I'm a fractional CFO for software and biotech companies between Series A and C. I sit between your CEO, your board, and your finance team and make sure the numbers, the narrative, and the next round all hold up under scrutiny.
No retainers that drift. Each engagement has a stated scope and an exit clause. If we don't both win in the first 90 days, neither of us should continue.
2–3 days a week, embedded with your team. Board reporting, FP&A function build, cap-table and 409A management, lender and auditor relationships. 6-month minimum.
Fixed-fee, 8–12 week engagement. Model rebuild, data-room construction, pitch-deck financial story, lead-investor calls. Used once, not repeatedly.
Independent director or audit committee chair. Currently sit on two boards; capacity for one additional seat at any given time. Three-year terms.
Some still active. References available on request — past CEOs are the best read.
"Elena replaced three full-time hires and outperformed all of them. The first board meeting after she joined was the first one where I wasn't apologizing for the model."
"I trust her with the board, the auditor, the lender, and my unfiltered model. That's a list of three people who normally don't trust each other."
"We brought Elena in for a fundraise sprint and got a Series B led by Bessemer six weeks ahead of plan. She is the rare finance person who has actually built a function, not just modeled one."
"In a restructuring, the finance lead either becomes the calm voice in the room or part of the problem. Elena was the former. We came out the other side with the right number of people and the right kind of board."
I started in investment banking — five years at Goldman covering TMT — then crossed the table to run finance inside one of my own deal targets. I haven't been back since. The view from the operator seat is too good to leave.
I've been a full-time CFO at three companies and a fractional CFO at fourteen others. Most of that work has lived in the gap between "we raised a real Series A" and "we have a real CFO" — the eighteen-to-thirty-six months where the board expects a public-company finance team from someone who can't yet hire one.
That's the gap I close. After that I leave, and the company hires the right full-time chief. It's a job description with an exit ramp built in, which is exactly the way it should be.
I take one new engagement per quarter, on average. The intro call is free, honest, and takes 30 minutes. If we're not the right fit, I'll point you toward someone who is.