Furniture retailer: $6M to $181M
As CFO, COO, CMO, and General Manager, helped grow a retail and manufacturing company from 4 locations to 71, leading 1,200 employees.
Paul Whitley
Fractional CFO | COO | CRO
Founder and CEO, C-Suite Support, Inc. | 30+ years of executive financial leadership
- Finance
- Operations
- Revenue
- Capital
- M&A
About
Strategic CFO. Operator. Builder of teams and systems.
Paul helps businesses grow. He has spent three decades as a CFO, operator, lender, and advisor, and he knows what the numbers look like when a company is about to break out, and when it is about to break.
He has grown and protected shareholder value at companies as large as $5 billion and as small as $1.5 million. His work covers financial planning, system implementations, sales and expense control, business development, debt restructuring, turnarounds, and mergers and acquisitions.
Today he leads C-Suite Support, Inc., a team of 12 CFOs, Controllers, and Accountants delivering fractional, on-demand finance and operations leadership. When an engagement needs more than one seat filled, the firm draws on 20 years of relationships across North America to scale to the client's need.
Fractional CFO work is more than a part-time CFO. It is a discipline of its own.
- Current role
- CEO, C-Suite Support
- Since
- 2009
- Team
- 12 finance professionals
- Company range
- $1.5M to $5B
- Leadership style
- Servant leader
- Based in
- Dallas-Fort Worth
By the Numbers
A career measured in outcomes.
Funds employed
$2.4B
Generated over 15 years in business development
M&A transactions
31
Successful deals totaling $465M
Capital raised
$336M+
Public and private equity, bank debt, leases, revolvers
Facilities portfolio
$500M+
Company facilities managed
Annual ROI
22-30%
On asset based, real estate, and cash flow loans
Experience
30+
Years in executive finance and operations
Results
Pick a seat to see the work that matters most from it.
POS, ERP, and CRM rebuild
Built and integrated new systems across customer service, call center, and pricing. Revenue rose and profit grew six-fold in the first year.
CPG turnaround in 15 months
Rebuilt the culture, reset parts of the C-suite and middle management, changed production lines and processes, and raised selling price 480%.
More sales, fewer costs
At a consumer services company, lifted sales 38% in year one with no increase in inbound calls, and cut support payroll 22% through Lean Management.
Kohana Coffee: EBITDA quadrupled ahead of a sale
Designed and executed a 15-month strategy that grew EBITDA four times over and lifted the multiples buyers offered. The CEO and team went to market with confidence.
$2.4B in funds employed
Over 15 years in commercial lending, averaged more than $100M a year in asset based, real estate, and cash flow loans, with annual ROIs between 22% and 30%. Separately raised $336M+ across public offerings, private equity, bank debt, term notes, and asset-backed revolvers.
31 transactions, $465M
Instrumental in 31 successful mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures totaling $465M, and managed a company facilities portfolio worth more than $500M.
What Clients Say
In their words.
Paul is, by far, the best partner I've ever worked with in my career.
Paul accomplished in 90 days what other CFOs hadn't in three years. He didn't just improve our business, he expanded our vision for what's possible.
I could not recommend Paul and C-Suite Support more highly.
Paul has provided critical financial insights in our accounting department. He sourced, interviewed, and presented a new team selection that has allowed us to have timely, accurate financial reporting. He identified system issues that corrected report processing.
Career
Open any role for detail.
Leads a team of 12 CFOs, Controllers, and Accountants delivering fractional, on-demand engagements to review, build, or improve financial and operational processes for small and mid-sized companies.
- Financial modeling, budgeting, forecasting, and KPIs
- Capital raises, debt restructuring, and refinancing
- M&A, due diligence, deal structure, and negotiation
- Financial systems selection and implementation
Senior leadership at a $2 billion hedge fund, covering origination, credit underwriting, and management of the loan portfolio.
Originated commercial loans for a $7 billion commercial lender, part of a 15-year run that produced $2.4 billion in funds employed.
Business development for a $17 billion commercial lending company across asset based, real estate, and cash flow loans.
Furniture retail, manufacturing, and logistics operation that grew to $181 million. Expanded from 4 to 71 locations and led 1,200 employees.
- COO, $40 million public company
- Corporate Accounting Manager, $5 billion public company
Capabilities
What a client gets when Paul takes the seat.
Strategy and capital
- Strategic and capital planning
- Corporate finance and fundraising
- Mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures
- Due diligence, deal structure, negotiation
- Strategic alliances
Financial expertise
- Financial modeling, metrics, RFPs, SLAs
- Forecasting, budgeting, FP&A
- Accounting (GAAP) and corporate tax
- Management reporting and reconciliations
- Receivables and cash management
Operational excellence
- CRM, ERP, and POS implementations
- Turnarounds and restructuring
- Multi-unit, multi-location operations
- Shared services improvement
- Company structure and organization
Debt and refinancing
- Senior and mezzanine debt
- Factoring and bridge financing
- Private equity groups and buyout funds
- PIPEs
- Debt restructuring
Industries served
- Financial services
- Consumer products
- Consumer services
- Retail
- Food and beverage
- Private equity
- Construction
- Technology
- SaaS
- Payments
- Manufacturing
- CPG
- Renewables
- Sustainable products
Technology
- NetSuite
- Microsoft Dynamics (system admin)
- Salesforce
- Vertical Solutions
- Solar Nexus
- Cloud ERP, POS, CRM
- Goldmine
- Front Range
- Agile CRM
- Sales Logix
- Data rooms
- Microsoft Office
- Adobe Creative tools
- Database management
- Digital marketing
Education and Beyond
Grounded in finance. Curious about everything else.
MBA
University of Dallas, Dallas, Texas. Capstone for certificate in Internet Technology and E-Commerce pending.
BBA, Finance and Accounting
University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
Outside the office
- Trumpet: symphony, jazz, and community bands
- Amateur photography
- Travel