One operator in the seat you need, one to two days a week. We also value businesses and help decide what they should do next.
The CFO seat is John's. It owns the forecast, capital allocation and investment governance. The controller, the CPA firm and outside counsel report up to it, so you get direction in those areas, not only a model. Most owners would rather not manage the accountants and the lawyers. John likes that work.
The COO seat is Paul's. It builds the weekly operating cadence, fixes the process before the tool, and makes the build-versus-buy call.
Strategy isn't a separate seat here. It comes with either one. How the two seats run →
Where it fits: companies roughly $50M to $1B in revenue, where one experienced operator can change the year. John is most effective from $50M to $500M. Paul is most effective from $100M to $1B. The bands are a guide, not a gate. The first conversation settles who sits. Outside those ranges, we work project by project: a valuation, a diligence sprint, a strategy built and handed off.
You hire one operator, not a team of two. The seat you need decides which of us sits. A full-time hire takes six months you may not have. A fractional executive is in the seat this month, on an agreed path, at a fraction of the cost. Our operating histories were built at enterprise scale, which is what a growing company borrows when it hires fractionally.
The shape of it: most seats run one to two days a week on a monthly retainer. Ninety days is the minimum, not the length. It takes that long to learn the lay of the land, the priorities that hold and the ones that live only on paper, and the limits. After that, the seat runs as long as the plan needs an operator in it. Project work is scoped and priced fixed. Either way, you'll know the number before the work starts, and the number will hold. Ask us in the first conversation and we'll tell you straight.
The books are clean and the bank package goes out on time, and nobody owns the forecast. The bank or the board has said the word CFO.
A departure left a gap, and the search plus ramp is a six-month hole in your operating year. We cover the seat, run the function, and stay only as long as the work requires.
Post-close gaps, founder-to-PE-grade transitions, and pre-exit de-risking twelve to eighteen months out. We've sat in capital board meetings from both sides of the table.
The plateau that needs go-to-market or operating discipline, not another tool. We find the levers, build the numbers forward, and pull them in order.
Your board wants a position, not a pilot. Most mid-market firms use AI; few have the in-house judgment to run it as a capital allocation question. We built, ran, and exited an AI company. The judgment comes with the seat.
How an engagement works, from the first call to the handoff →
We tell owners what their business is actually worth, and why. Not a multiple pulled from a chart: the real estate, the liens, the leases, the depreciation schedules, taken apart piece by piece, then rebuilt into a three-to-eight-year forecast grounded in what businesses like yours actually return. Most valuations never lead to a sale, and that's the point. Some owners need the number for the bank. Some need it for a partner, or the family, or a plan. Some just need the truth.
On credentials, the honest version: no letters after our names. What we do is the operator's valuation: the distance between what the books say and what the cash flow proves. When the moment requires a certified appraisal, for a court, an estate, or certain lenders, we'll say so plainly and quarterback the right credentialed appraiser.
The growth paths open to you, the levers behind each, and readiness on either side of a merger or acquisition. We've sat in the middle of transactions: the diligence, the middle work between buyer and seller, the numbers both sides could live with. We are not investment bankers and we are not M&A attorneys, and we won't pretend to be either. We do the operator's part of a deal: making sure the number is real before anyone signs it.
In a deal team, we sit beside your banker and your counsel, not in their chairs: pre-LOI readiness, operational diligence, and the first hundred days after close, when the plan either becomes the work or becomes a binder.
The valuation work meets businesses where they are, Main Street included. The strategy and fractional work serves the mid-market, and our operating seats draw on experience built at enterprise scale. More than size, we look for one thing: a leader who runs their company with a market-wide mindset and the perspective to be a partner. A smaller company with a market-minded leader beats a bigger one without.
If your business makes things, moves things, or sells things, we've run the discipline your problem lives in.
Founder and family-held companies, and PE portfolio companies. Central Ohio first by relationship, anywhere by fit.
Your controller closes the books, runs payables and payroll, and gets the bank package out on time. The CFO decides what the numbers mean and what to do about them: the forecast, where capital goes, what to cut, and what the bank and the board hear. The controller, the CPA firm and outside counsel report up to the seat, and it gives them direction. Your controller stays. The seat sits above the books.
No. A CPA license is what lets someone sign an audit opinion. Running finance is a different job: the forecast, capital allocation, and the decisions the numbers should drive. Plenty of CFOs aren't CPAs, and they lead accounting partners who are. Neither of us is a CPA, and we'll tell you when the moment needs one.
If the problem is the numbers, the forecast, the bank, or where the money goes, it's the CFO seat. If the problem is the week, the process, the cadence, or the floor, it's the COO seat. If the plan exists and the company can't run to it, that's the COO seat. If nobody has built a plan the board believes, that's the CFO seat. Strategy comes with either one. If you're not sure, that's the first conversation, and we'll tell you straight.
No. John and Paul are two independent operators who happen to be father and son. They work well together, and they don't have to. You hire the one whose seat you need.
Ninety days at minimum. It takes that long to learn the lay of the land, the priorities that hold and the ones that live only on paper, and the limits. After that, the seat runs as long as the plan needs an operator in it, most often one to two days a week on a monthly retainer.
Yes, we can. John has held that responsibility in large companies, including World Market. Most companies this size are better served by a good agency, with a CFO holding the spend to a return. If the seat needs an executive, ask.
Yes, when it fits. John founded Virsyn and ran it as CEO to its exit. Some owners want to step back and become investors. Others need to step back for other reasons. Either way, it helps to know someone on your team has held the chair. We hold it to an agreed path and hand it back running.
Yes. Titles help everyone else make sense of the role. What we bring is finance, operations, strategy and growth, from people who have run them at scale. Wherever that fits in your organization, we can help.
Roughly $50M to $1B in revenue. John is most effective from $50M to $500M, and Paul from $100M to $1B. The bands are a guide, not a gate. Outside them we work project by project: a valuation, a diligence sprint, a strategy built and handed off.
We use, recommend, and have experience in all kinds of tools, including AI, software, hardware, and other technical innovations. Our experience and focus on what's important help us recommend the right levers to pull, AI included. Nine times out of ten the problem isn't the tool, it's the process, so we fix the systems first.
No. There are no letters after our names. We do the operator's valuation: what the cash flow proves against what the books say. When a court, an estate, or a lender needs a certified appraisal, we say so and bring in the right credentialed appraiser.