Expert Details
Financial Management Guidance
ID: 721973
California, USA
Expert has developed budgets for large and small businesses for over 25 years. An effective budget must be customized to the company or activity it is intended to monitor. Reports must be regularly distributed comparing actual results with the budget and adequately dealing with variances. Most importantly the people who will make spending decisions must accept the budget as their own if it is to work. He is skilled in showing client companies how to do all these things.
Early in his career, he developed budgets in connection with operating plans for a major corporation in which he was an accounting officer. Since then, he has developed many budgets from scratch or from earlier versions provided by clients, which were either outdated or poorly constructed. He regularly tutors accountants, bookkeepers, business owners, and CEOs in building and using budgets. He gives workshops across the U.S. on budget control and financial planning for business owners and management teams.
Expert has served in corporate management positions during his entire career. He has been a middle manager in a major accounting firm, a finance and accounting vice president with a major corporation, a CFO at a New York Stock Exchange-traded company and at a privately owned entrepreneurially-owned company, and a COO of a start-up company.
As a consultant, one of his principal services is part-time financial management, in which he serves as the part-time CFO for client companies. In every one of these positions, his role includes general management, technical direction, personnel selection, supervision and evaluation, interaction with senior management, subordinate and peer management, and guiding company policy and practice in a wide range of management areas, inside and outside of finance.
Expert is a seasoned Chief Financial Officer . During his corporate career as a CFO and COO, he actively participated in strategic and long-range planning as a key member of the management team. As a consultant, he guides client CEO's, owners, and key executives in strategic planning issues, both short-term and long-term. He also gives workshops on operational planning, long range planning, and strategic thinking. He facilitates management team meetings for the purpose of defining vision, mission, and strategy as the essential foundation of goal setting, which is the way strategic objectives become reality. He teaches the use of SMART Goals(sm), a proprietary method of setting effective goals that can be achieved.
Expert's consulting business is largely devoted to guiding entrepreneurially-owned businesses in achieving significant growth through clear visioning, effective goal setting, and sound management. He has successfully built his own business from scratch, and it is now 15 years old.
He understands how to build a business, and how an entrepreneurial business differs from a small business (they are very different, regardless of the amount of revenues they report). He is a preferred resource to several venture capital firms and angel networks that make investments in companies that might not have strong financial management on their team. Often the investor will agree to make an investment if the company agrees to use his services to guide them financially, help them create a sound business plan, and a fundamental financial record keeping and reporting system.
In his work as a part-time CFO for emerging companies and established corporations, Expert designs and builds financial models to simulate the desired financial results of a wide range of business models, from start-up technology companies to established manufacturing or service businesses. Financial models can be of an entire business operation or a single department or product. In one example, a financial model of the entire business that he built for one client enabled them to successfully sell an unprofitable division, profitably grow a new business, and successfully sell the resulting company for 1x the annual sales.
Expert works extensively with small businesses in his consulting practice, which he has successfully operated for 15 years. He understands how business owners feel about their financial needs, how solutions must often be immediately cost-effective for them, and which tools work for them and which ones do not. Small business owners do not want to use sophisticated tools that require more learning curve and maintenance than they deliver in results. Many trade and professional associations hire Expert to present seminars to their small business owner members at annual conventions because his style of communication is plain and non-technical, and his knowledge of their needs is extensive.
Expert has held senior management positions in major public corporations, mid-sized privately owned companies, and start-up enterprises. In every case, he has been a proactive decision maker, moving the team to a prompt, but well researched, decision with reasonable alternative options clearly laid out. He believes the key ingredients of effective decision-making are clarity of objective, focus on relevant influences, and objective assessment of options. He coaches CEO's and senior managers in the art of making sound management decisions in one-on-one sessions and in workshops.
Expert guides CEO's and business owners in financial concepts and practices using the experience he gained in his many positions as a corporate finance executive. The concepts and practices include valuing a startup enterprise in investor negotiations; assessing a company's financial strong points and weak points for lending or financing purposes; helping a company obtain debt or equity financing; and using financial ratios to evaluate a business. He offers an assessment service that thoroughly evaluates a company's financial department, its people, systems, procedures, and the interaction between them. The service also assesses why results produced by the finance department are less than what management expects.
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Expert consulted for a VC-financed wireless equipment developer/manufacturer that needed an acting Chief Financial Officer to guide their Chief Operating Officer. He aided the COO with his financial responsibility in financial report structure and preparation, financial analysis, cash flow planning/budgeting, financial model design and development for fund-raising. Expert also attended board meetings as the acting CFO, to keep investors and other board members apprised of the company's financial performance.
The owners of a privately owned business engaged in merger negotiations and obtained an additional $5,000,000 in proceeds as a direct result of Expert's work. He also helped reduce their bad debt write-offs by over $60,000 a month, directly increasing profits and cash flow as a result of his work in revamping collection activities and goals.
Expert provided consulting services for an angel fund-backed start-up Internet ASP that targets major media companies. This start-up needed a part-time Chief Financial Officer to advise their Chief Executive Officer/owner. The CEO required assistance in financial matters, including organizing the company's financial systems, contract for their payroll/benefits /accounting services and overseeing the results, while working to re-design the company's financial model in preparation for the next stage of fundraising.
Expert's client attracted a new institutional lender, negotiated favorable terms, and closed the deal in a transaction that the lender accepted because of his work with the Chief Executive Officer and the management team.
A second-generation business owner hired Expert to provide guidance in learning how to run the business built by his father. Expert provided the necessary guidance by using a step-by-step process of doing, reflecting, and improving. The business is now more profitable than ever before.
Education
Year | Degree | Subject | Institution |
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Year: 1962 | Degree: B.S. | Subject: Business Administration/Accounting | Institution: Penn State |
Work History
Years | Employer | Title | Department |
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Years: 1986 to Present | Employer: Undisclosed | Title: President | Department: |
Responsibilities:Expert is the founder of the consulting firm and its principal consultant. He specializes in financial management, executive coaching, and management training in finance and management. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1984 to 1986 | Employer: Vision Sciences Inc. | Title: Chief Operating Officer (COO) | Department: Corporate |
Responsibilities:He was responsible for all operations of this start-up manufacturing company, exclusive of finance, sales and marketing. His work included directing and overseeing construction of its first manufacturing facilities. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1982 to 1984 | Employer: Robert Abel & Associates | Title: Chief Financial Officer (CFO) | Department: |
Responsibilities:Expert was responsible for all financial operations of the company, including finance, accounting, budgeting, contract administration, taxes and banking. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1980 to 1981 | Employer: Superscope Inc. | Title: Chief Financial Officer (CFO) | Department: Executive |
Responsibilities:He was responsible for all financial affairs of this New York Stock Exchange traded corporation, including finance, accounting, legal, treasury, and investor and press relations. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1972 to 1980 | Employer: Computer Sciences Corporation | Title: Vice President of Finance and Administration | Department: INFONET Division |
Responsibilities:He was responsible for all finance and accounting activities of Computer Sciences Corporation's most profitable division. He was previously the Director of Corporate Accounting in Computer Sciences Corporation's corporate office. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1964 to 1972 | Employer: Grant Thornton & Company | Title: Senior Audit Supervisor | Department: Audit Services |
Responsibilities:Expert supervised field audits of large and small clients for this international certified public accounting firm. |
Career Accomplishments
Associations / Societies |
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Expert is a member of the National Speakers Association, the Institute of Management Consultants, the Association for Strategic Planning, the All Cities Resource Group, the Association for Corporate Growth, the Los Angeles Venture Association, and the Forum for Corporate Directors. |
Licenses / Certifications |
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He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). |
Professional Appointments |
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Expert is the former President of chapters of the Institute of Management Consultants and Toastmasters. He is the current Treasurer and a Board member of the National Speakers Association. |
Awards / Recognition |
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He has received numerous awards for service to the Institute of Management Consultants, the National Speakers Association, and Toastmasters International. He was the recipient of the Silver Microphone award from the National Speakers Association. |
Publications and Patents Summary |
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Expert has published over 100 articles in many different business publications, most of which are nationally distributed. |
Additional Experience
Training / Seminars |
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Expert has presented numerous seminars and speeches to his clientele during his career. He teaches the 10 steps to successful business planning, teaches companies to raise their financial IQ and more easily attract bankers, investors and other critical resources, and he teaches the concepts used to make financial decisions in the management of business operations. This last course is an intensive 15-module proprietary training program spanning all areas of financial management. |
Vendor Selection |
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He has extensive experience in sourcing traditional lenders, asset-based lenders, accounting and law firms, angel and institutional venture capital sources, insurance, investments, and all forms of financial and administrative services for running a business. |
Marketing Experience |
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Expert has for 15 years been the principal marketing officer of his firm. He designs and implements marketing programs for consulting and speaking services, and mentors other consultants and professional speakers in their marketing efforts. |
Fields of Expertise
accounting, budget control, business management, corporate strategic planning, planning, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, financial modeling, small business, management decision-making, finance, financial planning, financial management, facilities and administrative cost, collection agency, financial competence, executive coaching, debt, bookkeeping, venture capital, payroll audit, capital planning, earnings analysis, business strategy, business operations, cost modeling, cost accounting, Quicken, operational auditing, cost reduction, cost analysis, cost-benefit analysis, cost control, operations management