Ascend is an AI-native finance consulting firm. Diagnosis, planning, valuation, interactive dashboards, and ongoing finance leadership for founders building in the US.
A 30-minute look at your numbers — no cost, no obligation.
A CFO at the table for the decisions that matter.
Modern tooling for sharper analysis and faster reporting, layered on your existing systems.
Practice with EN, PT, ES and the US-system depth — that intersection is the moat.
CFO who built and ran finance inside global enterprises — now bringing that discipline to founder-led businesses.
Founder
Finance executive with broad international experience, turning around underperforming businesses across global organizations.
Growing revenue, shrinking profit — and no clear reason why.
Decisions made on the bank balance, not a forecast.
US prices set by instinct or home-country reference, rarely tested.
Debt terms half-understood until a lender asks the hard question.
These are exactly the gaps Ascend is built to close.
Every tier runs the same chain — audit, diagnostic, forecast, valuation — so the numbers always tie.
Where data is missing, we say so. Every assumption is labeled at the point of use.
Reports in English; summaries and live sessions in Portuguese or Spanish on request.
We plug into the system you already use as the strategic layer on top — nothing to rip out.
A few findings · no obligation.
Audit · diagnostic · action plan.
3-yr forecast + valuation.
Monthly cadence + on-demand.
Add-ons — process builds, AI, automation, investment decisions, lean processes — attach at any step.
A ~90-minute call to capture your business and its numbers in full.
Statements and supporting data via a secure folder.
We validate every input and flag what's missing or broken.
Only with clean data do we build the diagnostic and recommendations.
Why this matters: every recommendation rests on a validated audit. We never build on numbers we haven't checked.
Enter at the step that fits today — every tier runs on the same audited, validated numbers.
Tier 1 · Diagnose
"Where do we actually stand, and what do we fix first?"
Tier 2 · Plan & Value
"Where is this going — and what is it worth?"
Tier 3 · Fractional CFO
A base monthly retainer for the steady rhythm, plus on-demand hours for surges — board prep, financing, a deal.
Monthly close review & reporting · KPI dashboard upkeep · rolling 13-week cash forecast · 1 leadership meeting/month.
Monthly forecast vs. actuals · margin & pricing watch · 2 meetings/month.
Board-style reporting · lender/banker liaison · active decision support · weekly cadence · first call on your questions.
Build a reporting pack, close system, planning process, or pricing workflow — templates and training included.
Assess your finance and ops workflows, then deploy one or two safe, high-value AI use cases with guardrails.
Map manual work and automate data entry, reporting, approvals, or reconciliations using your existing tools.
Model a capex, financing, build-vs-buy, or M&A decision with sensitivity analysis and a clear recommendation.
Map a process, remove waste and bottlenecks, and instrument KPIs to lock in the margin gains.
See your numbers through cutting-edge, dynamic visuals — live KPIs you can explore, not static monthly reports.
Standalone or attached to any tier — each scoped to a fixed quote after a short discovery.
$0
no obligation$8k–$12k
one-time$12k–$25k
one-timefrom $5k
per month 6-month minimumfrom $3k
scopedIndicative. Tiers 1–2 priced by revenue band. Projects 50% on signing / 50% on delivery; retainer billed monthly in advance.
Delivered remotely — video, phone, and shared working files. On-site visits available by arrangement.
Margin turnaround · services P&L · pricing · SaaS conversion · carve-out · buy-side diligence.
Five plants in five countries stuck at 6.5% operating margin, with SKU-level price erosion.
A $1.3B global unit — five plants across five countries — stuck at 6.5% operating margin. SKU-level price erosion with no visibility into which products were leaking, drifting COGS, and tariff and inflation headwinds on the P&L.
Built a SKU-level Order Price Index to expose erosion and steer mix toward higher margin. Ran a four-lever cost program, and gated a $60M R&D portfolio on a lean cadence.
Margin expanded 200 bps (6.5%→8.5%) net of tariff and inflation headwinds, revenue grew to $1.25B from $1.15B, and orders grew 7% — with pricing governance and cost productivity becoming a standing operating rhythm.
A $250–300M LatAm services P&L — 25 legal entities, 6 reporting units, 10+ currencies — losing margin and share.
A $250–300M LatAm services P&L spanning 25 legal entities, 6 reporting units, and 10+ currencies — losing margin and share, with unreliable numbers and much of the contract book unprofitable.
Exited loss-making contracts, repriced renewals with annual inflation pass-through, and dollarized contracts in the most FX-exposed countries. Raised first-time-fix rates and rebuilt finance across five countries.
EBIT margin expanded 10 points (36%→46%) over four years with ~8% annual revenue growth and a 4-point reduction in past-due receivables — and data reliability was restored.
Contrast media sold to hospitals on a commodity footing — bought largely on price, with margins compressing.
A pharma business selling contrast media to hospitals on a commodity footing — bought largely on price, margins compressing, volumes unpredictable, with nothing binding hospitals beyond the current order.
Shifted from selling product to placing a financed injector installed base, tied to premium supply agreements with minimum annual volume commitments. Added SKU-level price corridors and country discount governance.
Six points of EBIT margin expansion over three years with double-digit annual revenue growth — launched in one market, proved out, then scaled to a second, converting a commodity line into a durable installed-base annuity.
A hardware-centric model with lumpy perpetual-license revenue and no recurring base.
A $400M healthcare software business on a hardware-centric model. Third-party hardware dragged the P&L, perpetual licensing produced lumpy revenue, and no commercial or accounting architecture existed for a capex-to-opex move.
Exited third-party hardware entirely and replaced perpetual licensing with subscription. Rebuilt the remaining three streams into a unified opex offering and reallocated $50M of R&D to fund the transition.
The integrated SaaS model went live with selected US customers, recurring revenue mix rose ~5 points, and the revenue accounting and system configuration became the foundation for continued subscription scale.
A ~$20M product line that had never been run standalone — no discrete P&L to value it on.
A prospective buyer approached to acquire a ~$20M product line never run as a standalone entity — no discrete P&L, with the true economics buried in shared cost pools.
Reconstructed three years of revenue, cost, and margin line by line with defensible allocation assumptions, built a five-year forecast with commercial, and translated both into a valuation range.
The first defensible standalone view of the line's profitability. The carve-out financials let leadership walk away from a below-value offer with confidence, and the methodology became reusable for later portfolio reviews.
The seller's growth model rested on aggressive commercial assumptions never independently tested.
A software acquisition target whose growth model rested on aggressive, untested commercial assumptions. Leadership needed to know whether the trajectory was achievable and the deal cleared return thresholds before committing capital.
Rebuilt and challenged the seller's P&L against realistic commercial capacity — pipeline, pricing, and attach rates line by line — then ran return-metric analysis on the revised base case.
A defensible valuation exposed a real gap versus the asking price. The company declined to close rather than overpay, capital was preserved and redeployed, and the approach set a repeatable diligence standard.
A 30-minute look at your numbers — no cost, no obligation.