Fractional CFO case studies: evidence before promises

Built 36-month models from unit economics through full financial statements, steering nearly $1M in monthly media spend across 1,000+ campaigns - every dollar measured against acquisition cost and customer lifetime value.

The models showed B2C technical support becoming the stronger opportunity. We restructured around it and combined with Quatrro to form Quatrro Direct.

Engineered the offshore delivery model: approximately 600 employees across four global centers, with six onshore in the U.S. For inbound billing customer service, we deliberately used a US call center for a better native English-speaking experience.

Set up and oversaw PCI-compliant, high-risk, multi-currency payment processing: cost below 4% of gross, refunds below 15%, chargebacks below 3%, at $60M annual capacity for five consecutive years.

Broadened the business from air-only into cruises, hotels, tours, and a travel club through two strategic acquisitions - funded with $3.5M in working capital I raised.

Built daily KPI reporting: scheduling versus actual staffing, call-abandon rates, conversion rates, gross profit by sales agent. We ran on numbers, not hunches.

Recruited a new CTO and rebuilt the reservation platform, IRIS - showcased with Sabre and featured in Forbes.

After 9/11, and as airlines slashed agent commissions, I re-engineered the economics of every booking: attached travel insurance to every air ticket (raising service fees $10 while lifting close rates from 10% to 12%), steered mix toward higher-commission international bookings with aligned sales incentives, and consolidated the San Diego data center into Tampa.

The board appointed me Interim CEO, COO, and Chairman. I built and ran a competitive strategic-alternatives process and steered the company to a sale that protected its value - with its employees kept on.

Consolidated two CFO roles into one, reorganized finance by function, recruited five financial managers in about 60 days, and rebuilt the payroll-tax operations team end to end. Reconciled all eight sets of books over 6 to 12 months.

Within 180 days met the bank’s reporting requirements - unlocking a 2X line of credit and positive working capital. Within 120 days earned CertiPay’s first-ever IRS CPEO certification, chased without success for two years prior.

Reset a decade-frozen pricing model with a Power BI driven FP&A capability: 24 months of price protection, then fair-adjustment reviews every 12 months. Annual profit up 50%, attrition under 1%, $5.4M+ in client lifetime value.

New bank-file automation and treasury controls cut funding errors 25%; a platform modernization cut labor costs 17% and delivered first-ever customer-profitability reporting.

Helped carve out and sell the insurance agency to Acentria (Warburg Pincus); when COVID cut revenue 20-30%, raised $2.8M to bridge it with zero layoffs.

Transformed the financial and inventory foundation: turns to 3.0, fill rates to 98%, lost sales down 10%, markdowns down 50%.

Removed an existential cost: rebuilt loss control and claims management, bringing the workers’ comp experience modifier from 1.2 to 0.8 over about three years - saving millions in annual premiums.

Put every employee on a monthly incentive plan, launched the first store-manager financial training, and led quarterly executive visits to every location - with a roughly 10% sales lift in the month before each visit.

As CTO, led the ERP conversion that became the backbone for integrating acquisitions.

Led the 1996 NASDAQ IPO (~$10M) - de-levering the balance sheet and creating acquisition currency - co-authored the S-1, put an $18M M&A line and $2M vendor PIPE in place, and completed seven acquisitions. Perfect SEC compliance throughout.