João Fonseca — Senior financial leadership for SMEs and founders

We work hard, but I'm not sure we're working on what really matters.

It's the line I hear in almost every first conversation with founders. It isn't a lack of effort — it's a lack of clarity. The company grows, the days fill up, and no one stops to ask which few numbers really move the business.

No real visibility into performance

Loosely controlled margins

Decisions made on instinct, not facts

No strategic financial discipline

Relationships with banks and debt, supplier terms and payment conditions, negotiated incentives.

A slow monthly close

Manual reporting

Existing tools underused

Teams overloaded with repetitive tasks

We help business owners run their company like investors — focused on value, not just operations.

Every decision judged by the value it creates, not only by the problem it solves day to day.

Who I work with

Senior finance, tailored to each stage.

Growing SMEs

They've grown faster than their finance structure. They need control discipline before the next leap.

Founders

They decide on instinct and want to start deciding by the numbers too — without losing speed or autonomy.

Portfolio companies & investors

Portfolio companies that need reliable reporting and a senior interim CFO, on demand and without fixed headcount.

The difference

I build autonomy, not dependency.

A traditional Virtual CFO becomes the centre of everything — if they leave, the knowledge leaves with them. I do the opposite: I implement the structure, teach the team to use it, and hand over control. The goal is for your company to need me less and less.

Traditional Virtual CFO

Total dependency on the person
Analysis that leaves with the person
The client never becomes autonomous

How I work

Structure and method that stay
A team that learns to decide
Handover of control over time

Differentiator

A CFO who also builds the tools.

Financial analysis is no longer a PDF that arrives three days too late. I work with dashboards that update themselves, automated reporting and an AI assistant grounded in the business's real numbers. The machine prepares; the decision is always human and validated.

Live dashboards

KPIs always up to date in Power BI, not a static sheet that ages by the day.

Automated reporting

Variance commentary, outlier detection and executive summaries prepared automatically.

An assistant over your data

An AI assistant that answers about your business — based on your numbers, with the source cited.

How I work

One method, repeated every month.

Strategic onboarding

We define the KPIs that matter and the minimum reporting structure. A clear base before accelerating.

Financial structuring

Normalised P&L, margins by client, product and channel, and a forecast model that becomes the monthly base.

Monthly performance cycle

Updated dashboard, variance analysis, identified risks and an action plan. Every month, without fail.

Quarterly strategic review

Scenarios, cost structure and the structural decisions that shape the next quarter.

Running across the whole engagement

Process review and improvement

A method to optimise how the company uses its resources — and, through that, improve the financial result itself. The process is mapped (AS-IS), redesigned (TO-BE) and freed of waste using Lean and ECRS methods. A faster close, less manual work and teams freed from repetitive tasks aren't an end in themselves: better-used resources translate into more margin, better cash and costs under control.

Results

I don't sell reports. I deliver impact.

The deliverables below are the means, not the end. What stays is the decision that changes the business result.

Strategic Onboarding Report

Business context, critical KPIs defined and a first-90-days plan.

Live KPI dashboard

Monthly comparison, trends and alerts — a tool the team uses, not one it files away.

Monthly Performance Pack

The month's performance, risks and action plan — the basis for the monthly strategic meeting.

Quarterly Strategic Review

Quarterly evolution, cost structure, scenarios and priority decisions.

Twenty years of financial depth, redirected to your business.

Twenty years of experience, moving through the different functions of Finance along an evolving path: Audit (Deloitte), FP&A, Management Control and Strategic Business Partnering in multinational environments — including e-commerce and start-up contexts within a multinational. A proven track record in full P&L and cash-flow management, building finance functions from scratch, leading high-performance teams, supporting executive committees and leading financial governance, compliance and organisational transformation.

Executive MBA — ISCTE / London Business School. Fluent in Portuguese and English.

It isn't a career change — it's that depth, deliberately redirected. The same seniority that served multinational groups, now working for SMEs and founders.

Senior financial leadership, without a full-time CFO.