The Why

Why am I creating this web site? To be 100% transparent, I am not sure what my intentions are. I began my accounting career in 1999 and until this point (2018) I have worked around the clock as hard as I possibly could work. The result is a great story and successful career, however, I am looking for the next chapter to discover.

Quick career timeline:

1999-2005: Public accounting, left as a manager (successful learning experience, however public accounting was not for me, I knew this after the 2 day on the job).

2005: Founded a small accounting practice KGRF Group (side hustle to learn internal bookkeeping – still have our first client)

2005-2010: Worked for a client as a controller and advanced to CFO in a middle market construction company.

2011-2012: MBA from University of Maryland (I needed to further my career and felt that I needed more education). Worked full time during the program.

2011-2012: Direct of Finance / CFO at a middle market government contractor. I was hired to help the sell process, company sold in 2012 and worked for parent for 6 months (larger government contractor).

2012-present:

Worked fulltime as a consultant at KGRF Group. Helped several small and middle market companies with accounting and tax.
Assisted several regional investment bankers in sell-side company transactions.
Industry verticals: technology (SaaS based, service and product companies), real estate, government contractors and construction companies.
2015-17 minority owner in construction company, started and successfully managed sale transaction.
2017-18 Acting CFO for Y Combinator company in cryptocurrency vertical.
2018+ Figuring out the next chapter!

My responsibilities have always been accounting and finance. Of course, this has come with the standard treasury responsibilities, however, the role has changed dramatically since 1999. Accounting and finance have been streamlined in a lot of senarios via technology changes. Along with the transitions more and more responsibilities have been delegated to the CFO. From IT to HR related responsibilities. From my perspective this has been a great thing. As I say on the homepage, my mother’s advice was go to college and be something, I finished University of Pittsburgh with accounting, finance and management degrees. The number of degrees was a function of time spent in college, not necessarily intelligence! The last 3 years of college I worked at United Parcel Service (UPS) and I frequently consider this period as a major source of my early professional growth.

In terms of this web site and question of the day, I think that I have a lot of offer accountants and understand the profession in the small-middle market environments. I am very humbled by my successes and the caliper of smart people that I know and get to work with every day. At least once a week, I meet a new founder and learn something about business that makes me a better advisor. I like to help companies and it is great to seem them succeed. I have been working with a CEO the last several weeks on his 4^th company (3 very successful exits). Each day is a roller coaster of what is next, who are the competitors, what is the addressable market and what are the economics of the operating cycle. We have not landed on the sweet spot of the next chapter; however, I cannot think of a better time to learn.

When I think back to 1999 performing financial statement audits at companies without WIFI it seems like light years ago. I had an ‘audit bag’ filled with paper files that were updated year after year (those bags were heavy). Today, I carry a 2lb laptop that has all the computing power that I will ever likely need and I walk around with a phone that is more powerful than the computer that I carried in the audit bag.

Good accountants can report the past, great accountants can predict with the future. Future economics is primarily based on analytics to determine burn rates, bet quantification and business strategy. Software provides a lot of insight to expand the accounting profession, perhaps this is why the CFO job scope has changed dramatically. More with less? It makes sense to me that HR falls under the CFO reporting tree, however, I do NOT think they are the best ‘fit.’

What is the next chapter of accounting landscape going to look like? This is one of the reasons for this web site. I can talk about the past, but what does the future look like and how can we be relevant in this new environment? I don’t know and that is what I am trying to figure out, quantitatively and qualitatively.