Jean Moncrieff

I’m an entrepreneur, community builder, and trusted advisor dedicated to helping leaders build exceptional, purpose-driven businesses that choose to be great — not just big.

As the leader of the Small Giants Community, I steward a network of values-driven CEOs and founders who believe business can be a force for good. Together, we navigate the challenges of growth while staying anchored in what matters most: our people, our purpose, and our communities.

My journey includes founding, scaling, and successfully exiting multiple companies in the 7 and 8-figure range. But what I’ve learned — and what Small Giants has taught me — is that true success isn’t just about revenue or an exit event; it’s about building organizations where people thrive, cultures are strong, and legacies last far beyond the founder.

Through my work, I bring a blend of hard-won strategic insight, practical operating frameworks, and a deep commitment to human-centered leadership. Whether I’m coaching CEOs, convening Small Giants gatherings, or creating spaces for authentic connection, my goal is to help leaders clarify their vision, lead with intention, and grow businesses that serve their families, employees, and communities for generations to come.

If you’re a purpose-driven leader who wants to join a community of peers on the same path, or you’re exploring how to grow and steward your business with intention, let’s connect.

Zurich is home for me and my partner Sinem, while most of my professional work takes me to the US. Cape Town is where I go to slow down and recharge.

Part-Time Marketing Director

The Marketing Centre is a UK market leader in offering part-time CMOs and Marketing Directors for SMEs. The portfolio businesses we work with are often early-stage high-growth ventures and much of our work involves close co-operation with private equity firms and venture capitalists to ensure rapid growth while creating value and optimum returns. With us, entrepreneurs can access a wealth of experienced and commercially minded marketing leaders who know how to make businesses grow, but who operate on a part-time basis and therefore more cost-effectively.

Typically I work with businesses who recognise themselves in at least two of the following: 

- have ambitious growth plans and want to capitalise on this growth
- may have stalled and need a fresh review of the business
- have a business owner is running out of hours in the day to do everything
- have sales pipeline needs more and better quality leads to achieve your growth plans
- need their online strategy reinvigorating
- need to re-evaluate and develop their proposition 
- are building towards an exit and want to maximise return
- has a turnover between £3m and £50m

If you are interested to know more, please contact me on 0792 638 1370 or email me at jean.moncrieff@themarketingcentre.com, and we can talk about your business.

What’s the best part of leading the Small Giants Community?

Sharing a meal with group of purpose-driven leaders. 

Having meaningful conversations about the challenges we’re navigating personally and professionally.

Sharing stories that make your belly ache with laughter and sometimes bring a tear to your eye.

Thanks for a great evening Brad Herrmann, Rane Butler, Ana Smelley, Sarah Lawson, Rachel Harner

CEO Small Giants Community | Keynote Speaker | Host Growing with Purpose Podcast | Author Finding Freedom | Connecting and Developing Purpose-Driven Business Leaders

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If you’re always the smartest person in the room…

you’re probably in the wrong room.

Growth rarely happens when everyone agrees with you.

It happens when you surround yourself with people who know their craft.

People who challenge you.
People who see what you can’t.
People who raise your standards.

I’ve just wrapped up a two-day intensive to level up my keynote.

A great reminder that if we’re doing life right, we never stop learning.

I’ve been fortunate to have Davin Salvagno walking alongside me on this journey — helping sharpen my keynote and refine the message behind the book.

Grateful for the people in the room this week and for the generosity of those willing to share what they’ve learned:

Conner Krizancic, Ivy Gustafson, Aaron Knipp, Quinn Conyers, Paul Epstein, Meta Jane Nelson, Margarita Kilpatrick, Amy Taylor, Kelly (Caffrey) Bjorseth and the whole SpeakrBrand team thanks for a phenomenal couple of days!

Davin — thank you for the guidance, the challenge, and the support as this next chapter takes shape.

Here's a subject a lot of founders balk at: navigating their exit strategy.

But having a well-paced, well-communicated, and purposeful exit strategy is one of the most important decisions you'll make as a business owner.

At the 2023 Small Giants Summit, Ryan Tansom took us through not just the different paths, but also the mindset of exiting.

He should know - he's exited a business the wrong way, and has learned from his mistakes.

I've spoken with Ryan numerous times - on his podcast, on my podcast- and it's always a fruitful discussion. He has a way of making hard truths approachable, and delivering concepts that can sometimes feel heavy with upbeat energy.

If you're a business owner, I highly recommend you check out Ryan's content. And if you'd like to hear more discussions about navigating leadership, then join us at the Small Giants Community Summit next month.

I asked ChatGPT how old I am. 
I’m at that age where I genuinely can’t remember.

It looked me dead in the digital eye and said: 
“𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘦.”

For a moment, I thought: 
Good. The machine isn’t keeping tabs. 

We still have some control.

Then I told it: 17 March 1973.

And just like that…
 
"𝘏𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵-𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺, 𝘑𝘦𝘢𝘯...🍀"

So much for anonymity.

Next, I asked it for my horoscope.

Apparently, I’m a Pisces. A water sign. Intuition, creativity, empathy… and (this is where it got interesting):

A “𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿.”
 
According to the algorithm...
 
Pisces leaders tend to: 
• Be 𝗽𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲-𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 
• See the 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 
• Build through 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 
• Create things that matter 𝗯𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁

And the shadow side? 
• Too many ideas 
• Not enough structure
• Avoiding hard decisions a little too long

(…no comment 😅)

But this line struck a chord: “𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝘂𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗳𝘂𝗹.”

Which is exactly why I’m drawn to the 𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗚𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 ethos.
 
Because building something meaningful beats building something big.
 
It’s about creating a business that actually means something—to you, your team, and the people you serve.

Anyway… 53.

Still building. Still experimenting. Still slightly suspicious of AI.

Feels about right.

- Jean

P.S. Happy St. Paddy's Day y'all ☘️

At the 2023 Small Giants Summit, Elizabeth Glasbrenner told of her transition to becoming the CEO of her family's business.

She's the first to admit she wasn't the first choice for the role after her father stepped down. Smiley Technologies, Inc. is a technology company, and she didn't have the deep tech knowledge she thought she needed to be at the helm.

But after some initial resistance, and some team disruptions, she stepped up to the challenge, found her footing, and drove the company towards newfound success.

Elizabeth was able to do all of this because the harnessed her strength: 
People.

She couldn't handle a coding issue on her own, but she could handle people and relationships.

And that, no matter the industry, is crucial.

Elizabeth's story was a reminder to quiet the noise of doubt (both external and internal) and lean into your authenticity and strengths. 

If you'd like to hear more stories like Elizabeth's then join us at this year's Small Giants Community Summit, happening April 28-30 in Detroit, MI.

CEO Small Giants Community | Host Growing with Purpose Podcast | Speaker | Author Finding Freedom (due April 2026) | Connecting and Developing Purpose-Driven Business Leaders

With each step of the publishing journey, it feels a little more real that my book will soon be hitting bookshelves and held in strangers' hands.

But this one might be the greatest milestone I've reached so far.

Seeing the cover of my book makes it feel real in a way I couldn't imagine before.

No longer is it an endless scroll of a document on my laptop.
Or a stack of papers from my exhausted printer, marked with pen notes and coffee rings.

Now, it has a face.
Now, I can visualize it alongside other books that have inspired me.

And if my book can impact even one business leader in how they run and identify with their business, then it'll all have been worth it. 

Thank you to Scott Jeffrey Miller and Davin Salvagno and everyone else who's had a hand in bringing this book to life. I'm thrilled to be a Maison Vero author and for my title to be the first within the Small Giants Press imprint. 

Stay tuned - it won't be long until this long-held dream becomes reality.

The first official book out of Small Giants Press - the first imprint of Maison Vero!

So many buisiness owners start with a clear purpose and passion for the difference they want to make in the world, but all too often, as the business starts to grow, it starts to own them.

The world is full of daring entrepreneurs who were once filled with purpose and passion, who now feel trapped and even embittered by the personal sacrifices they have had to make. 

How does one build a valuable company and a meaningful life at the same time? 

Jean Moncrieff in this beautiful book reveals how business owners can build and scale a valuable business, and find the freedom to exit without sacrificing the purpose, culture, and impact of what they spent most of their lives building. 

Releasing April 21st from Small Giants Press!

Yesterday I spoke to engineers at Fermilab, the premier particle physics and accelerator laboratory in the US.
 
These are people working on some of the most exciting projects in the world, experiments that could fundamentally change how we understand the universe.
 
Let that sink in.
 
And yet, what we spoke about wasn’t physics.
 
It was emotional intelligence.

Because whether you’re powering a particle accelerator…
or leading a Small Giant…
 
The real breakthroughs don’t just come from intellect.
 
They come from how we work together.
 
Fermilab is a diverse institution, with engineers and scientists from countries, around the world, all contributing to experiments far bigger than themselves.
 
Brilliant individuals.
Complex systems.
Interdependent teams.
 
And in environments like that, team emotional intelligence can be a tough order.

• The ability to listen.
• The ability to regulate ego.
• The ability to collaborate across differences.
• The ability to align around purpose.
 
What struck me most?
  
These engineers, operating at the edge of human knowledge, chose to spend their time talking about how to become better teammates.
 
That humility.
That curiosity.
That commitment to growth.
 
It was a true honor to spend time with them.

Whether you’re building particle accelerators or purpose-driven companies…

 The future belongs to emotionally intelligent teams.

Anyone who attended the 2024 Small Giants Summit was given a real gift:

Hearing scott harrison on stage.

Towards the end of his captivating talk, he shares his favorite quote:

“𝗗𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗼 𝗲𝗻𝗱.”

He spoke about service. 
About suffering. 
About the uphill battle of getting people to care.

And what struck me is how much this applies — not only to the nonprofit world — but to those of us leading 𝗳𝗼𝗿-𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀.

Because if you’re building a purpose-driven company, the work also has no end.

There is no moment when you say:  
“We’ve built enough culture.”  
“We’ve cared enough about our people.”  
“We’ve aligned profit and purpose perfectly — job done.”

There’s no finish line for integrity.  
No final milestone for trust.  
No retirement from being intentional.

But like Scott said — this endless cycle shouldn't feel paralyzing. It should be energizing.

You may never drop the mic and say, “I’ve done enough.”
But that's the point. Your motivation isn't to hit a certain number in revenue. It's to build a business that's a force for good. 

And there's no cap to that.

If you want more inspiring stories like Scott's, then join us at this year's Small Giants Community Summit, happening April 28-30 in Detroit, MI.

There are so many reasons to attend the 2026 Small Giants Community Summit.

Belonging.
Connection.
Inspiration.
Practical tools.

And perhaps most important of all, that precious time away from your business that allows for newfound perspective.

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗚𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗹 𝟮𝟴-𝟯𝟬 𝗶𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗶𝘁, 𝗠𝗜. 
Our theme is Navigate, in which we'll be digging into all the ways that values-driven leaders are currently navigating uncertainty in an ever-changing business landscape. 

❓ What's your reason for attending the Summit?

And if you haven't bought your ticket yet, what are you waiting for?! 

Link to registration in the comments ⬇️

Why the 2026 Summit is Worth Every Minute

It’s not just inspiring stories + leader journeys at the Small Giants Summit.
 
It’s practical takeaways you can bring back to your business immediately.
 
In this clip from the 2023 Summit, Tracy Bech breaks down a financial truth that too many leaders overlook:
 
We tend to focus on top line and bottom line…  and ignore everything happening in the middle.
 
But that middle is where the health of your business lives.
 
As Tracy explains, direct expenses rise with revenue. The more you sell, the more you spend to deliver. And if those costs quietly outpace your margins, growth won’t save you.
 
In fact, you can “grow broke.”
 
For leaders building people-first businesses, understanding your financials isn’t optional. It’s stewardship. It’s clarity. It’s what allows you to invest in your team with confidence.

Tracy is a fountain of knowledge, and her mission is to help leaders exercise their financial muscles for empowerment. 
 
Give this a watch — and pay attention to the middle.

And don't forget to register for the 2026 Small Giants Community Summit, happening April 28-30 in Detroit, MI.

One of the Freedom Factors I write about in my upcoming book Finding Freedom is this:

Letting go of control.

It sounds simple.

For many business owners… it rarely is.

Because the truth is, the very thing that helped you build the business in the early stages is often the thing that eventually holds it back.

I know this because I lived it.

In the early days of my business, I was involved in everything.

Every decision.
Every customer issue.
Every opportunity.

That intensity helped us grow.

We expanded.
Acquired companies.
Revenue climbed.

From the outside it looked like momentum.

Inside… it felt like I was feeding a machine that never stopped demanding more.

Then one day it hit me…

I hadn’t built a business that gave me freedom.

I had built something that depended on me for almost everything.

My team waited on me.

Decisions bottlenecked.

Frustration surrounded us.

What I thought was leadership was clinging onto control.

And control, over time, becomes a trap.

That’s when I started to understand something important.

Freedom doesn’t come from tightening control.

It comes from letting go of control.

That means shifting from being the hero at the centre of it all to recruiting a leadership team capable of taking you toward your goal.

Growing leaders.
Building systems.
Creating a business that can move forward even when you step back.

That’s when something surprising happens. Something I wish I’d paid attention to earlier in my business journey…

The business becomes more valuable.

And the owner finally starts to feel a little more freedom again.

#FindingFreedom #FreedomFactors

Alysa Liu just showed the world that there's power in protecting your personhood.

We should all stop and let that sink in. Especially leaders.

Alysa was a prodigy.  
An Olympian at 16.  

And then — at that same young age — she retired.

Not because she couldn’t compete.  
But because she needed space.

Space to hang out with friends.  
To go on vacation for the first time.  
To get her driver’s license.  
To figure out who she was — separate from medals, rankings, and expectations.

She took time to become a whole person.

And in that process, she discovered something powerful:
She could return to figure skating — but this time on her own terms.

Not because the world expected it.  
Not because her identity depended on it.  
But because she loved the thrill. The artistry. The craft.

And with that clarity, that lighter grip on identity, she rose above the noise and pressure of the global stage — and won gold.

There’s a leadership lesson here.

When we tie our entire identity to our work, everything feels heavy.  
Every setback feels personal.  
Every metric feels existential.

But when we allow ourselves to be more than our title…  
We lead differently.
Calmer, clearer, and more grounded.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do isn’t to push harder.
It’s to give yourself permission to live a full life — separate from your work.

Because paradoxically, when the pressure lifts, performance often follows.

Work matters.
But it isn’t all of who you are.

Alysa knows that, and has a gold medal to prove that protecting who you are is a source of strength.

Most business owners think they need to be the smartest person in the room.

Early in the journey, that’s often true.

You know the product.
You know the customers.
You make the decisions.

That’s how the business gets off the ground.

But then something happens.

The company grows.
The team grows.

And suddenly…

Every decision still runs through you.

Your team waits.

The business slows.

Without realizing it, the very thing that made the business successful — you being the smartest person in the room — becomes the bottleneck.

This is where many companies plateau.

I’ve just come back from a workshop with a group of professional keynote speakers.

Everyone there had the same mindset.

Put yourself in rooms where you’re not the smartest person.

Rooms where you’re learning.

Rooms where you’re stretched.

Great business owners eventually realize something important:

Your job is no longer to be the smartest person in the room.

Your job is to build a room full of people smarter than you.

That’s when the real growth begins.

Next week I’m in Dallas for the 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗨𝗽 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲...
 
It’s rare that I go back to the same event twice. But this one is different.
 
The first time I attended, I wasn’t looking for more content. I’ve been speaking for years. I know how to structure a talk. I know how to hold a room.
 
What I wanted was refinement.
 
What I found was a small group of people who were serious about their craft. No hype. No big egos. Just a tight circle of speakers willing to put their work out there and let others challenge it.
 
That close environment changes everything. You do the work. You test ideas. You adjust language. You get honest feedback. You try again.
 
I walked away with sharper messaging, stronger stage presence, and real clarity about what I want to say when I’m standing in front of a room of leaders.
 
And now, with a book coming out, that clarity matters even more.
 
When you’re distilling years of experience into pages — and then into keynotes — every word counts. The message has to be tight. It has to be true. And it has to land.
 
The real value last time was the shift in confidence that came from knowing my message had been pressure-tested.
 
So I’m going back.
 
𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝟱–𝟲 𝗶𝗻 𝗗𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗮𝘀, with a group that’s intentionally kept small. My good friend Davin Salvagno will be there again, breaking down stage presence in a way that’s both practical and powerful.
 
For me, this isn’t about becoming a “better speaker.” It’s about continuing to sharpen the craft — because if I’m going to stand in front of an audience, especially with a book behind me, the message needs to land.
 
– Jean 

👉 w͟w͟w͟.͟l͟e͟v͟e͟l͟u͟p͟s͟p͟e͟a͟k͟i͟n͟g͟.͟c͟o͟m͟/͟e͟v͟e͟n͟t͟s͟

SpeakrBrand

During a recent conversation, the wonderful leader and OG Small Giant Jay Goltz came up with this phrase for us to use when promoting the Small Giants Community:

"𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲, 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲."

That phrase ties perfectly back to my conversation with Ashish Kothari for my latest Growing with Purpose episode.

Sometimes, when two incredible leaders are telling you the same thing in quick succession, it means you should take note. 📝

🎙️ Check out this new episode with Ashish for more grounding insights: https://lnkd.in/eybckv_K

Rob Dube is so intuitive, he unknowingly mentioned the theme of this year's Summit in a podcast episode before it was announced!

Jokes aside, if you want to learn about intuition, mindfulness, and self discovery from a well-respected leader, you go to Rob. His presence is positive and calming, and his presentations are always actionable and emotionally resonant. 

And this April, anyone who's in Detroit for the Small Giants Community Summit has the opportunity to do just that.

Rob will be leading his SHINE Workshop on April 28 before the Summit kicks off. It'll be the perfect primer for you to feel re-centered and energized.

Spaces are limited, and workshop tickets are separate from Summit tickets. Don't miss out on this great event.

Many entrepreneurs think they’re building a business.

In reality… they’re building a monster.

I know because I did it.

Years ago I built an eight-figure company. From the outside it looked like success.

Inside, it felt like I was Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors.

Every day the monster needed feeding.

More deals.
More customers.  
More growth.

And if you stopped feeding it…

everything started to fall apart.

The business depended on me for everything.

And the uncomfortable truth was this:

I had never defined what winning actually looked like.

Like many founders, I was chasing growth without asking a much more important question.

What kind of life is this business supposed to create?

Freedom Factor #7: Choose Your Future

Because if you don’t define success…

your business can easily become a monster you have to feed.

- Jean

---

🚨FYI Business Owners — I’m sharing short videos on the Freedom Factors from my upcoming book Finding Freedom Experience.

#FindingFreedom #FreedomExperience

A pilot who trusts their instincts in a cloud… risks crashing.

When I was learning to fly, I once flew into a cloud.

Instantly I lost my sense of orientation.  
I couldn’t tell up from down.

Pilots call it spatial disorientation.

Your body lies to you.

The only way out is to trust your instruments.

Business is no different.

When the world outside your company shifts—AI, new technology, changing markets—leaders lose their bearings.

Everyone has an opinion.  
Instinct kicks in.  
Ego gets loud.

That’s when you need instruments.

Your instruments are the signals from the outside world:
• customers  
• frontline teams  
• suppliers  
• thought leaders  

Without those signals, strategy becomes guesswork.

And history is full of companies that ignored their instruments.

First it was the cloud.  
Now it’s AI.

Freedom Factor #4: Build and trust your instruments.

Build the dashboard that tells you what’s really happening outside your business.

Because when the clouds roll in (and they always do)…

Your instruments keep you flying.

- Jean

——————

🔔FYI Business Owners — I’m sharing short videos on the Freedom Factors from my upcoming book Finding Freedom, hit the follow button for daily #FreedomFactors

I had a small observational epiphany today.
 
When many leaders join Small Giants Community, what they often find isn’t just programming, resources, or networking.
 
They find 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲.
 
Language to describe how they’ve always wanted to lead.  Language to articulate what’s felt intuitive but hard to explain.
 
Values that guide decisions — not just decorate walls.
Hiring for culture add, not just skill set.
People at the center of the business.
Mission and vision driving culture.
Psychological safety.
 
Individually, these are just phrases.
 
But together?
 
They form an identity.
 
I’ve heard leaders say, “I knew I was doing something different — or at least wanted to — but I didn’t have the words for it.”
 
Until they read Bo Burlingham's book 𝘚𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘎𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴.  
Until they attended the Summit.  
Until they sat in a room and heard someone else describe leadership in a way that finally clicked.
 
There’s power in having language.
 
It gives clarity.  
It builds confidence.  
It connects you to others who see the world the same way.
 
So if you’ve ever felt like your approach to business is a little different from the status quo — a little more heart-driven, a little more mission-focused — you’re not alone.
 
And you’re in very good company.
 
Join us in the movement of building businesses as a force for good.

***

👋 Hi, I'm Jean. I'm on a mission to bring leaders together who see business as a force for good. 

If that's you, I'd love to connect.

Imagine your leadership team walking into your office and telling you this:

“Your leadership style has to change… or we’re leaving.”

That moment happened to Tom Walter, founder of Tasty Catering.

And it became the turning point that transformed how he led the business.

In today’s video I share that story and why it illustrates one of the key Freedom Factors in my upcoming book Finding Freedom.

The shift founders eventually have to make:

From hero… to builder.

#FindingFreedom #FreedomFactors

Former GE Capital Executive | I help founders and executives see what their financials aren’t telling them.

I spent 25 years inside the machine.

GE Capital. GE Vernova. NBCUniversal. Unilever. Structured finance, capital markets, project finance across Latin America. I was the CFO who sat across from banks, governments, and Fortune 500 boards and made the numbers make sense. I closed an $800 million power plant deal. I managed capital market teams and hundred-million-dollar sales budgets. I built financial models that moved real money in real markets.

I was good at it. For a long time, that was enough.

Then it wasn't.

I stayed almost eight years past the moment I knew I was done. Eight years of golden handcuffs, institutional momentum, and not having a single person in my corner who could help me think through what leaving actually looked like -- financially, strategically, personally.

When I finally left, I made mistakes. I jumped into a startup that looked great on paper and had no financial foundation underneath it. I learned the hard way that passion without financial intelligence is just expensive optimism. Then I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars learning the things corporate never taught me -- how to sell, how to communicate with conviction, how to walk into a room and make people feel what I knew to be true about their business.

That education nearly broke me. And it turned me into something rare: a former Fortune 500 CFO who can read your financials like a surgeon reads an MRI and sit across from you like a partner who actually gives a damn.

That's what I do now.

I work with a small number of founders and executives -- people who've already built something substantial and want a strategic partner with real financial depth. Not a coach. Not a consultant recycling frameworks. Not a bookkeeper calling themselves a fractional CFO. Someone who's been in the rooms, closed the deals, read the balance sheets, and came out the other side with a clear point of view about what actually matters.

If you're a founder past $1M who can feel that the way you got here won't get you to the next level, I can show you exactly where the growth is hiding and where the model breaks.

If you're an executive who knows you're meant for something bigger than the title on your business card, I've been where you are. I made the leap. I can help you think through yours.

I don't work with everyone. I'm selective about who I take on because the work only works when both sides are all in.

One conversation is all it takes to know if we're the right fit.

Cruz Gamboa

Most founders don’t go bankrupt overnight.

They bleed slowly.
From numbers they refused to look at.

Revenue looks good.
Growth feels exciting.
Ego feels validated.

But:

➡️ Cash flow is tight
➡️ Margins are thin
➡️ One client controls everything
➡️ Burn rate is “we’ll figure it out”

That’s how businesses die.

Not from lack of ambition.
From lack of financial discipline.

Here’s the cheat sheet I wish every founder read earlier.

Ignore red flags early → pay the price later.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

Your P&L Is Hiding the Real Problem.

Most founders check 3 things:

Revenue.
Profit.
Growth rate.

Then they relax.

That’s the mistake.

Because your P&L is a scoreboard.

Not a diagnosis.

And scoreboards don’t tell you why you’re winning,
or why you’re about to lose.

Here’s what it’s not showing you 👇

If revenue is growing but cash is tight…

You don’t have a profit problem.
You have a cash flow problem.

If sales are strong but margins are shrinking…

You don’t have a demand problem.
You have a pricing or delivery problem.

If profit exists but stress keeps increasing…

You don’t have a money problem.
You have an operational problem.

Most businesses don’t collapse overnight.

They erode slowly:

➡️ Slightly rising CAC
➡️ Slightly lower margins
➡️ Slightly higher payroll
➡️ Slightly longer collections

Small leaks.

Compounded monthly.

And because the P&L still “looks fine,”
no one panics.

Until they should have.

Here’s what real operators track:

✓ Gross margin trends
✓ Cash runway (in months) 
✓ Revenue per employee
✓ CAC payback period
✓ Churn rate

Those numbers tell you where the fire is starting.

Revenue is vanity.
Profit is sanity.
Cash flow is survival.

Read your P&L.

But interrogate it harder.

Because the businesses that scale aren’t the ones with the best revenue.

They’re the ones who catch problems before they show up on the bottom line.

Your financial reports are perfect.

Clean P&L.
Accurate balance sheet.
Cash flow that ties out.

Yet decisions still feel slow, reactive, or unclear.

That’s because reports don’t create leverage.
Interpretation does.

Most founders read numbers like history.
High-performing operators read them like instructions.

Every metric should force a decision:
→ double down
→ fix fast
→ kill it

If nothing changes after reviewing your numbers,
you didn’t review them, you admired them.

This cheat sheet breaks down:

➡️ The questions that actually matter
➡️ The metrics that lie
➡️ And how to spot 1% changes that unlock outsized results

Save this before your next finance review.

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cruzgamboadrive

patagonia-solar-llc

This guy bought one random car dealership.
Turned it into a $5B empire.

No fancy startup.
No venture capital.

Just one smart business move.

Terry Taylor started like most people in the auto industry:

Working inside dealerships.

Climbing the ladder.

But he realized something important:

No matter how hard you work…
You’re still building someone else’s business.

So in 1982, he bought his first dealership in Daytona Beach.

Most people would stop there.

He didn’t.

But the real genius wasn’t buying more dealerships.

It was how he structured them.

Instead of hiring managers, he:

• Gave them 20–25% equity
• Helped finance their buy-in
• Let them run the store

Now managers weren’t employees.

They were owners.

And owners think differently.

They protect profits.
They grow the business.
They care about reputation.

So scaling became easy.

1 dealership → 10 → 50 → 120+ dealerships

Today the network does $5B+ in revenue.

Simple lesson:

People work harder for ownership than salaries.

Build partners.
Not employees

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

Terry Taylor

He spent 31 years running Trader Joe’s.
Mastered pricing. Supply chains. Consumer psychology.
But one thing bothered him more than anything else: food waste.

Every year, the U.S. throws away 120 billion pounds of perfectly good food.
Not unsafe. Just didn’t fit profit models.

Millions of families struggle to afford groceries.
Most CEOs see this as “business as usual.”
Doug saw it as broken design.

After retiring, he didn’t join a board. He didn’t consult.
He asked a different question:

💡 What if food waste became the foundation, not a byproduct?
What if access mattered more than margin?

✅ Daily Table is born.
✅ Grocery store built on surplus food.
✅ Affordable meals. Nutritious produce. Dignity first.
✅ No charity branding. No eligibility checks.
✅ Nonprofit by design. Every surplus reinvested in lowering prices.

Critics say it can’t scale. Doug agrees.
It wasn’t meant to dominate. It was meant to fix a failure everyone ignored.

From grocery CEO → noticing waste everywhere → building a store that feeds people, not profits.

If you want to rethink how systems work, look at incentives, not supply.
This is the anti-profit grocery model.

Daily Table

He was a waiter at Red Lobster.

He had $40.

Most people would complain. He built a $6B brand.

Here’s how:

✅ Saw a problem: kids in his neighborhood paying too much for hats.

✅ Took action: taught himself to sew, made hats at home.

✅ Scaled smart: sold locally → hip-hop stars wore FUBU → national attention.

✅ Got creative: turned his living room into a factory, raised money when banks said NO.

✅ Played the long game: built FUBU → became Shark Tank investor → mentors hundreds of startups.

Most people chase attention.
He chased problems that matter.

Critics said it wouldn’t work. He did it anyway.

You don’t need permission. You don’t need hype.
You need clarity, hustle, and persistence.

From $40 → living room hustle → global empire → Shark Tank.
That’s how legends are built

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.

Daymond John

Most people think billion-dollar companies start with experts.

Crumbl Cookies started with two tech guys who had never baked a cookie.

In 2017, they noticed something simple:
Cookies were America’s favorite dessert, but the category hadn’t evolved.
So they focused on a few key moves:

▶ Perfected one cookie first
▶ Kept the menu simple (1 classic + 4 rotating flavors)
▶ Turned weekly flavor drops into social media events

That simple strategy turned a 900 sq ft store and $10K into

✅ 800+ locations
✅ 1M cookies sold daily
✅ $1B+ valuation

They didn’t win by doing more.
They won by focusing on the few decisions that drive everything.

That’s true in finance too.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, go to scalingcfo.io
Take the free assessments and see exactly where to focus first.

Crumbl Cookies

Some people launch snacks.
Some create global empires from leftovers.

Arch West did the second.

➡️ 1960s. Disneyland.

Casa de Fritos. Tons of stale tortillas. Wasted daily.
A small vendor saw opportunity.
“Cut them into triangles. Fry them. Add some seasoning.”

No PR. No hype. No flashy launch.

Just execution.
Just obsession.
Just seeing value where others saw trash.

1966 → Plain Doritos, national launch.
1972 → Nacho Cheese.
From leftover tortillas → multibillion-dollar snack empire.

Scaling lesson:

Opportunities are everywhere. Most ignore them.
Those who see the leverage, execute relentlessly, and scale turn accidents into legends.

Some people chase attention.
Some quietly turn scraps into billions.

#scalingup #ceo #founder #businesslessons

Doritos

$30,000 → $7 BILLION.
No hype. No fluff. Just strategy.

Dennis Washington was 30, broke, and borrowing $30k from a Caterpillar dealer.

He bought one bulldozer and started doing construction in Montana.

Within 5 years? He was the largest contractor in the state.

But he didn’t stop there.

He asked a simple question:
"Where is everyone running from?"

Then he built a formula:

✅ Buy failing businesses that everyone else ignores.
✅ Fix the basics cut costs, improve management, unlock cash flow.
✅ Use the profits to buy the next one.
✅ Repeat.

First test: a worthless copper mine.
Bought for $15M → $100M profits in 3 years.

Next: a struggling global construction firm, merged it → Washington Group International → sold for $2.6B.

Now? Real estate, aviation, railroads, marine services… a $7B empire all from turning broken things into cash.

Most people run from broken businesses. Dennis Washington built a $7B empire fixing them.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.

Dennis Washington

He had nothing.
No friends. Barely spoke English. ADHD made school unbearable.

At 16, he dropped out. Taught himself to code. Became obsessed with modifying video games.

At 22, he moved to Canada. New country. No network. Just a laptop and a love for snowboarding.

Started an online snowboard store → it failed.

But the software he built to run it? People wanted it.

💡 Lightbulb moment: Forget snowboards. Sell the software.

✅ Shopify is born.
✅ Made e-commerce simple.
✅ Millions of stores. 175 countries. Even Amazon switched.

From high school dropout → coding every week → building the internet’s mall worth $147B.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io
Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.

TOBIAS LÜTKE

Most “profitable” companies are one bad month away from dying.

Here’s why.

Profit is an opinion.
Cash is oxygen.

You can look profitable on paper and still miss payroll.
I’ve seen businesses doing 7 figures collapse because one client paid late.

Revenue doesn’t matter if:

• It’s delayed
• It’s unpredictable
• It’s already spent in your head

Growth makes this worse.

You hire early.
Lock in fixed costs.
Sign long-term tools.
Upgrade lifestyle.

Now your burn is permanent…
…but your income isn’t.

That’s the trap.

Another hard truth:
If the founder steps away and sales stop, you don’t have a business.
You have a high-stress job with employees.

Margins won’t save you.
Busy won’t save you.
Brand won’t save you.

Only cash flow will.

Simple rules that keep companies alive:

• Collect faster than you spend
• Keep fixed costs boring
• Build 3–6 months of runway
• Systems before scaling
• Liquidity before vanity growth

The strongest businesses aren’t the loudest.

They’re the ones that can survive a bad month without panicking.

That’s real leverage.

Peter Steinberger could have built “cool” software.

He didn’t.

He built useful software.

PDFs were everywhere. Developers were stuck with messy workflows. Peter asked:

What if developers had tools that just worked? That solved real problems, not just looked good on a portfolio?

✅ PSPDFKit → powers PDF apps across mobile & web.
✅ Open-source projects → simplify workflows, save engineers hours.
✅ OpenClaw → personal AI agent that actually helps you code.

Most people chase attention. Peter chases problems.

Critics say niche tools won’t scale. Peter doesn’t care.
He’s not in it for hype. He’s in it for impact.

From engineer → spotting friction everywhere → building tools that make developers’ lives better.

If you want to build something meaningful, solve real problems.
The market rewards results, not ideas.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.

Peter Steinberger

Most founders don’t fail overnight.

They bleed slowly.
From decisions they ignored.
From processes they never set.
From metrics they refused to measure.

Revenue looks fine. Growth feels exciting. Ego feels validated.

But underneath:

➡️ Decisions get delayed → chaos spreads
➡️ Processes depend on you → hero culture burns out
➡️ Metrics are “nice to have” → guesswork rules
➡️ Accountability is optional → everyone points fingers

That’s how scaling dies.

Not from lack of ambition.
From lack of rules.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.
#scalingup #founders #ceo

Most people saw a ping pong table.

Max Koehler saw a business.

In 2019, he noticed something strange:

Table tennis is one of the most played sports in the world,
but in U.S. cities there were very few places to play regularly.

Most founders would open a traditional club.

Max built PingPod instead.

Small glass studios.
Open 24/7.
Booked entirely through an app.
No staff. No front desk.

But the real genius?

A camera above every table.

Every rally gets recorded.
One tap → instant replay → share on social.

Players created the content.
The content created the marketing.

Clips went viral.
Bookings exploded.

Today PingPod is valued around $40–60M.

All from one simple observation.

The best founders don’t just build products.
They build systems that grow themselves. 🚀

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, go to
scalingcfo.io

Take the free assessments and see exactly where to focus first.

#scalingup #founders #CEO

Max Koehler

The trillion-dollar scoreboard isn’t just impressive.

It’s a warning. ⚠️

AI is no longer a feature.
It’s infrastructure.

Distribution beats product.
Platforms compress margins.
Specialisation scales faster than breadth.

And the giants NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Apple aren’t just companies anymore.

They’re rails.

If you’re a $1M–$10M founder, here’s the real play:

➡️ Build on top of giants, don’t compete with them.
➡️ Own your audience, don’t rent it.
➡️ Go narrow, dominate a micro-niche.
➡️ Push recurring revenue.
➡️ Move faster than anyone with a board meeting.

The economy is consolidating at the top.

But execution speed is still decentralised.

That’s your edge.

If you're building between $1–$10M and want to scale intelligently, not just aggressively

Come to the workshop → https://lnkd.in/efBiFQRg

I keep having the same conversation.

Founder calls me. Revenue is up -- sometimes way up. 

But they're taking home less than when the business was half the size. 

They hired the consultants. They wrote the plan. They pushed harder on sales. And somehow the business keeps snapping back to the same number like a rubber band.

After sitting across from enough of these founders, I started seeing the pattern. It comes down to three things nobody wants to talk about -- and none of them have anything to do with selling more.

I broke it all down in this week's newsletter.
#scalingup #founders #growth #CEO

I talk to a lot of founders. Like, a LOT. And something keeps coming up that I can't ignore anymore. Almost every conversation -- doesn't matter what 

Open article: The 3 things nobody tells you about getting stuck by Cruz Gamboa • 5 min read

The 3 things nobody tells you about getting stuck

LVMH is worth $292.9 billion.

You're worth $10M and stressed about payroll.

Same industry. Completely different money game. Here's why.

I've sat inside dozens of $5M–$50M businesses as a fractional CFO.

The pattern never changes.

Founders confuse 3 separate problems:

❌ "We have a cash flow problem."

No. You have a timing problem. Revenue is fine. Your money is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's fixable in 90 days.

❌ "We have a scaling problem."

No. You tried to grow before your operations could hold the weight. Every single time. Growth didn't break you, the lack of systems did.

❌ "We have a fundraising problem."

No. Investors don't fund vision. They fund numbers that prove the vision is real. You don't have a pitch problem. You have a financial story problem.

Now look at the billion-dollar brands:

Inditex built Zara to $193B by selling inventory before the bill came due.

Hermès built $235B by turning scarcity into a balance sheet strategy.

Fast Retailing scaled Uniqlo globally because they built finance infrastructure first.

None of that is luck.
All of it is decisions, financial decisions dressed up as brand decisions.

The difference between them and you isn't capital.

It's that they stopped running on gut feel and built a machine that tells them exactly where every dollar is going, and why.

You don't need a $500K CFO on payroll.

You need 10 hours a month of the right financial brain in the room.

That's the actual arbitrage most $5M–$50M founders are sleeping on.

If your finances are running you instead of the other way around,

Comment "CFO" below and I'll show you exactly where to start.

99% of founders do this backwards.

They try to scale a business
that no one has proven they want.

Then they try to sell a business
that only works because they exist.

Here’s the real order:

1. Start
Don’t build the product.
Sell it first.

If no one pays, it’s not a business.
It’s a fantasy.

2. Scale
Do less. Better.
One offer. One audience. One channel.

Systemize everything.
If it needs you to survive, it’s not scalable.

3. Sell
Buyers don’t pay for hype.
They pay for predictable cash flow.

Clean books.
Recurring revenue.
Low founder dependency.

Start with proof.
Scale with systems.
Exit with leverage.

That’s how you build something that prints money, not something that prints stress.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

Most founders don’t have a growth problem.
They have a focus problem.

Their dashboards are full.
Their results are not.

Tracking more KPIs doesn’t make you smarter.

It just gives you more ways to avoid the hard decision.

Here’s how serious founders think about metrics:

If a number doesn’t change what you do this week,
it doesn’t belong on your dashboard.

That’s why the only startup metrics that actually matter answer 4 questions:

1. Is demand growing?
2. Are customers staying?
3. Are they paying more over time?
4. Are we running out of cash before we figure it out?

Everything else is noise.

The best operators I’ve seen track 5–7 metrics max.
They review them weekly.
And they tie each metric to a clear action.

Everyone tracks KPIs.
Very few track the right ones.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io.

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

The Hidden Cost of Optimism in Your Financials

Optimism doesn’t build businesses.

Cash flow does.

Here’s how optimism quietly kills companies:

1. Optimism delays action
“I’ll hire a CFO at $10M.”
No.
You’re stuck at $3M because you didn’t.

2. Optimism ignores the downside
You planned for the average outcome.
Business gave you the worst one.
That’s not bad luck. That’s bad planning.

3. Optimism spends future money
You’re spending like next quarter’s revenue is guaranteed.
It isn’t.
Hope doesn’t clear payroll.

4. Optimism hides leaks
2% margin loss feels small.
Until it happens across 4 lines.
Now you’re bleeding 8% and wondering why growth feels hard.

5. Optimism skips the buffer
No cash reserve isn’t confidence.
It’s arrogance.
Survivors don’t guess right, they prepare longer.

6. Optimism assumes peak performance
Your model requires you to crush it every quarter.
You won’t.
Systems beat motivation. Every time.

7. Optimism creates fragile plans
If losing one client breaks your business,
you don’t have a model.
You have a wish.

8. Optimism avoids hard calls
Cutting bad products.
Renegotiating vendors.
Walking away from “almost profitable” deals.
These feel bad.
They work.

9. Optimism makes scaling harder
The best founders plan pessimistically
and execute aggressively.
Everyone else just “stays positive” until reality shows up.

Here’s the truth:
Real confidence isn’t thinking things will work out.
It’s knowing your numbers so well
you can survive when they don’t.

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The Battle

Jean Moncrieff

Cruz Gamboa

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taplio

The Battle

Jean Moncrieff

Cruz Gamboa

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Posts

Engagements

Likes

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