Fractional CFO in London, Ontario
Senior financial leadership for London and southwestern Ontario 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 London and southwestern Ontario market.
London anchors southwestern Ontario with a deep, diversified economy: manufacturing, healthcare, insurance and financial services, and a growing technology sector. It is large enough to generate serious mid-market companies and far enough from Toronto that senior finance talent is genuinely scarce.
Manufacturing and food processing, a major healthcare and education cluster, insurance and financial services, and an expanding tech scene give London a broad base of companies that need real financial leadership. Many are mid-market firms that have never had a CFO and are running on a controller or an external bookkeeper alone.
London is at the edge of my regular drive-to service area, and the mid-market manufacturing, multi-entity, and lender-facing work that dominates here is precisely the profile I built my controller and CFO experience around.
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.
I serve London and southwestern Ontario with scheduled on-site time plus a tight remote cadence in between — close enough to be present for the moments that matter, structured enough to stay efficient. I cover London and southwestern Ontario, including St. Thomas, Strathroy, and the 401 corridor, and I deliberately do not chase the Toronto, Mississauga, or Brampton core — staying focused on this region is what lets me actually show up. London is anchored by health sciences, a major insurance cluster (Canada Life and Great-West among them), advanced manufacturers like 3M and McCormick, and 350-plus tech and SaaS firms — a genuinely diversified base that rewards clean, comparable numbers.
Most fractional CFOs can’t fix the software feeding your books. I can.
Here is the edge most fractional CFOs in London and southwestern Ontario 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 London.
The playbook changes by sector. Here is how the work looks for each industry, locally.
Construction & Trades
Fractional CFO for construction businesses in London.
London, OntarioManufacturing
Fractional CFO for manufacturing businesses in London.
London, OntarioSoftware & SaaS
Fractional CFO for software & SaaS businesses in London.
London, OntarioProfessional Services
Fractional CFO for professional services businesses in London.
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 London and southwestern Ontario 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 London 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.
See how the audit worksA 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 London, Ontario?
Book a call. We’ll talk through where your finances stand and whether the $750 + HST Diagnostic Audit is the right first step.