Around the time Carol Coughlin was a finalist for a position as the chief financial officer for her fourth $100 million + corporation, she realized that her passion for guiding big corporate financial turnarounds was intact – but the bureaucracy and politics of nursing behemoths back to health from the inside just wasn’t there for her anymore. So she surprised herself.
“Actually, it was more of a shock to me than I realized,” she confesses.
On the verge of accepting the offer to turn around yet another big company, Coughlin turned them down and started all over – as the Chief Executive Officer of BottomLine Growth Strategies. She created the company in order to bring $100 million worth of experience to CEOs of small to mid-sized companies all over the Baltimore-Washington area – but on her terms.
Coughlin works with $2 million to $50 million companies that can use the help of a tough-minded financial expert on a part-time basis for the short- or long-term. “I like to think of us as ‘the CFO Sherpas,’” Coughlin says. “We’re there for the journey, and the right guides for organizations and CEOs to reach ‘their own financial summit’ can make all the difference.”
She’s pretty picky when it comes to her choice of clients, too.
“Chief Executive Officers who have all the answers aren’t usually a good fit with us,” Carol explains. “I look for ‘coachability.’ For CEOs who are looked at as ‘having all the answers,’ sometimes it’s not easy to accept help. I’ve seen more than one client want to throw good money after bad because they’re so emotionally involved with their company. When I meet CEOs that recognize the value of what we do, it’s more fun – and we accomplish a lot more – than we’d ever be able to otherwise.”
While Coughlin is selective about clients because she knows what to look for in order to achieve profitability and growth, she also considers herself an excellent judge of CFO-quality in the people she “rents out” to her clients.
Once she and the managers of the company have determined the need for a CFO, she works with the company to find financial solutions that will lead to breakthrough financial results. Depending on the solutions they develop, she decides whether the assignment calls for resources in addition to her own expertise. For those cases, she gets busy matching the right person for the job from her teams of CFOs. “Even if the assignment is temporary, I try to make sure that the fit is good on a personal level as well as professionally.”
Coughlin never set out to be a matchmaker, but she’s found out that she’s pretty good at sizing up what both parties are looking for when it comes to financial management and professional satisfaction. It’s part of the reason she’s unable to come up with any regrets for having made the move she did five years ago.
“I love connecting people and solving problems,” she says.
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