CFO Shenanigans 

When I started out, the controller job was simple to describe and hard to do: close the books, keep the auditors happy, and make sure the numbers tied out. The controller was the person you wanted in the building during a storm, calm, meticulous, and slightly suspicious of anything that moved too fast. That foundation still matters, but the role has grown up. Today, the best controllers are not just protecting the integrity of the financials. They are helping leadership make

If you have ever sat in a budget meeting and thought, “We are one weird week away from chaos,” you are not being dramatic. You are seeing the reality that vulnerability to shocks is usually not one giant flaw, it is a stack of small ones: thin reserves, brittle processes, vendor dependencies, and plans that look great on paper but are not built for a bad Tuesday. From a CFO perspective, risk is not an abstract operational topic. It shows up as cash timing problems, delayed pa

People mix up CFOs (Chief Financial Officer) and Controllers all the time, and honestly, it is understandable. Both live in the finance world, both care deeply about “the numbers,” and both show up when something important is on the line. But they are not the same job. From a CFO perspective, the simplest way to think about it is this: the Controller makes sure the financial foundation is accurate and sturdy, and the CFO uses that foundation to help leadership make smart deci

Leading a small accounting team that serves housing authorities is its own kind of fast paced. You are juggling client expectations, HUD driven rules, overlapping deadlines, and the reality that your team is often stepping into messy, inherited processes. From a CFO perspective, the goal is to deliver clean, compliant work without turning every week into a sprint that leaves everyone fried. Start by defining “urgent” in a way that fits the work you do for housing authorities.

As a CFO, I have learned that “growth” is only exciting when it comes with a plan that your finance team can actually defend, and your operations team can actually deliver. In the public housing world, the stakes are even higher because demand keeps climbing while resources stay tight. Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reported a record 22.4 million renter households were cost burdened in 2022, meaning they paid more than 30 percent of income toward housing. That rea

If you have ever sat in a leadership meeting and heard, “This is our top priority,” then watched the budget get approved like it was built for a completely different company, you already know the core problem. Financial strategy is supposed to be the translation layer between what the business wants and what the business actually does. From a CFO seat, alignment is not a buzzword. It is the difference between funding the plan and funding a pile of good intentions. The organiz