Courtesy CEFO Advisors
By Jill Nagy
Small businesses need as much, if not more, support than their larger counterparts. CEO’s and business owners often find themselves struggling with balancing cash flow, managing teams of staff, attracting banks and investors, and so much more.
The Saratoga Springs -based company, CEFO Advisors, provides a variety of professional staff members that specialize in meeting those needs on a part-time basis. CEFO was built on the very premise that they can put a strong team in place to properly support their client needs using effective and innovative processes.
Amy Roman has owned the company for 10 years. For the first five years, however, Roman was the only employee. Eventually, she realized that her clients “needed more than just me,” and for the past five years, she has been hiring CFO’s, controllers, and additional support staff to place with clients, working within their businesses.
Early on, Roman recognized the benefit she could offer her clients by providing focused CFO support and strategic services that can be achieved through outsourced, forward-thinking business and accounting solutions. One of her clients commented that “Amy did a good job closing the gap between the CEO and CFO” and thus the company name CEFO Advisors was born.
Fast forward to 2023, Roman’s company supports over 65 businesses both locally and out of state. Roman currently has 18 employees including managers, accountants, bookkeepers, controllers, CFOs, and staff training specialists, which she matches with companies needing their specialized skills and expertise.
Many are part-timers, working parents, or semi-retired professionals ready for a second career. They work flexible, hybrid hours that include working at home or in the CEFO offices, while maintaining the availability to work on site at the client’s company as needed, Roman said.
Roman creates a team of specialists for each individual client and hires people who will be the best fit for that specific company, “we see ourselves as part of the fabric of the company,” she said. She begins with an assessment of the potential client’s company by determining “where the pain points are” and how to remedy them.
She also examines the company’s culture and atmosphere by utilizing a framework called Culture Talk, which she then uses to match clients with employees who will collaborate most successfully in their work environment.
The Culture Talk framework identifies 12 fundamental archetypes which are based on the research of Carl Jung and Carol Pearson. Roman’s top three archetypes are hero, innocent and caregiver which translate to her being goal driven, hardworking, and tenacious, an exemplar of optimism and someone possessing a strong sense of passion to help others.
Roman feels that it is also important to be able to communicate well and to assimilate into a company’s culture, the Culture Talk survey system helps to predict those successful partnerships. Roman herself, is a Culture Talk certified partner.
CEFO Advisors also acts in an advisory capacity, as needed. They can provide staff training, coaching, and consulting, and conduct employee workshops. They do not do payroll processing or tax work, despite the fact that there are several CPAs on staff, including Roman.
Before moving to Saratoga, Roman spent 20 years working in New York City, mainly in CFO positions with financial and private equity companies. At one point, she realized that only a fraction of her time was devoted to CFO duties. The rest of the time, she did other tasks, including answering the telephone and seeing that used coffee cups went into the dishwasher.
“You do what you have to do because you are there,” she said. That experience was the seed from which the idea for CEFO Advisors was grown—that a company could have a CFO just for the time it took to perform CFO duties, letting other employees answer the phone and clean up the break room.
Typically, a CEFO employee works for several clients concurrently, with everyone protected by confidentiality agreements. CEFO staff typically remain with a client for about a year or until the company possesses the systems, staff, and structure needed to succeed on their own.
A “successful exit” occurs when the company grows to the point that they need somebody full-time in the position and have the support structure in place to maintain a profitable business, Roman said.
Roman majored in accounting and computer science at SUNY Geneseo and despite her computer science studies, she takes her own advice and outsources CEFO’s IT work to Groff Networks. CEFO Advisors does not specialize in human resources, which prompted Roman to outsource her HR needs to Integra HR.
Company offices are at 125 High Rock Ave., Suite 103, in Saratoga Springs. CEFO Advisors can be reached by telephone at 518-693-7446.