Howard Sutker
Appearances
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Yeah, I would say, you know, do it, do what you say. You know, the people who are, they're relying on you, you know, your teams are relying on you. They're relying for you for their career, their growth, you know, what they're doing, what their job satisfaction, obviously their livelihood. So they're relying on you. So do what you say, be consistent, whatever that is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Sometimes it's things that they may not exactly want to hear, but make sure that they feel that they can rely on you. And I think Scott and I, I think our team knows of what we expect of them and we go ahead and what they expect of us and we go ahead and make sure we hit those points. I think being consistent with what you say and how you run your company and doing what you say is very important.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Thank you. Thanks, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Sure, sure. Absolutely. So, you know, the company was really founded because it just saw a need out there. It started as Scott joined just a few years later. And the need was that these lower or mid-middle market companies just did not have the financial acumen that was required for their business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
They were still complex, but they just did not have the, you know, the wherewithal, the resources to hire a high level CFO and just, you know, Just as I talked, I was working for a turnaround firm, so dealing with financially distressed situations, and most of the situations that I got involved in, there was that lack of financial acumen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
So I started talking to lenders who were my main referral source there, and I said, instead of the commonality being a level of financial distress, what about the commonality of being a lack of financial acumen, whether they were in a distressed situation or growing in profitable? And the lender's eyes just got wide, big and wide open because there's just so many companies out like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And that's really how we started. So, you know, I asked to be introduced to those companies, started to work with them and just, and then Scott joined and worked on a way that we could provide that high level financial acumen at less cost. than a W-2, less cost than a consultant. And that's what we do today. We focus really on those things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
For years, we went ahead and just started working through our model. And now when we onboard a client, whether it's for an interim basis or for outsourced permanent, we are We do the blocking and tackling, which is, okay, we're taking over for somebody else. You know, where's the files? You know, what's the passwords and all that? But we quickly get into how do we add value?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
How do we make it more efficient? How do we make it less costly to our client? And what kind of acumen can we provide, whether it's financial analysis or looking at the commonality amongst the vendor network and ways in which you can prove who their strategic partners are, strategic vendors are, and whatnot.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Right. Well, it's right really from both sides of it. In a sense, the supply of accounts is diminishing. Back in the day, people would go to big eight firms and get their accounting degrees. Now, even those who have accounting degrees, they're going into various different things like private equity or
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
or valuations or this and that so the pool of true accounts is is smaller um and on the on the other end of it um you know you're seeing uh you know the uh more experienced people they're going off and retiring so It's a it's a it's a it's a problem right now that there really is not that I there's not that many people out there who are who are out there to provide the CFO work.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
So that's really kind of how we kind of come into play in sense of trends and sense of automation. We're seeing that all the time in sense of becoming more efficient with AI, even in the sense of, you know, we are the. financial managers of these departments.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And we're seeing it and getting involved in sense of just the clerical things of accounts payable or accounts receivable and things of that nature. It's now becoming much more automated. So, you know, what do you need to be doing? You got to be focusing on the higher level stuff, the more value added aspects of that job.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
I'm excited about our people. You know, we've got to a point we're now at 25 people. So when we go ahead and add somebody right now, it's a smaller percentage. So when they come in, we just added somebody two weeks ago and it's kind of like there's a process in place and the people who are already here already know that process.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
So the ability to integrate people that way just really excites us because of the scalability of our business. We've never, we've always seen the demand. It's the supply and finding the right people, then training them. We've now kind of got a process in place there to allow us to service our clients at the level we want. So I would say that is important. Really, really exciting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And just in sense of being out there and having more clients and more clients talk about and seeing the value that we provide. We, you know, Scott and I are incredibly looking forward to the rest of 25 and beyond.