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.
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 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.