What are the advantages for IT startups to hire a interim Chief Financial Officer with Sam McQuade: The Board of Directors Needs Support: Board members, particularly in a venture or PE funded company, hold a lot of sway on decisions and future paths. It can be beneficial to have a fractional CFO come in to participate in board meetings and bring fresh experience. Such interaction can be a two-way process by providing more insight to the directors and then communicating the salient points taken down through the company hierarchy.
CFOs focus on financial operations, management, and strategic planning to aid founders in decision-making. At many companies, a CFO is a full-time, salaried employee, working solely on advising one business. For early-stage startups carefully managing their funds, this likely is not an option due to the high salaries associated with a CFOs years of experience. But if you’re in this scenario, you still need someone to play that vital role in order to move your startup towards growth. Fractional CFO services may be the answer! Discover more information at Sam McQuade.
Do you want to hire your first CFO or wanting only some interim coverage? We offer CFOs for urgent short term objectives and longer term engagements. Customizable with clear pricing so you cover your business and don’t have to rush into a potentially bad solution and costly full time hire. The Fractional CFO and Interim CFO experiences gained by the executives assigned to these positions throughout Panterra Finance offers them a broad perspective of the dynamic changes in international markets. The part time CFO executives at Panterra Finance have access to worldwide teams that are proficient in and have initiated innovative strategies in projects centered on DeFi, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Crypto, Tokenization, ICO, IDO, and STO services.
A chief financial officer is a top-level executive. The CFO is a financial controller who handles everything relating to cash flow, financial planning, and taxation issues. A CFO is often the highest financial position and the third-highest position in a company, playing a vital role in the company’s strategic initiatives. Financial reports completed under a CFO must adhere to financial standards. People interested in becoming a CFO must have an academic and professional background in finances, economics, and/or analysis.
Benefits of Having a CFO: CFOs guide the finance and accounting team and have a broad view of an organization’s financial health, allowing the CEO as well as peers including the CMO, COO and VPs of HR and sales to focus on their own goals and operational issues. While a CEO or COO may have a background in accounting or finance, they generally don’t possess the same level of technical acumen and experience that a chief financial officer brings to the table.
To make you understand it in simple words, let me explain it with an example. Suppose there is a website that allows people to buy and sell products. This website has a smart contract that governs how the transactions will take place. When someone wants to buy a product, they will send a request to the smart contract. The smart contract will then check if the person has enough money to buy the product. If they do, then the transaction will take place, and the product will be sent to the buyer. If the person doesn’t have enough money, then the transaction will not take place.
We are your ally in managing business risks. 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 DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that is run by smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. It is an organization or company that is not centrally controlled by any one person or entity. Rather, it is governed by code that is written into the smart contracts. This code can be modified or updated by anyone who has access to the DAO’s GitHub repository. To put this into perspective, imagine a traditional company or organization. There is usually a board of directors or executive team that makes all the decisions about how the company will be run. With a DAO, there is no such thing. The code that governs the DAO is open source and available for anyone to view and audit. In this new scenario, an organization can be run by anyone in the world who has an internet connection.
Many small and mid-sized organizations employ a bookkeeper or controller who maintains the financial system and records transactions in an accurate and timely manner. The CPA produces the tax returns and some basic performance analysis quarterly and at year-end. However, this leaves a significant gap in terms of the information and management reporting available. Business owners and entrepreneurs may lack the critical financial information needed for informed decision making; and for external purposes such as presentations to lenders or investors.
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.
Smaller companies, incubators and startups could not match the salaries that the full time CFO commanded on the world financial stage. The seeds for the concept of an Interim or Fractional CFO were planted in the mind of Sam McQuade almost 3 decades ago when he first entered the world of International Finance as an Entrepreneur Consultant in Geneva Switzerland after achieving his MBA/MA at European University. During this tumultuous time at the turn of the century on the international financial scene, Mr. McQuade was ahead of his time. He offered as needed financial consultation services for international behemoths the Swiss based Nestle Corporation and the US based medical device corporation Stryker. The focus of his services, which would years later be foundational in the concepts of Panterra was a new model in product development, manufacturing and marketing. Find more details at Sam McQuade CFO.
A fractional CFO helps determine how to get you from where you are to where you want to go. Growing a business requires strategic use of capital. For many fractional CFOs, one of their most important contributions will be providing a financial forecast that will act as a blueprint to achieve the growth in the most efficient, accelerated, and sustainable way possible. With a short-term (next 90 days), mid-term (rest of this year), and long-term (next 3-5 years) view of the business, a company can better anticipate its trajectory and cash position or requirements. It can make it easier to manage through the lean times, help determine when and how to secure loans or investments, anticipate future owner compensation, and help plan and prioritize future business decisions such as staffing, production, geographical expansion, etc.