The CFO’s Guide to Building Firms that Bend, Not Break

Professional services leaders know growth doesn’t happen without complexity. Whether expanding organically, buying another firm, or responding to market shifts, CFOs need to do more than balance books and protect margins. They must prepare their firms to adapt, innovate, and remain resilient through future change.

In a recent conversation with two veteran CFOs — Dave Ristow of iA and seasoned finance leader, Steve DeSantis — one theme came through loud and clear: good systems and operational visibility are what separate firms that survive from firms that thrive.

The Expanding Role of the CFO

Finance leadership has grown way beyond bookkeeping and reporting. Boards and investors now expect CFOs to be strategic partners who connect financial planning directly to people, process, and technology decisions. In professional services, CFOs often have the widest view across sales, delivery, and operations — which makes them natural connectors.

Dave thinks of his role in practical terms. “The view that I take of this is really a copilot for operations,” he says. And what essentially I look for is those tools, systems, and processes that we can bring to the organization to bring clarity and operational excellence.”

That clarity — where finance connects directly to operations — is the heart of the CFO role. The job isn’t to count what happened last quarter; it’s to figure out what the next quarter will bring.

Steve’s seen the expectations shift across his 25-year career. “Investors, in particular, are expecting different things from CFOs these days. They really expect the CFO to understand the financial strategy of the overall strategy of the company, and to tie that to people, processes and systems,” he explains. “The CFO today really can’t just sit in and count and report on things. They are really expected to be involved strategically across the organization.”

Actionable Insights:

• Expand your charter: Write down your CFO responsibilities and add systems governance, data ownership, and operational alignment. Make them official.
• Build system fluency: Know how your tech stack works and how data moves between teams. That knowledge powers better forecasting and faster decisions.
• Create cross-functional rituals: Join weekly ops reviews and quarterly audits to connect financial metrics with delivery reality.

Growth Without the Right Systems Is Risky

Fast revenue growth can hide operational problems. Dave saw this firsthand at iA. “we’ve grown by over 300% of the top line in the last four years. And so what hit us first and foremost when I came in [is that] we had disparate systems, different spreadsheets, different ways for managing projects, [and] a lot of manual processes.”

And when growth moves faster than your systems can handle, CFOs lose sight of what actually drives profit. Dave explains it simply: “Bringing control to that chaos and getting everybody aligned on a really clear picture and vision for where we’re headed is not only a key strategic focus, but it brings that operational excellence forward.”

Good operations are about removing friction and working smarter, not harder. When everyone uses the same systems, your whole team gets a clear, trusted view of the business. Without that, forecasting turns into guesswork and margins slip away.

Actionable Insights:

• Start with a single source of truth: Pick one platform for project financials. Make sure everyone on your team uses it daily.
• Quantify the cost of chaos: Track time lost to manual handoffs and duplicate work. Use that data to make the case for better systems.
• Scale process alongside revenue: As you add people or clients, audit your workflows quarterly to catch inefficiencies early.

Preparing for Change Requires Operational Visibility

Visibility turns uncertainty into opportunity. Dave lives in his data. “[Kantata’s] Project Engagement Dashboard is a place I go daily. We have about 192 projects going on each and every month that rotate through. Some are large and long. Some are really quick hits, a couple of hours,” he says. That daily check-in helps iA match the right resources to the right work at the right time.

“Then it’s down to revenue,” he continues. “Looking at essentially backlog burn and how that is converting. And then it’s down to working on resource efficiency. So operating margins and continuous improvements in those areas is a place that we not only focus on as a management team, but that my investors care a lot about as well.”

Steve’s story also shows what visibility can do for your bottom line. “We had very little visibility into a 700 person services organization that was spending 600 to 1,200 hours on an implementation. The board gave a very clear mandate to get an understanding of how we can improve margin and efficiency across our services organization,” he says.

After bringing Kantata together with their CRM, ERP, and analytics tools, the results spoke for themselves: “It had dramatically improved our overall margin [percentages] from low 20s to the high 30s — and in some cases 40%.”

And the impact went beyond operations. “Our investors said that they believe that these changes and that visibility and margin improved the price attributed as much as $200 million of value to the transaction,” Steve shares.

That’s the power of real-time insight; it lets you move fast when markets shift, costs jump, or deals slow down.

Actionable Insights:

• Build an executive command center: Your dashboards should track backlog burn, utilization, margin, and SLA compliance. Every metric needs an owner and a regular review schedule.
• Tie metrics to actions: Set thresholds that trigger immediate response. If utilization drops five points, get a team on it within 48 hours.
• Forecast continuously: Swap quarterly forecasts for rolling 13-week models so you can stay nimble.

Systems as a Strategic Investment

Switching systems feels risky, but keeping outdated tools is riskier. Steve has seen the pattern repeat. “The breaking point for me seems to be…where you kind of hit these levels and you’ve outgrown QuickBooks or some other CRM solution. And now you need to move to one of the larger systems that is capable of scaling companies beyond a hundred million.”

At this stage, the quality of your data becomes everything. Steve explains how this approach focuses on bringing it all together: “Now we’re creating a data lake. We were pulling all the information in a single source from all those solutions across the company, and then we’re building analytics on top of that data lake so we can have those things at our fingertips.”

Dave and iA took a similar path. “At the end of the day, we felt we had to replace our front-end CRM,” he shares. “We also had to make massive improvements to the back-end CRM. [We] actually replaced about three different systems…And what we were able to do is actually simplify the orchestration of not only the customer lifecycle, but [also] our AI lifecycle, everything from innovate and develop, to sell and market, to installation and post-sale warranty and support — three profit drivers.”

When your systems improve, your valuation improves. And the right platforms transform back-office tools into real business value.

Actionable Insights:

• Stage upgrades intentionally: Replace tools in phases. Start with your financial platforms first, then delivery, then analytics. Each phase should deliver clear ROI.
• Invest in data discipline: Set up data governance early and assign stewards in finance and operations.
• Think enterprise-wide: Evaluate tech choices based on how they impact the whole company, not just one department.

Future-Proofing with AI & Scalable Systems

Building for the future means solving tomorrow’s problems today. Steve pushes CFOs to look ahead: “My recommendation for CFOs is to make sure that as you’re looking at building out a technology stack that’s appropriate for the size of the organization that you don’t just solve today’s business problem.”

“If I’m just trying to solve the problem today, in a year from now, we’re going to be 30% larger, two years from now, even larger,” he continues. “And we’re not going to necessarily solve the problems down the road if we just look at today’s issues. I think that sometimes it’s easy to get focused on the problem today, but [the future] also is worth thinking about.”

AI sits at the center of that future. “If you’re not thinking about that as a CFO today, you’re going to be behind,” Steve explains. “Making sure that every area in the company where you can leverage AI in a meaningful way to do things more efficiently should be part of [your overall strategy].”

AI gives you the speed and precision you need. It can automate repetitive work, predict resource needs, and surface insights that boost margins. Dave connects all that innovation back to what matters most. “Be willing to change,” he says. “Be willing to lead that change management and really think about it with the customer and our long-term differentiation strategy at the forefront.”

Actionable Insights:

• Target time sinks: Find your top repetitive finance processes and explore AI automation.
• Pilot before scaling: Test AI on historical data to validate accuracy before rolling it out fully.
• Keep customers central: Evaluate every automation based on service quality and responsiveness.

The Takeaway for CFOs

You don’t stumble into adaptability. You build it through visibility, discipline, and smart investments.

According to Steve, “[CFOs are] responsible for building an enduring company that can provide a return for current investors, but also for the next round of investors.”

Dave agrees, and encourages fellow finance leaders to keep the focus where it belongs. “Our customers are at the center of the universe,” he says. “And one of our greatest points of differentiation is the quality and the speed with which we deliver.”

If your firm is scaling, diversifying, or dealing with volatility, ask yourself:

• Do we have one source of truth across operations and finance?
• Can we forecast and adjust in real time?
• Are our systems built to evolve with our strategy?

The firms that come out ahead won’t be the ones with the biggest balance sheets. They’ll be the ones with CFOs who connect every decision — from finances and operations to strategy and tech investments — into a single vision for what comes next in this new, AI-driven era. They’ll build the systems, data, and confidence their firms need to bend, not break.