Board-level finance leadership · Risk & decision analytics

Fractional CFO — London & UK

A fractional CFO who reads the data, not just the ledger. Board-grade finance leadership for founders in the stage where growth outpaces the spreadsheet — where forecasting, cash, margin and risk all start to need an owner, but a full-time CFO is a hire too far. Embedded ownership a couple of days a week, until the numbers tell the truth and your team can run them without us.

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£20M→£200M

Vanarama grown to its Auto Trader exit, where Damien led digital analytics & customer insight

ACCA

Chartered Certified Accountant — finance discipline, not guesswork

20+ years

Finance, credit & asset risk across global leasing and fintech lenders

AIRB-endorsed

Risk models endorsed by a national bank; award-winning automated underwriting

When a Fractional CFO Makes Sense

There is a stage in a company's growth where the spreadsheet that quietly ran the business stops telling you the truth — and nobody in the room has the experience to rebuild the picture. That is the gap this role fills. The signals below are the ones that most often bring founders to us.

You are scaling fast and can no longer see cash runway, unit economics, or margin clearly enough to make confident decisions
You need board- and investor-grade reporting and forecasting, but the volume of work does not yet justify a full-time CFO
You are raising, refinancing, or preparing for an exit and the numbers need to stand up to real diligence
Credit exposure, collections, or asset risk is growing and nobody owns it analytically
You have plenty of data but very little financial insight — decisions get made on gut feel rather than the numbers
Investors or your board are asking finance questions that nobody internal can answer credibly
Your bookkeeper or accountant keeps you compliant, but no one is turning the finances into strategy

What You Actually Get

The distinction that matters is the difference between compliance and strategy. A bookkeeper records what happened. An accountant keeps you compliant. A fractional CFO is accountable for what the numbers mean — and for building the financial visibility and discipline the business needs to grow without nasty surprises. The difference here is that the strategy comes from someone who has also built the risk models, run the analytics, and answered to a board through a real exit.

Financial Strategy & Forecasting

Board-grade financial models, scenario planning, cash-flow forecasting, and the unit economics that tell you which parts of the business actually make money. The numbers a founder needs to steer by — and that a board needs to trust.

Credit, Asset & Collections Risk

The deep specialism: credit and asset risk, collections strategy, and behavioural scorecards — built to a regulatory standard. The same discipline behind an AIRB risk-model endorsement from a national bank and award-winning automated underwriting, applied at the scale your business needs.

Management Reporting & KPIs

The reporting layer that drives decisions rather than decorating them — the handful of numbers that actually matter, surfaced clearly and on time, so the leadership team is arguing about the right things.

Fundraise & Exit Readiness

Diligence-proof numbers, a clean data room, and investor-grade reporting — from someone who sat inside a business through its journey from £20M to a £200M acquisition by Auto Trader plc. The questions buyers and investors ask are not a surprise when you have been on the other side of them.

Data-Driven Decisioning

Turning raw data into financial insight — connecting analytics directly to the P&L so that pricing, customer, and investment decisions are made on evidence. Cross-functional analytics aimed squarely at bottom-line benefit, not dashboards for their own sake.

Governance & Controls

Finance operations, controls, taxation, and the governance frameworks that give investors and lenders confidence — built proportionately, so they protect the business without strangling its pace.

Typical Engagement Model

Typically two days per week, minimum six months, outside IR35, multi-client. We take on only one or two fractional engagements at a time so each gets real attention rather than a name on a roster. London on-site presence where it is useful — the informal conversations that finance leadership depends on do not all happen on video calls — and remote the rest of the time. Direct reporting line to the CEO or founder; finance leadership buried under the wrong manager defeats the purpose of the role.

The first ninety days follow a predictable shape. Month one is assessment — understanding the business model, auditing the numbers, and finding where the financial picture is unreliable. Month two is quick wins and strategic planning — fixing the reporting that misleads, building a forecast you can act on, and naming the two or three financial risks that matter most. Month three is execution — embedding the reporting cadence, the controls, and the risk analytics that outlast the engagement.

On pricing — engagements are scoped to what you need rather than rigid packages. Our Advisory & Strategy tier is the right starting point for most fractional CFO work. For a concrete number, the useful next step is a conversation about the problem.

Who You Are Working With

The fractional CFO work at Rogue is led by Damien Fortune — CEO & Finance Director of Rogue Digital and an ACCA-qualified accountant with over twenty years across leading global financial-leasing companies and fintech lenders. His specialism is the hard edge of finance: credit and asset risk, collections, taxation, data structure, and decision analytics. He built market-leading SME and behavioural scorecards in the automotive-leasing industry — earning an AIRB endorsement of the risk models from a national bank — and won a Hitachi Capital Presidents Award for innovation in automated, regulated underwriting. As Director of Digital Analytics & Customer Insight at Vanarama, he was part of the leadership that grew the business to its £200M acquisition by Auto Trader plc. The patterns on this page are not theoretical; they are decisions already made and risks already modelled.

The fractional CFO role sits alongside our fractional CTO and digital strategy work — finance and technology leadership from the same senior team. Many founders take both: the person who owns whether the technology is sound, and the person who owns whether the numbers are. The starting point is the same — an honest evaluation of where you are, where you need to be, and what it will take to get there.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is a fractional CFO different from our accountant or bookkeeper? +

Your bookkeeper records what happened and your accountant keeps you compliant — both essential, neither strategic. A fractional CFO owns what the numbers mean: forecasting, cash, margin, pricing, risk, and the financial story you tell a board or an investor. It is the difference between a clean set of accounts and knowing, with confidence, what to do next.

Do you do the actual finance work, or just advise? +

Both — and that is the point. The strategy is worth more when it comes from someone who can also build the model, the scorecard, and the reporting. The deep background is hands-on risk and decision analytics built to a regulatory standard, so the forecast and the risk view are grounded in numbers that hold up, not a tidy narrative laid over shaky data.

Can you help us raise or prepare for an exit? +

Yes — and from the inside. Damien was part of the leadership that took Vanarama from £20M to a £200M acquisition by Auto Trader plc, so the diligence questions, the data room, and the investor reporting are familiar from the operator's side of the table. We get the numbers into a state where they help your case rather than undermine it.

How long is a typical engagement? +

Minimum six months. Anything shorter is consulting, not fractional leadership — it takes at least a quarter to understand the business, rebuild the financial picture, and begin meaningful change. The best engagements end with a clean transition: either graduating to a full-time CFO or finance director we have helped you hire, or stepping back to a lighter advisory footprint.

When should we hire a full-time CFO instead? +

Once finance becomes a daily, full-team function — multiple entities, significant regulatory complexity, or a transaction in flight that needs someone in the building every day — the coordination load exceeds what a two-day-a-week arrangement can support. Series B and beyond, investors usually expect a full-time CFO. The ideal handover has the fractional CFO defining the role, helping hire the replacement, and supporting the transition.

Ready for the right finance conversation?

Tell us where you are, where you are trying to get to, and we will tell you honestly whether fractional finance leadership is the constraint worth solving. Pick a time below — it is a direct conversation, not a sales call.