and I will say so on the first call rather than the third month. If I am not the right person I will tell you who is.

The half day

If the call goes well I come to you for half a day, at my own risk. For most of it I listen. I want to hear the CEO, whoever keeps the books, and whoever owns revenue. Then we go to the whiteboard and lay out four columns. The first 90 days. The first six months. Year one. Year two. By the end of the afternoon you have a plan you built with me, and you decide whether to sign. Most do. Some don't, and the session is my gift to you.

The first 90 days

The first 90 days go to your highest-priority problems and a few quick wins. That is partly about the problems and partly about the organization. People need to see that the finance seat is occupied, that it moves fast, and that doing things a new way pays off. Credibility earned early is what makes the harder changes possible later.

The cadence

I have a long working session with the CEO every week and I am usually talking with them every day. I sit in the executive meetings. I keep my own relationships with the people whose work drives the numbers, the controller, the head of sales, the operators. I am on site every 60 to 90 days, and I tie each visit to something that moves the company forward, a lender meeting, a budget session, a systems decision. In between, pick up the phone. There is no hourly meter and the clock is never running.

What you need to have

Every client needs an accounting solution. That can be an outsourced bookkeeping firm or an internal controller. I supervise it and work alongside it, but I do not replace it, and if a company does not have one, finding it is the first project. The same goes for the rest of the bench. If you need an FP&A hire, a tax advisor, an insurance broker, a banker, or a lender, I have a network built over twenty years and I use it on your behalf.

How the work gets done

Much of what used to take a team of analysts is now done with AI, and I build it that way from the start. Process re-engineering is part of every engagement, usually beginning with the close, the forecast, and the reporting package, so the company gets faster and cheaper at producing its own numbers. Where a project needs more hands than hours, I bring in best-of-breed vendors and partners, and occasionally a young MBA for discrete analytical work.

What I don't do, and where I still sit

I don't give legal, accounting, tax, investment, or valuation advice, and I don't run M&A the way a banker would. Those are regulated services and you should pay a professional who is licensed for them. I am still at the table for every one of those conversations, on your side, making sure the right questions get asked and the answers get used.

How it ends

Engagements run 18 to 36 months. They end one of two ways, a handoff to a full-time CFO I helped recruit, or a transaction. Either way I build the function to give it away.