A $4.2 billion revenue multinational industrial manufacturer (“Industrio”) operating in 38 countries, with 42 legal entities, three legacy ERPs, and a highly decentralized finance organization of 280+ staff. Following a string of bolt-on acquisitions and years of organic growth, Industrio faced classic post-M&A chaos: inconsistent charts of accounts, 18-day global close, 2,400 manual journals per month, forecast accuracy below 65 %, and a SOX program that generated 47 open deficiencies and $11 million in annual external audit fees.
The newly appointed CFO, hired from a Big Four advisory background, issued a 24-month mandate: deliver a world-class, scalable finance function that could support aggressive organic growth and a potential IPO within four years—without proportionally increasing headcount or cost.
Engagement Overview
Industrio selected StartDate Consulting in a competitive process against two Big Four firms because of our ability to move faster, embed experienced operators (not just advisors), and deliver fixed-price outcomes. The 22-month transformation program was structured in four tightly sequenced phases, mirroring the exact playbooks used by Deloitte Finance Transformation, Accenture Finance Strategy, and PwC Operate—only executed by a blended StartDate/industry team at 45 % of Big Four cost.
Phase 1 – Rapid Diagnostic & Blueprint (Weeks 1–10)
StartDate deployed a 12-person diagnostic team of former Big Four managers and industry controllers. Using proprietary heat-mapping and process-mining tools, we quantified $38 million in annual trapped value:
- $14 m from excess working capital and cash forecast error
- $11 m in preventable audit/overtime/external support fees
- $8 m in lost margin from suboptimal pricing and cost-to-serve opacity
- $5 m in manual effort that could be automated or eliminated
The output: a board-approved, zero-based target operating model built on five pillars—Standardization, Analytics, Compliance, Treasury Optimization, and CFO Advisory—exactly the service lines Industrio had seen in our prior conversations.
Phase 2 – Accounting Operations Standardization & Global Close (Months 4–12)
We stood up a single global process ownership (GPO) layer and migrated all entities to one harmonized chart of accounts, one close calendar, and one BlackLine-led task management instance. Key moves:
- Reduced legal entities from 42 → 19 through pre-close mergers
- Cut manual journals 78 % via top-side elimination rules and sub-ledger clean-up
- Implemented AI-enabled account reconciliation (BlackLine + proprietary rules) that auto-certified 84 % of balances
- Accelerated close from 18 → 4 business days (ultimately 3 days by month 18)
Result: permanent headcount reduction of 52 FTEs (redeployed to higher-value analytics roles) and $9.2 million annualized run-rate savings.
Phase 3 – Financial Analytics & Insight Center of Excellence (Months 6–15)
Parallel to the close work, our FP&A and data science pod built an enterprise performance management layer on Anaplan and Power BI:
- Driver-based rolling forecasts updated weekly instead of quarterly static budgets
- Customer/product/channel profitability at transactional level (finally possible after master-data cleanup)
- Predictive cash forecasting with 180-day visibility and 94 % accuracy
- Generative AI commentary that wrote 70 % of monthly CFO review narrative automatically
For the first time, the executive committee could see which of the 28,000 SKUs actually made money after full allocation—and which three underperforming business units were consuming 160 % of corporate overhead. Within two quarters, management discontinued 4,800 low-margin SKUs and re-priced two major customer contracts, adding $41 million to annual EBITDA.
Phase 4 – Compliance, Treasury & Audit Readiness (Months 9–20)
- Remediated all 47 SOX deficiencies in 11 months; 2025 audit delivered zero new deficiencies and zero restatements for the first time in a decade
- Reduced external audit fees from $11 m → $4.8 m through reliance on management testing and continuous monitoring
- Implemented Pillar Two gloBE calculations and CSRD-ready carbon accounting in parallel
- Treasury team, augmented by StartDate cash-management specialists, built 13-week rolling cash models and renegotiated covenant packages, unlocking $68 million in previously trapped offshore cash and reducing net debt by 0.8 turns
CFO Advisory Layer – The Strategic Glue
Throughout, two StartDate partners (one ex-Big Four deals partner, one ex-public company CFO) sat as fractional Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Accounting Officer, running weekly operating reviews with the ELT and translating analytics into action:
- Designed and stress-tested a new capital allocation framework that killed two sacred-cow capex projects and redirected $110 million into higher-ROIC growth initiatives
- Built the full IPO-readiness roadmap, including segment reporting, non-GAAP policy, and earnings guidance framework
- Coached the CFO on board and investor narrative, resulting in a successful $750 million high-yield note issuance at 110 bps tighter spread than originally budgeted
Hard Outcomes – 22 Months Later
- Global close: 3 business days (top decile globally)
- Forecast accuracy: 93 % (from 64 %)
- Free cash flow conversion: 118 % of net income (from 71 %)
- Finance cost as % of revenue: down from 1.9 % → 1.1 %
- External audit + SOX spend: down 56 %
- EBITDA margin: +380 bps sustained
- Enterprise value: analysts attributed ~2.2× turn of multiple expansion directly to “markedly improved financial transparency and predictability”
The CFO summarized it to the board: “We moved from a function that reported history to one that actively shapes the future. StartDate didn’t just transform our finance operations—they gave us the platform to think and act like a $10 billion company today.”
From data chaos to a strategic weapon. This is financial transformation in action.