Fractional CFO · Operations · AI Advisory
Financial & operational leadership — from the P&L to the AI roadmap. Senior advisory for privately held and PE-backed businesses, without the full-time overhead. We work alongside founders, owners, and leadership teams when it matters most.
Experience
CFO-level
operator background
Focus
Growth-oriented
built to scale, built to last
Model
Fractional
the expertise, not the overhead
What we do
Four integrated practices — financial leadership, operational rigor, strategic clarity, and AI implementation. Delivered by someone who has actually sat in the CFO seat, for businesses from founder-led to sponsor-backed.
Board-ready reporting, cash management, and strategic financial leadership embedded in your business on your terms. Whether you're answering to a sponsor, a board, or yourself — you need CFO-level thinking without the full-time commitment.
Process improvement and operational infrastructure built to scale — whether you're navigating a growth phase, preparing for investment, or professionalizing the business you've built. We stay in the work until the changes are embedded.
Value creation planning, ownership transition, and the hard conversations that move a business forward. Whether you're preparing for a sale, planning for retirement, or handing the reins to the next generation — we help you get there on your terms.
Strategic AI implementation for businesses that need results, not experiments. We identify the highest-value opportunities, build governance frameworks, and embed AI into operations with the same financial discipline we bring to everything else.
Most businesses don't have a strategy problem. They have a visibility problem. Get the numbers right, and the path forward usually becomes obvious.
— Helm Advisory
No junior delegation
Every engagement is led and delivered by a senior operator. You hired us — you get us.
Operator-first perspective
We've run the P&L, managed the close, and sat in the board meeting. Our advice comes from experience, not theory.
Growth-focused by default
Every conversation starts with where you're trying to go. We build the financial infrastructure to get you there — whether that's scaling, transitioning, or exiting.
Honest, not comfortable
We'll tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. That's the only version of advisory that works.
AI Advisory
The gap between businesses experimenting with AI and businesses getting measurable results from it is where real competitive advantage lives. We help small and mid-market companies close that gap — with strategy, not software demos.
The Problem
Around two-thirds of small businesses report using AI in some capacity. But most are still in the exploration phase — using ChatGPT for the occasional email draft while their competitors build it into operations. The headline numbers mask a deeper problem.
Most AI projects fail not because the technology doesn't work, but because no one defined what success looks like. Businesses ask "what can AI do for us?" instead of "where are we losing time and money, and can AI fix it?" Without a clear business case, pilots stall and budgets evaporate.
Only 22% of orgs have a defined AI strategy — Pythian, 2026You bought the tools. Your team doesn't know how to use them. Ninety-four percent of CEOs say AI skills are a top priority, yet only about a third of leaders have actually prepared their workforce. The result: expensive licenses sitting idle while employees default to old workflows.
59% of enterprise leaders report an AI skills gap — DataCamp, 2026Most small businesses deploying AI have no written policies governing how it's used. That means no guardrails around data privacy, no quality controls on AI-generated output, and no audit trail when something goes wrong. This is a liability waiting to happen.
Est. 77% of SMBs using AI have no formal AI policy — U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2025Traditional consulting firms deliver strategy decks and proof-of-concepts, then leave. The client can't sustain what was built, leading to either ongoing consulting spend or project abandonment. AI capability can't be rented — it has to be built inside your organization.
42% of companies scrapped most AI initiatives in 2025 — S&P Global, 2025AI doesn't fail because the technology is wrong. It fails because no one tied it to a P&L outcome, trained the team to use it, or measured whether it actually moved the needle. Fix those three things and the technology takes care of itself.— Helm Advisory
Our Approach
We don't sell AI tools. We don't build custom models. We do what we've always done at Helm: sit inside the business, understand the numbers, and build infrastructure that works after we leave.
Phase 01 · Weeks 1–2
We map your workflows, identify where time and money are actually being lost, and determine which processes are genuine candidates for AI — and which aren't. No hammer-looking-for-a-nail. We start with the bottleneck, not the buzzword.
Deliverable: Prioritized opportunity map with estimated ROI per workflow
Phase 02 · Weeks 3–4
We build your AI policy, define success metrics tied to P&L outcomes, and select the right tools for your specific use cases. This isn't a generic playbook — it's a strategy built around your operations, your team's capabilities, and your budget.
Deliverable: AI strategy document, governance policy, tool selection rationale
Phase 03 · Weeks 5–12
One high-impact workflow. Ninety days. Clear KPIs. We implement alongside your team — not above them — and measure results against the baseline we set in Phase 01. When it works, we document the playbook. When it doesn't, we pivot before you've burned budget.
Deliverable: Working pilot with measured results, internal playbook, team training
Phase 04 · Ongoing
The first pilot makes the case for the next one. We help you expand AI into additional workflows using the governance framework and measurement discipline built in Phase 02. The goal is a team that can run this without us.
Deliverable: Expansion roadmap, team capability assessment, quarterly review cadence
Why Now
In previous technology cycles, small businesses lagged large enterprises by years. With AI, the gap is closing in months. The businesses that move from experimentation to strategic implementation now will pull ahead.
91%
of small businesses using AI report measurable revenue increases — driven by better processes, freed-up capacity, and smarter resource allocation.
Revenue impact among strategically implemented AI is not incremental. It correlates with capacity gains, process improvements, and better decision-making at every level of the P&L.
83%
of growing small businesses have adopted AI. Among declining businesses, adoption is dramatically lower.
The correlation between AI adoption and business growth is widening every quarter. The gap is no longer about access to tools — it's about having the strategy and discipline to use them.
$3.70
average return for every $1 invested in AI — when implemented with defined goals and disciplined execution.
The qualifier matters: measured ROI requires a clear business case, baseline metrics, and ongoing measurement. Without those, most AI spend produces no trackable return.
Who This Is For
This practice is designed for business owners and leadership teams who know AI matters but don't have the internal bandwidth or expertise to implement it strategically.
Under pressure to create value and report progress on operational efficiency to sponsors who are asking about AI on every board call.
Growing fast, team stretched thin, know they need to work smarter but can't afford to experiment without a plan.
Waste management, recycling, logistics, manufacturing — industries with clear process data and immediate ROI potential from automation.
Buyers and investors are asking about AI readiness. Having a documented strategy and measurable results changes the conversation.
Why Helm
AI advisory at Helm works the same way all our work does: senior-led, operator-first, outcome-measured. We don't arrive with a slide deck. We arrive with questions.
Statistics sourced from publicly available research including MIT NANDA Initiative, SBA Office of Advocacy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, IDC, Salesforce, S&P Global, DataCamp, Pythian, and Microsoft. All sources are linked inline. See individual reports for full methodology and definitions.
About
Helm Advisory was built for one reason: most advisory firms tell you what to do. We've actually done it.
Founded by a CFO who has spent years inside PE-backed and privately held businesses — building finance functions, managing through operational complexity, and navigating the full arc from early growth through to ownership transition. With deep experience in operations-heavy industries, we understand the financial and operational realities of businesses that move physical material, not just data.
Whether helping a founder scale past the next revenue ceiling, supporting an owner preparing for retirement, or sitting across the table from sponsors at a board meeting, the work is the same: get the numbers right and make better decisions.
We don't arrive with a slide deck and a framework. We arrive with questions, and we stay until the numbers tell a clear story.
Private
Business experience — founder-led to sponsor-backed
CFO
Seat experience — not advisory from the sidelines
0
Junior consultants on any engagement. Ever.
4
Integrated practices — finance, operations, strategy, and AI
Questions
A fractional CFO is a senior financial leader who works with your business on a part-time or project basis, providing CFO-level strategy, reporting, and financial leadership without the cost of a full-time executive hire. At Helm Advisory, every engagement is led by an operator who has sat in the CFO seat — not a junior consultant.
We take an operator-led approach: assess your workflows for genuine AI opportunities, build a governance framework and AI policy, implement a measured pilot over 90 days with clear KPIs, and then scale what works. Every recommendation is tied to P&L outcomes. We build internal capability — not dependency.
Research shows that up to 95% of enterprise AI pilots fail to deliver measurable ROI. The primary reasons are not technology-related — they're strategic. Businesses lack a defined AI strategy, face workforce skills gaps, have no governance policies, and rely on consultants who leave without building internal capability. Successful AI implementation starts with one specific bottleneck, not a company-wide transformation.
We work with privately held and PE-backed businesses, including founder-led companies scaling past $5M in revenue, operations-heavy industries like waste management, recycling, logistics and manufacturing, and companies preparing for exit or ownership transition.
Every engagement is led and delivered by a senior operator — zero junior consultants, ever. We've run the P&L, managed the close, and sat in the board meeting. Our goal is to build your team's capability and hand you the playbook, not create an ongoing consulting relationship. We're built to leave, not to stay.
No retainer lock-ins. No junior consultants. Just senior-level work.
Work with us
Most engagements start with a single conversation. Tell us what's going on and we'll be direct about whether we can help.
Response time
Within one business day
First call
30 minutes, no preparation needed