Testimonials

Miaja Design Group

What does Miaja do?
We are an international design firm which provides interior and architectural design services for Luxury Hotels, Resorts , Spas, High-end Residential and Office Development projects around the world. The company’s main focus has been working with hotel operators like ACCOR, TAJ, IHG and Radisson around the globe including the Middle East, India and South East Asia.

What prompted you to take on a CFO Centre CFO?
My business was struggling from a cash flow perspective, leading to a continuous distraction to my team and I from the core business. An “angel” email from CFO Centre popped up in my inbox. Very soon I met Steve Settle, the Regional Director –Asia at CFO Centre. He very quickly understood what we needed, brought in a CFO candidate and in a very short time I had a CFO working part-time for my business.

What specific benefits did you see in taking on a part-time CFO over an additional full-time resource?
In a nutshell, your company gets the best of a seasoned CFO in a very short time. No need to go through the time-consuming process of hiring such a senior professional and making such an investment. No need to wait months to ensure your new hire is fully on board. The CFO Centre CFO was ready to contribute from the very first day.

What was specifically attractive about your CFO’s skillset?
The CFO has brought to my company a palette of skills which a small company is rarely exposed to. Best practices in finance, capabilities to support the business development and operations teams but, primarily, a great dose of business partner’s skills. In addition, a very generous approach to coaching and helping anyone in the organisation

How has having a CFO Centre CFO specifically benefited your business?
The company was geared towards a governance change and it needed to find the right person to guide us in that process, I feel we definitely found that person in our CFO Centre CFO. The Miaja team has found renewed sense of empowerment and confidence and feel we are “headed” in the right direction.
How has it affected your confidence in the future of the business knowing you have a CFO Centre CFO on the team?
Our CFO Centre CFO has learnt with us the pitfalls of our industry and, as much as we were somewhat aware of the difficulties, we never really identified ways to improve or change our methods. He has forced us to look at them individually and find solutions or resolutions. Challenging our steps and looking at better ways together has improved the capacities of growth and awareness in ourselves.
How has having a CFO Centre CFO on your team benefited you personally in terms of your role as CEO?
Having a CFO Centre CFO has been a big eye opener for me as well as the team. It has also helped find within the organisation, existing staff, who started raising to the challenges in ways that changed the company as a whole. We are acquiring maturity and a high sense of responsibility. Each and every person is now involved with their own survival as well as the company’s. The sense of being part of a team has increased and there is no hiding behind poorly managed processes, as these processes are being challenged and changed to increase the financial visibility and give everyone a goal to achieve within their own capabilities.

What message would you have for other growth businesses who are considering taking on a part-time CFO?
Nothing replaces the perseverance and the business instinct of an entrepreneur. However, having a CFO on your side will definitely make the journey more successful and strengthen your company’s resilience to overcome the obstacles.

Yusarn Audrey

Eswar has been a great CFO for our growing legal practice at Yusarn Audrey. His guidance and advice has been invaluable. He has built important capabilities in our accounting department, trained our accounting staff, revolutionised our monthly financial reporting and oversight, increased the partners' understanding of our finances and business, and enabled us to improve our bottom line. Eswar is a great person to work with. I highly recommend Eswar and CFO Centre Singapore.

Chiew Yu Sarn
Co-Managing Partner
Yusarn Audrey

We find The CFO Centre’s solution of providing a part time CFO service to be an excellent win-win allowing us to receive services from a quality CFO at a reasonable cost in a flexible arrangement. Our CFO, Eswar, has been an excellent business partner who is contributing to our growth from day one. He identified some significant gaps in our processes and has helped us put in place critical mechanisms to propel our growth, improve profitability, focus on risks and provide advance warning. One of his immediate contributions was to quickly identify a pricing gap and kick-start a mechanism to track resource time on projects and to design a standard cost & variance mechanism. We are now incorporating this into our sales leads systems and into financial forecasting. He has “coerced” us in a genial way into focusing more regularly on our financials with discipline and is setting up an operation metric led budgetary mechanism for 2019. His ability to delve deep into our processes, right down to details and taking a hands on approach at design stage and to later hand over to the team in a guided manner works well for us. We look forward to continue to work with him in his pleasant and flexible working style.

Hemanta Banerjee
Founder, Just Analytics

I wanted to take a moment to thank CFO Centre and to praise the work that you
have done to support my early and speedy growth in Asia.
When Anytime Fitness Asia started, we had a steadfast focus on growth and
proliferation throughout the region and we exceeded all expectations…. which
was great…. but the consequence of such fast growth was that we didn’t have
our house in order as far as the accounting practices were concerned.
Enter the CFO Centre and a very timely meeting with Steve Settle.
Steve very quickly took stock of our challenges and he suggested that many
entrepreneurs experience the same set of issues – and that moreover, his
company is perfectly positioned to help.
Steve very quickly introduced me to one of his expert CFO’s and before long we
were working on the accounts, putting in great corporate governance and
controls and restructuring the entire company.
Furthermore, Steve’s appointed CFO laid the bedrock for our further expansion
by allowing me to focus on growth while his appointed CFO streamlined and
automated the accounting and reporting process across territories to create a
vehicle for our company to expand Pan-­Asia.
Thanks again Steve, CFO Centre was a key component in the growth of our
business and we are so happy to have found you.

Sincerely

Maurice Levine
Master Franchisee
Anytime Fitness Asia