Fractional CFO in Niagara & St. Catharines
Senior financial leadership for the Niagara region 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 Niagara region market.
The Niagara region — anchored by St. Catharines — runs on manufacturing, agriculture and the wine economy, tourism, and a resilient base of family-owned trade and construction businesses. Seasonality and thin margins make finance discipline more valuable here, not less.
Manufacturing remains a backbone, agriculture and the wine industry add seasonal complexity and inventory nuance, and tourism drives sharp revenue swings. Many Niagara owners are excellent operators who have never had a forecast that survives a slow season or a real conversation with their lender ahead of one.
Niagara is within my drivable service area from Hamilton, and the seasonal, inventory-heavy, covenant-sensitive profile of businesses here lines up directly with the controller and CFO work I have done for construction, asphalt, and multi-entity operating groups.
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 cover St. Catharines and the wider Niagara region in person. When cash is seasonal and margins are tight, an on-the-ground CFO who can model the next slow stretch is worth far more than a dashboard. I cover the Niagara region, including St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Welland, and Lincoln, and I deliberately do not chase the Toronto, Mississauga, or Brampton core — staying focused on this region is what lets me actually show up. Niagara’s economy still leans on manufacturing as its largest GDP share, layered with a $1.71 billion agriculture and wine sector and a $2 billion tourism trade — all of it seasonal, cash-cycle-heavy, and unforgiving on margin.
Most fractional CFOs can’t fix the software feeding your books. I can.
Here is the edge most fractional CFOs in the Niagara region 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 Niagara.
The playbook changes by sector. Here is how the work looks for each industry, locally.
Construction & Trades
Fractional CFO for construction businesses in Niagara.
Niagara & St. CatharinesManufacturing
Fractional CFO for manufacturing businesses in Niagara.
Niagara & St. CatharinesSoftware & SaaS
Fractional CFO for software & SaaS businesses in Niagara.
Niagara & St. CatharinesProfessional Services
Fractional CFO for professional services businesses in Niagara.
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 the Niagara region 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 Niagara 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 Niagara & St. Catharines?
Book a call. We’ll talk through where your finances stand and whether the $750 + HST Diagnostic Audit is the right first step.