# F3 Insights

> F3 Insights is an executive advisory firm that brings CFO-grade financial discipline, instrumented GTM engineering, and governed AI to companies with $10M–$70M in revenue. Three integrated practices, CFO Consulting, Revenue Engineering, and AI Enablement, run on one set of playbooks, one operating cadence, and one governed data layer. Built for clarity. Measured by results.

F3 Insights practices Executive Advisory Systems (EAS): senior operators embed in a client's operating cadence, build governed, human-in-the-loop AI systems around the CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, and CRO offices, and transfer the capability to the client's own team. The firm is a deliberate counterpoint to both large consultancies (headcount leverage) and AI-native deployment firms (technology leverage), it sells judgment leverage, priced for the mid-market P&L.

Key facts:
- Founded and led by senior operators in finance, software engineering, operations, and marketing, practitioners, not career consultants
- Location: San Diego, California; serves companies across Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, and North America, plus international engagements
- Target client: growth-stage and mid-market companies ($10M–$70M revenue) that outgrow their finance function and systems faster than they can staff for them
- Three practices: CFO Consulting (finance and accounting operations), Revenue Engineering (revenue as an engineered system, the discipline is called GTM engineering), AI Enablement (training, advisory, transformation)
- One product ladder, identical in all three practices: Assess, Build, Operate. Engagements end in transfer by design
- Executive Advisory Systems is the discipline, not a fourth practice. The three practices are how it is bought
- Engagement model: diagnostic → build → operate → transfer; the client keeps the systems, playbooks, and data
- Compliance: practices-aligned to NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2, and NIST CSF. Not certified, and not certification in progress
- Contact: info@f3insights.com; responses within one business day

## The discipline

- [Executive Advisory Systems](https://f3insights.com/executive-advisory-systems): The category-defining page. EAS is the practice of designing, building, and operating the systems through which a small executive team runs a complex company, then transferring them to the client's own people. Four pillars: executive advisory systems architecture, executive operating systems (ExOS), GTM engineering, and financial expert systems. Includes the judgment-leverage counterpoint against large consultancies and AI deployment firms.
- [How we work](https://f3insights.com/how-we-work): The four-phase engagement model, diagnostic (weeks 2–6), build (months 1–4), operate (months 3–9), transfer by design. The client keeps the systems, playbooks, code, and data.
- [Results](https://f3insights.com/results): The metrics engagements are measured by, days to close, forecast error, cash visibility horizon, pipeline reconciled to the P&L, margin recovered.

## Who we serve

The five executive offices, each with its hardest problems and the F3 system that answers them.

- [Office of the CEO](https://f3insights.com/for/ceo): At $10M–$70M the CEO personally is the operating system. The ExOS, decision-grade information, and a fractional advisory bench that make the role scale.
- [Office of the CFO](https://f3insights.com/for/cfo): The fifteen-day close, forecast theater, cash blindness during growth. The governed data layer, financial expert systems, and the finance operating cadence.
- [Office of the COO](https://f3insights.com/for/coo): Tribal knowledge, no single operational truth, firefighting as the operating model. The operations ExOS and governed agentic workflows with human review gates.
- [Office of the CMO](https://f3insights.com/for/cmo): Attribution collapse, the AI-search shock, martech sprawl. CFO-grade marketing contribution and governed content systems with editorial gates.
- [Office of the CRO](https://f3insights.com/for/cro): Forecast as negotiation, founder-gravity, pricing anarchy. GTM engineering, revenue architecture that reconciles to the P&L.

## Practices

Three practices. Everything the firm sells maps to exactly one of them. Each runs the same three-rung ladder: Assess, Build, Operate.

- [CFO Consulting](https://f3insights.com/cfo): Finance and accounting operations. Assess is a close and forecast diagnostic, Build is scoped consulting projects covering reporting, systems, month-end close, forecasting and cash management, Operate is embedded fractional CFO leadership. Primary buyers: CFO and CEO.
- [Revenue Engineering](https://f3insights.com/revenue): Revenue as an engineered system. The discipline is called GTM engineering. Assess is a pipeline-to-P&L reconciliation, Build is the revenue architecture build, Operate is embedded revenue leadership. Covers ICP definition and scoring, funnel math with stage-exit criteria, attribution honest enough to survive a CFO review, pricing governance, and a win/loss loop that corrects itself. Primary buyers: CRO, CMO and CEO.
- [AI Enablement](https://f3insights.com/corp-ai): Training, advisory, transformation. Assess is the AI Readiness Assessment, Build is Targeted Implementation, Operate is team training and enablement. Moves teams from chat to governed, agentic workflows. This practice sells AI capability building; governed AI inside the other two practices is plumbing, never sold separately. Primary buyers: CEO and COO.

## Inside the practices

- [GTM Engineering](https://f3insights.com/revenue/gtm-engineering): The technical account of the Revenue Engineering discipline. The six-component revenue architecture, the instrumentation standard, the ICP scoring model, the revenue KPI tree, and what transfers to the client's team.
- [Fractional CFO](https://f3insights.com/fractional-cfo): The Operate rung of CFO Consulting. When a fractional CFO fits, the cost comparison against a $300,000–$500,000 full-time hire, engagement scope, and the finance systems the client keeps.

## Locations

- [Fractional CFO in San Diego](https://f3insights.com/fractional-cfo-san-diego): Local page, San Diego base, coverage across the Bay Area and North America, what proximity actually changes, and how remote and on-site engagement works.

## Resources

- [Resources hub](https://f3insights.com/resources): Executive learning series and architecture references
- [Finance, Planning & Operations Series](https://f3insights.com/resources/finance-planning-operations-series): Ten-lesson executive series on governed, auditable AI across financial analysis, planning, and operations
- [Revenue & Marketing AI Series](https://f3insights.com/resources/revenue-marketing-ai-series): Executive series on AI applied to pipeline, attribution, and marketing operations
- [Finance AI Architecture](https://f3insights.com/resources/finance-ai-architecture): Reference architecture for governed AI in the finance function
- [System Architectures](https://f3insights.com/resources/system-architecture): Executive advisory system architectures, the governed data layer, expert systems, and human-in-the-loop oversight
- [Use-Case Architectures](https://f3insights.com/resources/use-case-architecture): Architecture patterns for specific executive AI use cases

## Articles

- [The Thirteen-Week Cash Flow Forecast](https://f3insights.com/blog/articles/thirteen-week-cash-flow-forecast/): The CFO's core liquidity instrument, built to be run weekly
- [AI Variance Analysis with an Audit Trail](https://f3insights.com/blog/articles/ai-variance-analysis-audit-trail/): Governed AI for month-end variance analysis that survives auditor scrutiny
- [AI Use Cases in Revenue Operations](https://f3insights.com/blog/articles/ai-use-cases-revenue-operations/): Where governed AI actually helps pipeline, forecasting, and deal management
- [Trustworthy Marketing Data with AI](https://f3insights.com/blog/articles/trustworthy-marketing-data-ai/): Making marketing attribution CFO-grade

## Reference

- [FAQ](https://f3insights.com/faq): Fourteen questions answered plainly, what F3 Insights is, what a fractional CFO is, what Executive Advisory Systems is, what governed AI is, what GTM engineering is, how F3 differs from MBB and from AI deployment firms, and what a fractional CFO costs.
- [Glossary](https://f3insights.com/glossary): Definitions of Executive Advisory Systems, Executive Operating System (ExOS), governed AI, human-in-the-loop, GTM engineering, financial expert systems, governed data layer, judgment leverage, fractional CFO, and the thirteen-week cash flow forecast.

## Careers

- [Careers](https://f3insights.com/careers): Open roles. A senior-only firm: the person in the room has run the function, there is no pyramid of junior generalists, and every engagement ends in transfer to the client's own team.
- [Business Systems Analyst](https://f3insights.com/careers/business-systems-analyst): Client-facing analyst seat in the AI Enablement practice. Discovery and requirements, process and data modeling, vendor evaluation, UAT and adoption. 1099 consultant with a path to full-time, remote with occasional San Diego onsite work.
- [DevOps Specialist](https://f3insights.com/careers/devops-specialist): Delivery infrastructure for the AI Enablement practice. CI/CD in GitHub Actions, Docker, Terraform, Azure and AWS, secrets and audit evidence. 1099 consultant with a path to full-time, remote with occasional San Diego onsite work.

## Legal

- [Privacy Policy](https://f3insights.com/privacy): What the site collects, why, and who processes it. No advertising cookies, no data selling, no cookie banner (the audience is North America, where the consent-banner requirement does not apply).

## Company

- [About F3 Insights](https://f3insights.com/about): Who we are, how we work, and the environments we operate in
- [Tool Library](https://tools.f3insights.com): Interactive tools for executives
- [Client Portal](https://portal.f3insights.com): Secure client access

## Optional

- [Blog index](https://f3insights.com/blog/articles/): All articles, organized by tags including cfo-playbook, ai-governance, forecasting, cash-flow, month-end-close, fp-and-a, revenue-operations, pipeline, attribution, marketing-analytics, data-governance, liquidity, financial-analysis