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BT: Welcome to Business Today brought to you by Cerius Executives, one of the largest interim executive and management consulting firms in North America. Today we are joined by Donald Nobel, a technology CFO who has spent a portion of his career as an interim executive. How are you doing today Donald?

Donald: Oh terrific, terrific! Nice to meet you Raj.

BT: Nice to meet you too! So you actually have a pre-existing relationship with Cerius Executives. We’ve kind of tapped into you to be one of our interim executives and a CFO for some of our clients. That just leads me to wonder, how long have you been an interim executive or how long have you been doing interim executive management consulting work?

Donald: I have worked as an interim or fractional CFO, COO for nine years now.

BT: Being a fractional or interim CFO, what are some of the things, or some of the projects that you get called in to kind of work on?

Donald: Many times I’m called in to accompany those looking to grow rapidly, or perhaps in a turn-around situation. Sometimes it’s a company that has hit some kind of wall and needs an executive to push them over the wall. Perhaps they’re struggling with the new product line or looking for ways to expand, or can’t quite seem to get the profitability they’re looking for.

BT: I see. So I’m one of those people that tries to do as little work as possible, and you get brought into scenarios that aren’t exactly perfect. What prompted you to kind of become a savior of sorts? [Laughs] For small businesses?

Donald: Well interesting, interesting comment. Well I was working as a CFO for a technology firm in New Hampshire and when we sold the firm off, a former CEO called me and said, “Help me. Can you please be fractional CFO and help me grow my company?” Since I had already known him and knew his company well, it fit me at the time. But as I stepped in, I fell in love with all the work that we could accomplish. And 18 months later I helped him open a new warehouse, hire a controller, grow the revenue by over a 100%, implement some new pricing models and grow the staff by 50%. Next thing I knew, I fell in love with it. And I didn’t realize how much I loved the scenario of, as you put it, parachuting into a company. Maybe not necessarily in trouble, but definitely needing some expertise. And then all of a sudden, nine years later I’m still doing it because I love it.

BT: Do you find that companies are more responsive to you when you go in as a fractional CFO or do you think it’s about the same amount of trust and knowledge, and I’m having a loss of words here, and I talk professionally for a living. Don’t believe that [laughs].

Donald: I think I understand the question. Let me give it a shot and you tell me whether I’m correct. Um, it’s a different type of respect. It’s not better or worse, and it’s a different type of expectation that they put on you. First of all they know that you’re fractional or interim, and that by nature is shorter term than, you know, hiring for a 10-year or 20-year career. So there’s, it’s a different type of view that they have for you. Which allows you to get more done in most cases because you can come in and they expect you to be dynamic and they expect you to be direct and blunt instead of you know working through all the issues, as a long-term employee might do.

BT: So you mentioned it allows you to get more done. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that because that does seems to be a driving force here in the interim executive industry where the interim executives themselves are highly driven, highly motivated individuals like yourself. Can you give some examples of how an interim executive has the opportunity to get more done in a short period of time?

Donald: I think in my experience, the best way to describe that is from the standpoint of what you’re expected to do. As you put it, you’re asked to go in and parachute into these companies. Immediately, you don’t have time to worry about what I would call the ‘niceties of the job’. For example, if the CEO calls me — and this has happened to me — and says, “We have a lot of sales but we just can’t figure out why we’re not making any money.” I’m allowed to go in, and uncover, and poke and prod in places that perhaps other people are not allowed to do. And that enables an interim to really pull the covers away from the operations, the finances and get to the bottom of things really quickly which by example enables them to do more.

BT: Well Don. I wanted to thank you for your time. We really appreciate you joining us. And sharing some of this, actually not some of this, all of this great knowledge and information with us and our listeners. For our listeners we will be back every week with a different podcast covering a different topic, so please stay tuned. Subscribe to us on iTunes, Play Store. And until next time, this is Raj Prasad for Cerius Executives.