Strategic Finance & Operations

I solve the financial problems that keep tech founders up at night.

I build the financial infrastructure that lets technology companies scale: FP&A, systems, compliance, the works. 20+ years across startups, public companies, and government contractors.

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Michael Kaplan
Michael Kaplan
Principal Consultant, Strategic Finance
Sound Familiar?

Is your finance team drowning in spreadsheets, unable to tell leadership where the business actually stands?

Are you scaling fast, but running on financial infrastructure that was built for a company half your size?

Is a government audit on the horizon, and nobody in the building has been through one before?

Is your board asking questions that your data can't answer, with the next fundraise depending on it?

I've solved every one of these problems, usually more than once. Here's what I do.

Services
What I Do

Every company's situation is different, but I've worked across the full range: seed-stage startups building their first chart of accounts, a NASDAQ-listed public company managing SEC filings, government contractors facing DCAA audits, and growth-stage companies scaling past founder-led accounting.

01

Strategic Finance & FP&A

FP&A buildouts, financial modeling, budgeting and forecasting infrastructure, SaaS metrics. I turn reactive accounting shops into proactive finance functions that drive decisions.

02

Systems & Operations

ERP evaluation, selection, and implementation. Finance process reengineering. AI integration into financial operations, including the data foundation work that makes AI actually useful.

03

Government Contracting

DCAA audit preparation, CAS compliance, cost-type and fixed-price contract accounting. Six successful audits including multi-year engagements with DARPA, AFRL, ONR, and DEVCOM.

04

Growth-Stage Advisory

Pitch decks, pro formas, fundraising support, and building the finance teams that scale with the business. If you need a real finance function in 90 days, this is what I do.

Most finance challenges aren't about the math. They're about misaligned systems, missing infrastructure, and decisions being made without reliable data.

I've built FP&A functions from scratch, inherited broken ones and fixed them, and sat across the table from government auditors, venture capitalists, and boards of directors knowing exactly what each of them needed to hear.

What People Say
"I led a number of DARPA R&D projects at Teknowledge. After Mike became CFO, he quickly cleaned up a number of old problems, including a never-ending DCAA multi-year audit that threatened the company's survival. Not only did he fix it, but he also found that another government agency owed us hundreds of thousands of dollars. That payment meant a lot to a company that ran on thin profit margins."
AT
Allen Terry
Teknowledge Corporation

Recent Articles
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Growth-Stage Advisory

Your CEO Doesn’t Need More Slides. He Needs You to Listen.

What nobody tells you the first time you own a board package. How to listen to the board, work with your CEO, and build a finance section that actually helps.

Finance & Operations

The CEO Kept the Financials in His Head. I Had 8 Weeks to Fix That.

How I built accounting infrastructure, FP&A, and investor-ready reporting from scratch at a 60-person nanotech startup.

FP&A Case Study

How I Used AI-Assisted FP&A to Transform a Client Company

From 15% forecasting error to 5%. From six-week budget cycles to two. A detailed look at what it takes.

Let's talk about what's next.

Whether you need strategic finance help now or want to discuss how I can contribute to your team long-term, I'm always up for a good conversation.

Get in Touch