together with

Hi there, 

If your company is still walking into the bank with a 12-month budget, you’ve already lost. Lenders don’t finance short-term planning—they finance resilience, foresight, and systems that prove you can sustain performance over years—not months.

In today’s issue, I’ll cover:

• My upcoming session with Oracle NetSuite for CEOs, CFOs, and finance leaders

• The final days to join my CEO Financial Intelligence Program starting August 27

• New payment options for the program

• Why a 12-month budget won’t get you the funding you need—and how to fix it

This Tuesday: EBITDA Doesn’t Pay Your Bills—Cash Flow Does with Oracle NetSuite

On August 26 I'm co-hosting a powerful session with Oracle NetSuite about one of the biggest financial blind spots I see everywhere: relying too heavily on EBITDA for decisions it isn’t fit to support.

In this session, we'll cover:

• Why EBITDA can mislead you about your company's real financial health

• The three core drivers of operating cash flow that actually matter

• A practical cash flow checklist you can use immediately

📅 August 26, 2025 11:00 AM PT / 2:00 PM ET / 8:00 PM CET

Register here for the Oracle NetSuite session

Final Days to Join - The CEO Financial Intelligence Program Starts August 27

Your business is growing, and your leadership is strong. But sustaining that momentum requires mastering a skill most CEOs overlook—financial intelligence.

It’s the difference between thriving and merely surviving. Without it, poor cash flow management, misaligned priorities, and wasted capital quickly erode value.

That’s why I built the CEO Financial Intelligence Program—a 6-week live experience where I share the strategies that have helped hundreds of CEOs scale with confidence, control, and resilience.

The next cohort starts August 27 and most seats have already been taken. Apply now to secure one of the last few spots.

New Payment Options

You now have the option to pay for the CEO Financial Intelligence Program in 2 and 3 installments. This way, you can secure your seat in the upcoming cohort and spread the investment across the coming months—without delaying the results your business needs.

Why A 12-Month Budget Won’t Get You Funded

A one-year budget only shows how you’ll manage expenses for the next twelve months. It doesn’t prove how growth will be financed, whether debt remains viable, or how the business sustains itself over the long term.

When one CEO I worked with was initially turned down for funding, we replaced their 12-month budget with a live 60-month rolling forecast.

The model showed cash, profits, and leverage across multiple scenarios. That 5-year visibility shifted the conversation from “we can’t support you” to “approved for $20M.”

And it wasn’t a one-time exercise. The system has been guiding the company every day since—delivering CFO-level intelligence for a fraction of the cost. Always live. No vacation. No retirement. No turnover.

Whether they have a CFO or not, the system is there to back up the company and its leaders with real-time foresight and discipline.

Here’s the breakdown:

1. Strategy must be fundable—not aspirational

The CEO had a compelling vision for expansion. But until strategy was tied to cash flow, it wasn’t fundable.

We mapped every major project, key hire, and loan draw to projected cash balances.

Growth wasn’t framed as “we hope this works.” It was engineered against capacity and repayment ability. For the bank, this eliminated the biggest source of doubt: the risk of overpromising and underdelivering.

2. Scenario planning is essential to prove resilience

Every lender asks the same question: what happens if things don’t go as planned?

That’s where scenario planning came in. We built out revenue shortfalls, delayed collections, and margin compression all in the same model.

Each scenario showed not only the financial impact but also the management response—how the team would adapt in real time.

The outcome: instead of appearing optimistic, the company appeared prepared. And that distinction is exactly what banks reward with approvals and stronger terms.

3. Capital partners back discipline, not requests

Most CEOs treat funding as a transaction. In reality, it’s an assessment of your credibility. The bank is not just underwriting your financials—it’s underwriting the system behind them.

A disciplined, rolling financial plan showed control.

Scenario planning demonstrated foresight.

Linking cash to strategy proved execution readiness.

Collectively, these created confidence that the $20M wouldn’t just be deployed—it would be repaid, sustained, and leveraged for growth.

Why this matters for CEOs and CFOs right now

Capital is tightening. Banks are more conservative, interest rates are higher, and credit committees are scrutinizing risk exposure more closely.

Walking in with a static budget is not just insufficient—it signals unpreparedness and doesn’t say good things about you or your leadership team.

What lenders want to see:

• Forward visibility into how capital will be deployed and repaid

• Contingency plans that protect both company and lender in downside cases

• Alignment between strategy, cash flow, and funding structure

• Evidence of financial discipline beyond annual planning cycles

If your company is still relying on annual budgets and disconnected spreadsheets, you’re operating below the standard banks, boards, and investors expect.

That’s why we built Financiario. It’s a full financial infrastructure that provides:

• 60-month rolling forecasts engineered from strategic outcomes

• Real-time cash flow and debt visibility across multiple scenarios

• Executive dashboards designed for board and lender credibility

• Management-ready reports that enable and guide decision-making

This isn’t about making finance prettier. It’s about making your company capital-ready. CFOs get the infrastructure they need, and CEOs gain the credibility to access the resources required for growth.

Now, here’s the decision in front of you

You can keep relying on static budgets and hope lenders see enough.

Or you can build the financial intelligence and systems that give banks, investors, and boards the confidence to fund your growth.

That’s exactly what I build together inside the CEO Financial Intelligence Program. In just six weeks, you’ll implement the tools, frameworks, and foresight that turn financial planning into capital strategy—so you can raise, allocate, and deploy with confidence.

The CEO Financial Intelligence Program starts on Wednesday, August 27th. 

You have exactly 4 days to secure your seat before enrollment closes.

I hope to see you inside,

Oana