High quality cash flow benefits when hiring a fractional CFO from Sam McQuade CFO of Panterra Finance: Focus: A fractional CFO, like an external consultant, comes in to tide your startup over its immediate needs. This means that you can focus better on the task at hand – whether it be an audit, a merger or an acquisition, or a round of raising capital. How to hire the right CFO for startups? Although a fractional CFO isn’t just another freelancer or consultant, the dynamics of hiring one are similar. Begin by looking at CFOs who have worked in the same niche, and also helped companies the same size as yours achieve growth. Additionally, you should find someone who is excited by what you do. Startups are built by people who are passionate about their work, and there is no reason you need to make an exception to this core value of startup culture when you hire a fractional CFO.
A fractional CFO is often brought into a company to help overcome specific financial challenges such as: Cash flow issues; Low gross margins; High expenses; Outgrown existing systems; Need to make cost cuts; Navigating an audit. Create Forward-Facing Financial Visibility: Fractional CFOs are also helpful in optimizing or implementing more forward-facing financial visibility. While many financial professionals such as bookkeepers, accountants, and controllers are tasked with keeping past and current finances organized and well-documented, a CFO focuses on the future. Read more information on https://www.plurk.com/samueledwinmcquade.
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.
Generally speaking, the CFO position is reserved for very experienced professionals with established track records in their field. CFOs are generally equipped with advanced educational designations, such as a Master of Finance or Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. Many CFOs have professional backgrounds in fields such as accounting, investment banking, or financial analysis. For financial professionals, the CFO is among the most prestigious and highly-paid positions available in a firm.
Return on investment (ROI): Part of a CFO’s strategic focus is on ensuring a strong return on investment (ROI) for their organizations. ROI is a measure of the likelihood of receiving a return on dollars invested and the precise amount of that return. As a ratio, it looks at the gain or loss of an investment as a percentage of the cost. Because ROI is a relatively basic KPI that does not account for all variables — net present value, for example — CFOs add context to evaluate whether a project will deliver sufficiently robust ROI to be worth the investment.
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.
As you enter each new geography, we help you adhere to the relevant regulatory requirements and stay compliant. In a world that is rapidly changing, we help you identify what that change means for your business and what measures you need to employ to protect it from a range of risks in the new economy.
A lot of our clients at Panterra Finance ask us about DAOs, what they are, and how they work. So we thought it would be helpful to write a blog post explaining them. Before getting into DAO, a brief few things about blockchain. A blockchain is a decentralized and distributed digital ledger that records transactions on many computers so that the record cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and the collusion of the network. Sounds complicated? Let’s take an example to understand this better. Suppose there are two people, A and B, who want to transact with each other. A wants to buy a product from B worth $100. In the old way of transacting, A would hand over the $100 to B, and B would hand over the product to A. This process is called ‘centralized’ because there is one central entity, in our case, a bank or PayPal, through which both parties have to go through to complete the transaction.
Includes producing accurate and timely financial statements, management reports and projections, forecasts, budgets and cost models that are all based in economic reality. Such tools enhance management insight and promote proactive management. By identifying the levers that drive performance they can be calibrated to maximize efficiency, lower costs and optimize profit and cash flow. Appropriate financial controls can provide many benefits including accurate financial statements, improved control of company assets and the reduced risk of fraud.
Searching to hire your first CFO or wanting only some interim coverage? We offer solution CFOs for immediate very short term projects and longer term engagements. Flexible with transparent pricing so you solve the needs of your business and don’t have to rush into a potentially bad and costly 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. Discover extra details on 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.