The Portfolio Executives

I’ve always defined my brand of financial consulting as the bridge between finance, operations, strategy and risk; it’s where my interest lies and where I see myself providing the most value. After a couple of years of FP&A consulting, and having plenty of my clients asking me if I could provide Fractional CFO services, I realised that I was already providing most of the value of a Fractional CFO without calling it that, and decided to make the leap and rebrand myself.

After a few years of working at EY and getting tired of poor project management, low quality advisory and no promotional opportunities, I joined a Fintech to try working in industry. Unfortunately, they lost their funding less than a year after I joined, and made everyone redundant.

I worked with a micro-mobility startup based in Dubai on their financial projections and growth strategy. I built a multi-country, multi-product financial and operational model which the client used for their Board meetings, budgeting, Budget vs Actual analysis, scenario analysis, and ultimately their pricing, product and expansion strategies.

There have been several learning moments, but I think the most important one(s) as a consultant, are that communication and expectation management are key to a successful business (and other!) relationship. I’ve always tried to manage client expectations properly, but the best engagements I’ve had, have always been those where I spoke regularly with the client, and they were able to see the incremental progress and my delivery process. Communication builds trust, and help ensure expectations are aligned. I’ve always aimed to become a Trusted Advisor to my clients, and where I feel I’ve been successful, is where not only have I delivered value to the client, but they’ve witnessed my process and had an active hand in guiding it.

Due to a series of unrelated external circumstances, my 4 Fractional CFO engagements (all in diverse areas) recently ended. I am in the process of finalising 3 or 4 more (also in very different areas), with a few projects in the pipeline too. I’m hoping this gives me a level of stability and security, and allows me to improve on my work-life balance, which since becoming independent has been very unbalanced! I also have 3 interns working with me at the moment, who I’m training up, so keeping busy!

I hope to make these new engagements (through their diversity) be more long-lasting and resilient to external pressures, but my long-term goal is to build a boutique for Fractional CFO, financial, strategic, operational and risk services, so I am also looking to build up my client base and start bringing on contractors/partners/collaborators to grow my business.