What are the advantages for Tech startups to hire a interim Chief Financial Officer by Sam McQuade CFO of Panterra Finance: We’ve seen hundreds of startups run with a skeleton budget, but the startups that hire a CFO are the ones that end up making critical hires, well-informed business decisions, and raising funding when needed. Ultimately, these startups can go public or sell their startup compared to startups that tend to their own slim budgets. Running a startup is a delicate balance between managing money and making critical hires to move forward. A fractional CFO gives you the expertise you need on your budget. The cost of fractional CFO services is significantly less than that of making expensive financial decisions without the proper guidance. For startups, the benefits of having a CFO on your team ensure you’re moving forward one step at a time. Find extra information at Sam McQuade CFO.
Generally, between $10 million and $50 million of revenue is when financial functions gain more complexity. When revenue is scaling up at this fast-moving stage, there is likely a need to establish long-term stability on the finance team. With growing investor relations and capital markets needs, hiring a full-time CFO becomes necessary to handle the responsibility. In later-stage funding events, investor terms may state that a CFO must be hired upon completion of the round.
Fractional CFOs can help companies: Develop detailed short-, mid-, and long-term financial forecasts; Prepare budgets based on forecasts; Analyze potential future products, services, markets, and customer segments. Helping Manage Growth: Fractional CFOs are also helpful in scaling a business, ensuring profitable growth as the business becomes more complex. This work involves reinventing the tools, processes, and vendor relationships the business uses to deliver value to an ever-growing and increasingly diverse set of customers. This is often called “bridging the chasm”, as most companies start to see declining margins and increasing headaches as they grow revenue past a certain threshold.
Looking to hire your very first CFO or need interim coverage? We offer CFOs for immediate very short term objectives and longer term engagements. Flexible with fair pricing so you solve the needs of your business and don’t have to rush into a potentially bad solution and expensive full time hire. Along with the core services of C-Suite Level Executives in Finance and a contingent of Fractional CFO talent and experienced Intermittent CFO innovators, Panterra Finance services include: international Business – Experts in Global Tax Liabilities and Cash Flow Strategies, investments and planning. Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Advisory – Providing valuations as well as independent perspectives on offers and options. Internal Audits – Independent internal auditors with in-depth reports highlighting risks and vulnerabilities. Risk Management – A worldwide footprint enables Panterra Finance to identify risks and opportunities in the new world economy. Compliance Review – Actionable understanding when entering markets with new rules, regulations, laws and international asset allocation decisions.
The CFO function is evolving at lightspeed. With digital transformation and societal changes, the CFO role is rapidly turning into one of a “Chief Fiduciary Officer”, which is going beyond the traditional financials to look towards the future and lead long term value creation in a world of many unknown risks. Storytelling is a very powerful tool to engage and energize teams about value creation and potential pitfall areas. The traditional path of CFO usually starts with a solid foundation based on technical knowledge and then after about 15 years, the great leaders earn the coveted title.
What’s driving that investment in expertise? Often, CEOs who are at a strategic crossroads and recognize the value of an expert financial adviser who can help them grow market share, and their businesses. In short, smart companies now view the CFO position — both internal and on a virtual or fractional CFO basis — as more of an investment than an expense. There’s no doubt that a global pandemic made the value of an experienced hand on the finance helm very evident. But our take is that there’s more to the rise of the CFO than an economic crisis. Let’s look at the role, responsibilities and skills finance chiefs need to serve their companies well.
Strategy and forecasting involves using available data and reports, both internal and external, to advise on areas including product development, market expansion, human capital management, M&A and capital investments. It’s also where structured planning and forecasting exercises, like scenario planning and FP&A, fall. Controllers, treasurers and FP&A analysts are invaluable members of the team, but in all these areas, the buck stops at the CFO’s desk.
Another purpose of a DAO is to automate decision-making. In a traditional organization, decisions are made by a small group of people. This can often lead to delays in decision-making. With a DAO, decisions are made by the code that governs the organization. This makes it much faster and easier to make decisions. In business environments, it frees up space for people to focus on other things. It has opened up opportunities for more decision-makers to get involved in the governance of a DAO. The most notable example is the MakerDAO, which is a decentralized autonomous organization that governs the Dai stablecoin. The MakerDAO has a voting system that allows anyone to participate in the governance of the organization.
Selling your business or looking to buy others? Our experts can lead the deal and make sure that you have a thoughtful ownership transition. We are happy to provide second opinions on valuations as well so you have another perspective and feel better before your close the deal.
Understanding DAO: Now, suppose the same transaction happens on a decentralized network like the Bitcoin network. There is no central entity here. Both parties can interact with each other directly. The product is transferred from A to B, and $100 is transferred from B to A. This transaction is then recorded on a digital ledger which is available to everyone in the network. So there is complete transparency, and everyone knows that the transaction has taken place. This process of recording transactions on a digital ledger is what we call ‘blockchain technology.’ This is not limited to just financial transactions; it can be used to record any kind of transaction. Now that we know what blockchain is, let’s get back to DAO.
The answer is to bring in a qualified CFO to work closely with the CEO or business owner. The CFO must embrace the vision, but also translate this into the operational and financial framework to achieve success. Dealing effectively with stakeholders is another key function. This includes managing expectations, presenting financial information, and understanding the varied and legitimate interests of owners, creditors, and lenders.
In these early years of creating innovations in the corporate C-Suite, Sam McQuade nurtured and created a maverick approach to new finance operations for Stryker as it broke through to the lucrative emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)). While approaching the markets in the growing economies of Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia and Romania, Sam McQuade was recognizing the need for Interim and Fractional CFO’s for the avalanche of incubators and startup companies in these underdeveloped economies that were on the cusp of being integrated into modern International Finance systems and markets. Find even more details on Sam McQuade CFO of Panterra Finance.