The second chair
The owner stays in the first. I sit beside them.
In the financial and strategic seat. Through Business Dad Energy, I work with owner-led and family businesses ($5M–$100M) as an embedded CFO, CSO, or CoFO — depending on what the company actually needs. The title follows the work.
"Every decision runs through the same question: does this make the business worth more?"
How I work
Fix first. Then build.
Cash visibility. Clean close. Job costing that matches how the business actually runs. Dashboards that are easy to read fast. Clear accountability. That's the foundation — and it's not negotiable.
Then we build the growth engine: pricing, capacity, hiring plans, margin improvement, and a financial story that holds up to lenders, buyers, and real life.
I staff by function when the engagement needs it — CPAs, controllers, lenders, senior operators. I bring in trusted partners from a network built over years in real operating roles. I lead the engagement. They bring the function.
My path
Not traditional.
My dad ran manufacturing and automotive operations in Wisconsin. I grew up watching someone make real decisions under real pressure. I started in the performing arts, then built a career executing across media, hospitality, manufacturing, real estate, and startups — every level below and beside the CFO seat before I sat in it. I've been on both sides of real M&A deals — buy-side and sell-side — with real money and real stakes.
I've also learned the hard way: overcommitment and chaos don't build durable companies. Rhythm does. Systems change everything.
Then I became a dad. The work got sharper.
Transactions
The deal work.
When a business is heading into a transaction — a sale, an acquisition, a raise — the financial story matters more than it ever has. I've been on both sides of those tables: prepping businesses for diligence, building the models a buyer's team will stress-test, staying in the room through the moments that quietly decide what something is actually worth. The goal isn't just to close the deal. It's to make the business worth what it should be worth — and then prove it.
The work isn't just the documents. It's the judgment in the room — knowing what a buyer's concern actually means, how to respond without giving ground you didn't have to give, and how to close the gap between what the business is worth and what the financial records say. That gap is almost always fixable. The question is whether you start early enough to let the financials do the work for you.
The rare combination in this market: fifteen years embedded in the financial seats of owner-led businesses, deal rooms at exit, and ND-wired operating systems built for complexity. No one else in the lower middle market holds that stack in a single personal relationship.
