Gregg Carlson
Senior Financial Leadership When Your Business Needs It Most
The CFO Wasn't in the Room Early Enough. Or Wasn't the Right One When It Mattered.
Most failed capital raises, blown transactions, and liquidity crises share the same root cause. I step in before or during those moments — as a CPA and CFA Institute member with 25+ years of CFO and Controller experience and $700M+ in closed transactions.
I work with founders, operators, and institutional investors at the moments when the quality of financial leadership directly determines the outcome. A capital raise where the model needs to be bulletproof. A sale where the books need to be clean before a buyer looks at them. A business growing faster than its finance function can keep up. A restructuring where every decision has legal and stakeholder consequence. These are not situations where a generalist CFO learns on the job.
I am a CPA and CFA Institute member with 25+ years of CFO and Controller leadership across public companies, cannabis operators, family offices, gaming and hospitality businesses, and institutional investors. I have closed $700M+ in transactions. I engage quickly and operate as if the outcome is my responsibility — because in every engagement, it is.
Justice Grown · Cannabis · 2020–2021
Chief Financial Officer
Secured $75.5M in debt financing from a publicly listed cannabis REIT to fund multi-state dispensary and cultivation expansion across Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
CLS Holdings USA · Public Co. · 2019–2020
Chief Financial Officer
Led financial operations during 41% revenue growth in FY2020 and 60% in FY2021. Managed all SEC filings, investor relations, and quarterly earnings communications.
Luzich Partners · Family Office · 2024–2025
Controller
Oversaw liquidity management and reporting for a nine-figure-asset family office with complex international and domestic alternative investment strategies.
Where I’m Most Relevant
Every engagement starts with a specific situation — a capital raise, a transaction, a finance function that needs to be rebuilt, or a business navigating distress. The work I do is defined by those situations, not by service categories. Here is where most clients find me relevant.
Lenders and investors decide within minutes whether the CFO across the table has done this before. I have closed $700M+ in transactions across debt financing, equity raises, business sales, and acquisition audits. I build the models, lead the diligence, and represent your business to sophisticated counterparties.
- Institutional-quality financial modeling and investor materials
- Debt and equity capital raise management
- Exit readiness and M&A preparation
- Due diligence management and data room coordination
Most companies hit a stage where their accounting function can't support the financial complexity the business has grown into. Boards and investors are asking questions your team can't answer with confidence. I step in as CFO or Controller — operational immediately, without a six-month search.
- Fractional and interim CFO and Controller services
- Budgeting, forecasting, and cash management
- Board and investor reporting
- Accounting system implementation and team oversight
Distressed situations move fast and punish inexperience. I have managed complex restructurings, coordinated creditor reporting under pressure, and helped businesses avoid formal insolvency through disciplined financial strategy. This is a specific skill set most CFOs do not have.
- Liquidity management and cash flow forecasting under distress
- Creditor reporting and communication
- Bankruptcy filing support and CFO leadership through the process
- Restructuring plan development and post-restructuring rebuild
Family offices, PE-backed operators, and institutional investors need CFO-level analytical output without the infrastructure cost of a full finance team. I bring the modeling depth of an institutional analyst — ROIC, CFROI, EVA, DCF, segment analysis — plus AI-powered processes that produce that output faster and leaner than traditional approaches.
- Financial modeling, valuation, and FP&A
- Family office Controller and CFO services
- AI-powered financial process development
- SOX, SEC reporting, and public company compliance
Comparison of Traditional CFO vs Fractional CFO - Gregg Carlson Financial Advisory
| Dimension | Traditional CFO | Gregg Carlson Fractional CFO |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $250K–$500K+ annually including salary, bonus, benefits, and equity | Typically $5K–$15K/month — a fraction of full-time cost with no long-term commitment |
| Time to Engage | 3–6 month search and onboarding process | Operational within days to weeks — no lengthy recruitment cycle |
| Scalability | Fixed capacity — difficult to scale without re-hiring | Scope and hours adjust dynamically to match business needs |
| Breadth of Experience | Deep expertise in one industry shaped by a single career path | Cross-industry experience spanning start-up, growth, distressed, and institutional environments |
| Capital Raising & M&A | Depends on individual background; often supplemented by outside advisors | Debt, equity, private and institutional fundraising plus exit readiness and M&A support built in |
| AI & Advanced Analytics | Variable — often requires a separate digital transformation hire | AI application development, ROIC, CFROI, and EVA analysis integrated into every engagement |
| Controller Support | CFO and Controller typically separate roles requiring two hires | Interim and fractional Controller services available as an integrated offering |
| Key Person Risk | Departure creates disruption, severance exposure, and a costly restart | Flexible engagement structure; transition managed proactively with minimal legal exposure |
CFO Insights
I have been applying AI tools to my CFO and financial advisory practice since ChatGPT became publicly available in 2022. The foundation that made that application productive from the start was not AI skill — it was 25 years of financial domain expertise that allowed me to direct AI effectively, evaluate its outputs critically, and integrate it into professional work that clients could rely on.
Andrej Karpathy frames the current moment precisely: everything is a skill issue. The AI capability is there. For domain experts, the bottleneck is lower than it is for generalists — because professional judgment is the most important variable in AI-assisted work.