Fractional CFO in Hamilton
Senior financial leadership for Hamilton businesses that have outgrown bookkeeping but aren’t ready for a full-time CFO. Forecasting, margin clarity, and reporting your lenders and board can trust, delivered in person.
A fractional CFO who knows the Hamilton market.
Hamilton is Steel City for a reason. Steel, heavy construction, advanced manufacturing, a fast-growing health and education core, and a wave of owner-operated trade businesses all run on numbers that often live in field software, spreadsheets, and a bookkeeper's inbox rather than in a finance function anyone trusts.
The city carries an enormous infrastructure deficit and sees roughly $2B in annual construction activity, which keeps general contractors, civil builders, and the trades that feed them busy and capital-hungry. Manufacturing has reinvented itself around advanced and specialty work, and the LRT, hospital expansions, and waterfront redevelopment keep pulling money and risk through local balance sheets.
I am based here. I was controller of a $50M+ heavy-civil construction and asphalt group operating in exactly this market, so I know how Hamilton jobs, holdbacks, and bonding requirements actually behave, not the textbook version. This is home turf, and it shows in the work.
The CFO layer your business is missing.
Right-sized senior finance, the forward-looking work a bookkeeper or controller is not positioned to own.
01 Forecasting & cash strategy
Driver-based forecasts and a real cash runway, so you see the next two to four quarters before they arrive instead of reacting to them.
02 Margin & profitability clarity
Where you actually make money, by job, product, client, or line, and where margin is quietly leaking out.
03 Board & lender reporting
Reporting and covenant tracking that hold up with banks, sureties, boards, and investors, no month-end spreadsheet scramble.
04 Finance operations & systems
The operating rhythm and the clean data underneath it, including fixing the software feeding your books when that’s the real problem.
Drivable from Hamilton, present when it counts.
Being in Hamilton means I can sit at your kitchen-table office, your trailer, or your boardroom in person. Steel City CFO already ranks at the top of local search for fractional CFO work, and that is on purpose: this is home turf, and the work is hands-on. With over $2 billion in annual construction value and a $5.2 billion municipal infrastructure deficit, Hamilton’s builders and industrial operators carry exactly the kind of job-cost and WIP complexity I work in. I cover Hamilton, including Stoney Creek, Ancaster, Dundas, and Waterdown, and I deliberately do not chase the Toronto, Mississauga, or Brampton core, staying focused on this region is what lets me actually show up.
Most fractional CFOs can’t fix the software feeding your books. I can.
Here is the edge most fractional CFOs in Hamilton can’t offer: if your numbers are unreliable because the field or operational software was never set up to feed your accounting system cleanly, I can fix the source. Steel City CFO also runs a financial-systems practice connecting tools like ServiceTitan, Procore, and Jobber into QuickBooks or Sage.
That second service line, Financial Systems Architecture, is what makes the CFO work stick. When the data is clean at the source, the reporting, forecasting, and lender conversations all get easier, and the monthly close stops being a fire drill.
Fractional CFO for your industry in Hamilton.
The playbook changes by sector. Here is how the work looks for each industry, locally.
Construction & Trades
Fractional CFO for construction businesses in Hamilton.
HamiltonManufacturing
Fractional CFO for manufacturing businesses in Hamilton.
HamiltonSoftware & SaaS
Fractional CFO for software & SaaS businesses in Hamilton.
HamiltonProfessional Services
Fractional CFO for professional services businesses in Hamilton.
Who you’re actually working with.
Big Four-trained finance leadership, in your corner.
Steel City CFO is led by Kevin Cosgrove. The background behind the work spans high-growth SaaS, a $50M+ construction and industrial group, and prior fractional CFO engagements across Canada, the same range of problems Hamilton businesses bring to the table.
- Series B/C SaaS, independent fractional CFO work for venture-backed software companies (US + Canada): 3-statement models, ARR forecasting, ASC 606, board reporting.
- Controller, $50M+ group, heavy-civil construction, asphalt, and real estate: WIP, covenants, multi-entity consolidation.
- Prior fractional CFO, startups and mid-market firms across Canada: forecasting, lender reporting, finance ops built from scratch.
- Sell-side M&A exit, led the finance workstream on a venture-backed company’s acquisition by a strategic buyer.
Big Four (PwC) trained. Hamilton-based, serving clients across the Golden Horseshoe in person.
Serving the wider Golden Horseshoe.
Transparent pricing for Hamilton businesses.
A fixed-fee start, then a right-sized retainer.
The Diagnostic Audit. A focused review of your finances and the systems feeding them, with quantified findings and a clear recommendation. No retainer, no open meter, you get the map first.
The audit, step by stepA right-sized monthly retainer once the foundation is clean: forecasting, reporting, lender and board support, and an operating rhythm you can run the business on. Scope and price scale to your size.
Book a CallNeed a fractional CFO in Hamilton?
Book a call. We’ll talk through where your finances stand and whether the $750 + HST Diagnostic Audit is the right first step.