Your numbers have to hold up under pressure. The CFO seat cannot sit empty while they are tested.
A CFO departs before the audit. A sponsor wants board-grade reporting from a finance team built for bookkeeping. A lender, acquirer, or regulator is about to look closely at numbers nobody senior has tested. In each case, the business needs an accountable chief financial officer now, but a full-time search takes months to complete. I hold that seat on an interim or fractional basis, as your CFO. You get the CFO without the full-time hire.
THE GAP
The finance seat tends to go vacant at the moment it matters most.
CFO transitions rarely arrive on a convenient schedule. They land before a first audit, in the middle of a lender renegotiation, or just ahead of a sale. The work does not pause while a search runs. The close still has to complete, the forecast still has to support the board meeting, and someone still has to sign off on what goes to the external auditor.
Mid-market finance teams are usually built to record the numbers, not to defend them. When an auditor, a lender, or a buyer's diligence team asks who stands behind the figures, they expect an accountable senior officer who can take the hard questions and who made sure the numbers were right before anyone asked.
The roadblock is usually cost. In Heidrick & Struggles' latest survey of private equity-backed CFOs, U.S. CFOs at companies with $101 million to $1 billion in revenue averaged $547,000 to $708,000 in total cash compensation, before equity.¹ A full-time hire is the right answer eventually, but until then, leaving that gap uncovered carries real cost: audit adjustments, covenant surprises, a valuation discount applied late in diligence, and a board that loses confidence in the reporting it receives.
1. Heidrick & Struggles, 2025 Private Equity–Backed Chief Financial Officer Compensation Survey: U.S. respondents at companies with $101 million to $1 billion in annual revenue, average total cash compensation (base salary plus bonus).
HOW THE SEAT IS STRUCTURED
1
Interim CFO
A near-full-time bridge while you search for, or grow into, a permanent CFO. I run the function, stabilize the close and regular reporting, and help you select and onboard the successor.
Typically three to six months2
Fractional CFO
A standing CFO seat on a set number of days each month, scaled to your board calendar, lender reporting, and sponsor cadence. For companies that need CFO judgment but not a full-time CFO.
Ongoing monthly retainer3
Readiness Project
A fixed-scope engagement for a specific event: a first audit, a controls remediation, or preparation for a sale or capital raise. Scoped up front, with a defined deliverable and end date.
Fixed fee, fixed scopeThree ways to engage. Each has a defined purpose and defined end.
Some needs are a bridge, some call for a standing seat, and some are a bounded project. The engagement is scoped to the need you have, and is built to enhance your team and processes so they can operate without me by the end.
Reporting line
To the CEO, with standing access to the audit committee or sponsor
Cadence
Set to your close calendar, board meetings, and lender or sponsor deadlines
Contracting
Through the Blackbox Zero LLC legal entity
The seat runs the finance function and owns the quality of what the department produces. It does not displace your external auditors or your audit committee, because the CFO who prepares your numbers cannot also provide independent assurance.
WHAT YOU ARE PUTTING IN THE SEAT
Two jobs: run the finance function, and make its numbers defensible.
The seat owns the outcome end to end, from the monthly close to defending the results under scrutiny.
Running the finance function
- Close and reporting. A monthly close that lands on schedule, and management reporting the CEO and board actually use.
- Forecasting and cash. A forecast that can carry a board meeting or a lender conversation, and cash visibility measured in weeks, not quarters.
- Capital and lender relationships. Covenant tracking, lender reporting, and refinancing or capital-raise preparation handled before they become urgent.
- Finance team leadership. Roles, priorities, and capability built so the team maintains the standard after the engagement ends.
Making the numbers defensible
- Audit readiness. First audits and open findings worked to closure, with the evidence an auditor expects already in hand.
- Internal controls. A control environment designed, documented, and tested, including SOX readiness where it applies.
- Board and audit committee reporting. Financial reporting in the language directors act on, from someone who has sat on the auditor's side of that table.
- Transaction readiness. Diligence preparation, quality-of-earnings support, and data-room discipline ahead of a sale, carve-out, or raise.
A finance function is judged on two things: whether it runs effectively, and whether its numbers survive challenges. Most interim hires are chosen for one of them, but this seat is built for both.
Where AI Meets the Ledger
Finance teams are adopting AI in the close, in forecasting, and in reconciliation, often before anyone has decided who validates the output. I built IBM's first AI audit program, so controls over AI-generated numbers are part of the seat from the first day. If your broader AI program needs an owner, see the Fractional CAIO page.
WHO HOLDS THE SEAT
A CFO who has also been the auditor.
Over 21 years at IBM, I ran a $5 billion P&L as CFO of IBM UK and Ireland, served as Controller of IBM Japan, drove synergy work for the Red Hat acquisition, and executed the Kyndryl separation into a new publicly listed company.
As IBM's Worldwide Deputy Chief Auditor, I spent years on the other side of the table, testing whether finance teams' numbers and controls held up. That combination is why I run the function knowing exactly what an auditor, a lender, or a buyer will test.
SEC Audit Committee Financial Expert · CFA Charterholder · MBA in Finance, Yale School of Management · MA and BA in Computer Science, Boston University · Advisory Board Member, Wayside · Published in Corporate Board Member and AI Journal
WHETHER THIS SEAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU
Three situations, three different answers.
Your CFO seat is empty or about to be, or your finance function has outgrown its leadership.
Interim or fractional CFO. Built for exactly this.
You have strong finance leadership and a specific event ahead: an audit, a controls remediation, or a transaction.
A readiness project. Fixed scope, defined end.
Your finance function is sound, and your open question is AI.
Start with AI governance. See the AI Governance page.
One conversation settles it.
Bring the close that keeps slipping, the audit finding that will not resolve, or the question your lender keeps asking. We will trace what is driving it, and the engagement either fits your company’s needs or does not. Either way, you keep the diagnosis.