Strategic Finance · Detroit · Available Q2 2026Your books are not the problem.
The problem is that nobody is translating them into decisions. I'm Angela Rutherford, and I do strategic finance for the $2M to $10M founder-led businesses that have outgrown their bookkeeper and can't yet justify a full-time CFO.
Most fractional CFOs are former CPAs who have never made payroll out of their own bank account. I have. It changes how you read a cash flow statement.
The CFO Diagnostic
A two-week, fixed-fee read on your business. A 13-week cash forecast, a profit map, and a 90-day plan you can actually execute.
WHO I WORK WITHYou'll recognize yourself if:
Most of my clients found me at a specific kind of moment. See if one of these sounds like the conversation you keep having with yourself.
a. Sales are growing, and cash still feels tight.
b. "We're busy but not profitable" is something you have said out loud, recently, to a person who could not actually help.
c. Your bookkeeper is competent and your CPA is fine, but neither of them is going to tell you whether you can afford the next hire.
d. You're staring at a pricing decision, a hiring decision, or a financing conversation, and the numbers are not yet talking to each other.
e. You're twelve to twenty-four months from a sale, and you want the financials sale-ready long before a buyer starts asking.
WHERE I TEND TO COME INOne of five moments:
your first real finance hire
the run-up to a raise or refinancing
an operational inflection (expansion, a vendor or leadership transition, a covenant test)
the point where finance has outgrown the founder's bandwidth
or the eighteen to twenty-four months before an exit.
01The CFO Diagnostic
A two-week, fixed-fee assessment that gives you a 13-week cash forecast, a profit map, and a 90-day finance plan. The cleanest way to start.
$1,500 · FixedWHAT I ACTUALLY DOFour ways in.
03Exit Preparation
For founders twelve to twenty-four months from a sale. Sale-ready financials, quality-of-earnings groundwork, working capital normalization, a data room that holds up under diligence. I have sat on the founder side of that table. Twice.
Scoped per engagement02Fractional CFO Retainer
Monthly FP&A (budgeting, variance, forecast refresh), a board-grade package, and on-call judgment when a decision can't wait. Flat fee, defined scope, no hourly games.
$3-5K / Month04Project Work
Financing readiness, pricing overhauls, board packages, scenario models. One-time engagements for when you have a specific decision and want a CFO brain on it.
Scoped per engagementSTART HEREIf you're not ready for a retainer, start here.
Ten business days. $1,500. You walk away with a stress-tested 13-week cash forecast, a profit and pricing breakdown, and at least five prioritized actions you can execute in the next thirty.
If those five actions don't materialize, I refund the fee or keep working until they do. Your call. And if you move into a retainer within thirty days, the $1,500 credits to month one.
WHAT YOU WALK AWAY WITH13-Week Cash Forecast (model plus readout)
Profit and pricing breakdown
Working capital and liquidity scan
Capacity and labor efficiency review
CFO Decision Pack: executive memo and 90-day plan
THE SHORT VERSION OF ME
Twenty years across finance, operations, and design.
Yes, design. I started at The New York Times, of all places, before I ever touched a P&L professionally. Then came a wine bar I founded and ran, a boutique hotel I acquired and turned around, an Executive MBA, a stint in Big Four FP&A, and a string of fractional CFO engagements with founder-led businesses across hospitality, professional services, and education.
I sold both of my own businesses, profitably, and learned more in those two diligence processes than any classroom could have taught me.
The nonlinear path is the point. I read financial statements like an operator because I was one. I build models like a financial analyst because I am one of those too.
It changes how you read the cash flow statement, and it changes what you tell a founder when the number is bad.
Connect on LinkedInTook a boutique hotel from "the books aren't ready" to a profitable sale. Rebuilt the financials buyers actually scrutinize, normalized EBITDA and working capital, and built a data room that answered questions before they were asked.
Boutique Hotel & Spa · Exit PreparationIf any of that sounds like the conversation you need to be having:
Took a first-time founder from "I have an idea and no financials" to a funded launch. Built the model, the three-year projections, the use-of-funds, and the lender package that got the startup capital approved.
First-Time Founder · Startup FinancingRECENT WORKWhat I've actually done lately.
Cut through a "reserves look fine" story to the metric that actually mattered: days cash on hand at 43, against a healthy 60 to 90. Gave the board a cash-floor policy and a forward forecast, so liquidity became something they managed on purpose, not something they discovered in an audit.
K-8 Public Charter School · MichiganFREE RESOURCENot ready to talk yet?
Take the Cash Visibility Starter Kit. It's the same 13-week forecast template I use in the first week of every Diagnostic, with a short walkthrough on how to fill it in. Free. No nurture sequence. Just the file.