Sam McQuade on advantages for startups hiring a flexible Chief Financial Officer today
Sam McQuade CFO of Panterra Finance discussing benefits for startups when employing a flexible Chief Financial Officer these days: Optimize strategy: Businesses run on money, which means that CFOs, as the financial gatekeepers, are essential to strategy formulation and optimization. A fractional CFO can weigh in on the financial side of strategy by bringing in a perspective based on the numbers. In other words, your fractional CFO can test your strategy and tell you if it’s financially viable. And if not, what can be done to optimize it. Implement systems: As startups scale up, they need to put better systems in place to meet their changing requirements. This necessitates the supervision and guidance of someone who has implemented multiple systems in different scenarios. Someone who’s seen it all can predict the things that can go wrong and correct them before they do.
A fractional CFO helps determine how to get you from where you are to where you want to go. Growing a business requires strategic use of capital. For many fractional CFOs, one of their most important contributions will be providing a financial forecast that will act as a blueprint to achieve the growth in the most efficient, accelerated, and sustainable way possible. With a short-term (next 90 days), mid-term (rest of this year), and long-term (next 3-5 years) view of the business, a company can better anticipate its trajectory and cash position or requirements. It can make it easier to manage through the lean times, help determine when and how to secure loans or investments, anticipate future owner compensation, and help plan and prioritize future business decisions such as staffing, production, geographical expansion, etc. Read more information on Sam McQuade CFO of Panterra Finance.
With technological advances disrupting job descriptions, the organization will have its share of fear and resistance. Given the close collaboration between finance and information technology, the CFO is in a unique position to anticipate the future needs of organization and help mentor people with their reskilling into other growth areas. What else do you think CFOs can be doing now to adapt to the future? I’d be very grateful if you provide your comments and share your thoughts. Thank you!
What Does a CFO Do? The CFO’s role is twofold: Oversee the organization’s financial activities, including being responsible for the finance and accounting professionals who perform operational functions, and serve in a strategic advisory role for the CEO and C-suite peers. Brainyard’s Winter 2021 Survey shows how finance and business leaders rank success factors and how those priorities have changed over time. Meeting revenue and earnings goals and keeping cash flow stable are clearly in the CFO’s purview. Finance chiefs also advise department heads across the organization, assisting them in both maximizing revenues, if they serve in a revenue-generating capacity, and controlling expenses without sacrificing customer or employee satisfaction or the company’s reputation.
The key duties of the CFO position vary depending on the size of the organization, its industry and whether it’s a public or private company but generally fall into three broad functional areas: controller, treasury and strategy and forecasting. Organizations may have professionals overseeing some or all of these roles and reporting to the CFO. Controllers run day-to-day accounting and financial operations and often hold a CPA or MBA. They are responsible for creating reports that provide insights into a company’s financial standing, including accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory and payroll.
The main goal of a DAO is to decentralize power. In a traditional organization, the power is concentrated in the hands of a few people. This can lead to corruption and cronyism. With a DAO, the power is decentralized, and it is distributed among all the members of the organization. This makes it much more difficult for any one person or group of people to abuse their power. A better real-life example is Ukraine DAO, which is a fundraising effort to help the people of Ukraine in the current war against Russia. It collects and distributes funds to various Ukrainian charities. The funds are collected through Ethereum’s smart contracts, and they are then distributed to the charities according to the code that governs the DAO.
Are you looking to expand your business overseas? Our experts are able to help you at any stage. We will first start by understanding your vision and global tax and cash strategy. Once aligned, we will help execute the financial, legal, compliance and talent solution activities to build your entity and team.
A DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that is run by smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. It is an organization or company that is not centrally controlled by any one person or entity. Rather, it is governed by code that is written into the smart contracts. This code can be modified or updated by anyone who has access to the DAO’s GitHub repository. To put this into perspective, imagine a traditional company or organization. There is usually a board of directors or executive team that makes all the decisions about how the company will be run. With a DAO, there is no such thing. The code that governs the DAO is open source and available for anyone to view and audit. In this new scenario, an organization can be run by anyone in the world who has an internet connection.
To summarize, a fractional CFO brings all the benefits of a full-time resource, but at a fraction the cost. They work an agreed upon amount of time, and on an ongoing basis. The benefits are myriad, and range from improved reporting and decision-making, clearer insight into the business for planning and forecasting, and stronger financial management and controls. Perhaps the biggest benefit however, is how the CEO can transfer the financial and administrative burden to the CFO, and thus free themselves to work on other critical aspects of the business.
Do you want to hire your very first CFO or wanting only some interim coverage? We offer solution CFOs for urgent short term objectives and longer term engagements. Customizable with transparent pricing so you solve the needs of your business and don’t have to get into a potentially bad solution and expensive full time hire. Sam McQuade CFO has successfully scaled his decades old ideas into an innovative full-service Financial Partner Solution for incubators, startups, emerging business concepts as well as well-established international companies, corporations and organizations with the introduction of Panterra Finance. The Panterra Finance professional executive team members are equipped to provide an industry leading concept of an on demand Fractional CFO and Interim CFO during pivotal transitions. Find additional details at Sam McQuade.
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.