Strategic Finance · Detroit · Available Q2 2026

Your 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.

Learn more
Start Here

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.

10
Business Days
$1.5K
Fixed Fee
5+
Actions
How it works → 
Who I Work With

You'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.

  • Sales are growing, and cash still feels tight.

  • "We're busy but not profitable" is something you have said out loud, recently, to a person who could not actually help.

  • 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.

  • You're staring at a pricing decision, a hiring decision, or a financing conversation, and the numbers are not yet talking to each other.

  • 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 in

One 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.

01

The 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 · Fixed
WHAT I ACTUALLY DO

Four ways in.

03

Exit 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 engagement
02

Fractional 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 / Month
04

Project 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 engagement

Not 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.