Turning financial chaos
into intelligent clarity.
F28 embeds fractional CFO leadership inside ambitious businesses using AI to rebuild finance operations from the inside out. Faster decisions. Cleaner reporting. And a finance team that scales without adding headcount.
Most finance functions are built for the past.
The typical SMB finance function is a patchwork — manual reconciliations, close rituals that eat two weeks, reporting that answers last quarter's questions. The team is talented. The tools aren't the problem. The architecture is.
Enterprise BPO and outsourcing businesses have the same problem at scale: hundreds of clients, thousands of transactions, and a finance team still operating on Excel heroics and email chains. It's not just Claude + Excel. It's not just having a great ERP. It's all of it — and how it fits together.
AI changes the math. A well-designed AI-augmented finance stack can get you 70% of the way there in the time it used to take to build the first draft. The remaining 30% — validation, sharper scenarios, real judgment — that's where the CFO earns their seat. That last mile still belongs to the subject matter expert.
Not a software vendor. Not a bookkeeper. A CFO who has done this across mining, healthcare, technology, and talent outsourcing — who builds finance functions that actually compound in value, and who learns in public so your team can too.
Vancouver, BC · Available across North America
I'm John Fong — fractional CFO, AI finance builder, and someone who learns in public.
I've spent 25+ years inside finance functions at every stage of a company's life — bootstrap to IPO, private to public, startup to scale. I've been the person building the model at 2am before a board meeting and the person presenting to institutional investors on a roadshow.
I founded F28 because the fractional CFO market has a gap: most fractional CFOs give you advice. Very few build you anything. I want to build the system, train your team, and leave your finance function materially better — and smarter — than I found it.
Over the past two years I've been rebuilding finance workflows with AI at the core — not as a side experiment, but as the operating model. I've done it at my own firm first. I share every experiment, every prompt, every mistake on LinkedIn. Because the best way to get a team to adopt AI isn't a memo. It's showing them what's possible — in real time, with real work.
Excel has been around 40 years. It's not going anywhere. It's just being reimagined. And that's exactly where I start — with the tools your team already lives in, and AI layered on top. No new software required to get to 70% in the first week.
I work with a small number of clients at a time. That's by design.
Zoom out first. Then build.
The biggest mistake in AI adoption is diving into solutions before you've mapped the problem. I start with the full picture — then we build systematically from there.
Before touching a single workflow, we map everything that lives in your finance function — the data flows, the decisions, the reporting gaps, the manual pain. Most teams skip this step. It's the most important one. You can't see the forest if you're already cutting trees.
Weeks 1–3AI can get you 70% of the way there in the time it used to take to build a first draft. We implement inside your existing tools — Excel, NetSuite, Google Workspace — no new software overhead. The goal isn't perfection. It's getting leadership decision-ready information, fast.
Months 1–3The last 30% is where the CFO earns the seat. Validation, sharper scenarios, stress-tested assumptions, real judgment. I don't hand off a system and disappear — I stay in as the backstop, making sure what AI starts, your team finishes with confidence.
OngoingFractional CFO services built for how you work.
Every engagement is tailored. These are the starting points.
Embedded senior finance leadership, 2–3 days per week. Strategy, reporting, team management, and board presence — without the full-time cost. Built for SMBs that have outgrown a controller but aren't ready for a $350K+ hire.
- Monthly board-ready financial reporting
- Cash flow forecasting & scenario planning
- KPI framework & dashboard architecture
- Finance team leadership & coaching
- AI-native workflow implementation
A focused 90-day engagement to redesign and automate your core finance workflows using AI — inside the tools your team already uses. Excel, NetSuite, Google Workspace. No new software overhead. Built for operations with high transaction volume: BPO firms, multi-entity businesses, and companies where the finance team is still doing too much manually.
- AP automation — zero additional software
- Close orchestration & variance commentary
- Multi-entity consolidation workflows
- Real-time budget visibility layer
- Team training & process documentation
Pre-seed to Series B. Financial infrastructure, investor-ready reporting, and unit economics clarity. The goal is getting you board-ready and due-diligence-ready — with AI doing the heavy lifting on the first 70%, and seasoned CFO judgment taking it the rest of the way.
- Financial model & scenario analysis
- Investor-ready reporting package
- Due diligence readiness audit
- Cap table & dilution strategy
- Board advisory preparation
Results from the field.
A track record built across public markets, private equity, and high-growth operators.
As CFO of a 2,000-person outsourcing firm operating across Canada, the Philippines, Colombia, and Singapore, the mandate was clear: stop running finance like a cost centre and start running it like an intelligence layer. That meant redesigning workflows end-to-end — AP processing, month-end close, budget variance, cash visibility — with AI embedded at every step. Built internally first, before offering the same architecture to clients.
Designed the financial infrastructure to support a complex healthcare operator through IPO readiness, four acquisitions, and $80M in capital raised through public offerings — while building the team to run it.
Created a unified financial operating model post-merger, led agency business operations, and built the reporting infrastructure to support client delivery of high-value digital products at scale.
"AI didn't replace the team. It changed who can start — and what finished should look like."
Let's build yours →Real experiments. Real prompts. Real takeaways.
What happens when a 25-year CFO starts building with AI — documented in public, mistakes included.
Four Claude Cowork agents that reclaim 10 hours a week. Morning Brief, Weekly Planner, Email Drafter, 1:1 Prep. No code. Full playbook included.
Read the experiment → Getting StartedNo coding. No prior AI experience. Three prompts and a shower break. Here's exactly how I used Claude to build a complete implementation guide.
Read the experiment → AI × ExcelCan Claude + Excel replace a financial analyst? 180-page annual report. 3 prompts. A timer. Here's exactly what happened.
Read the experiment →Answers worth having upfront.
A fractional CFO is a senior finance executive who embeds inside your business part-time — typically 1–3 days per week — instead of a full-time hire. You get the same strategic finance leadership: board reporting, cash flow forecasting, KPI architecture, investor relations, and team coaching. Without the $300K–$400K full-time price tag. Best suited for SMBs that have outgrown a controller but aren't ready for a full-time CFO yet.
No — but it changes what they spend their time on. AI tools like Claude + Excel can get a financial analysis to 70% completion in minutes, handling data extraction, model building, and first-draft reporting. The remaining 30% — validation, scenario stress-testing, contextual judgment, and board communication — still requires an experienced finance professional. The analyst's job isn't disappearing. It's being transformed.
It's the process of redesigning your core finance workflows — AP processing, month-end close, variance reporting, cash forecasting — using AI to automate the manual work and improve the speed and quality of financial decisions. At F28, this is a focused 90-day engagement built inside tools your team already uses: Excel, NetSuite, Google Workspace. No new software required to get to 70% in the first few weeks.
Zoom out before you dive in. The biggest mistake in AI adoption is jumping into solutions before mapping the problem. I start every engagement by looking at everything that lives inside the finance function — the data flows, the decisions, the reporting gaps — and building a prioritized roadmap. Then we pick the highest-leverage workflow and get to 70% fast. That first win builds the confidence to go further.
No. Excel has been around 40 years and it's not going anywhere — it's just being reimagined. F28 builds AI workflows inside the tools your team already lives in. NetSuite, Google Workspace, Excel. The goal is maximum leverage with zero new software overhead. If a new tool genuinely earns its place, we'll talk about it — but that's never the starting point.
The 70/30 rule is F28's core operating principle: AI handles the first 70% — data extraction, model building, first-draft reporting, and initial variance analysis — in a fraction of the time it used to take manually. The CFO owns the final 30% — validation, scenario stress-testing, strategic judgment, and board-level communication. This framing resolves the "will AI replace my finance team?" question. It won't replace them. It will change what they spend their time on — and raise the floor on what "finished" looks like.
Ready to turn chaos into intelligent clarity?
A 30-minute call. No deck. No pitch. An honest conversation about what your finance function could look like.