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Hi there,

Cash flow shouldn’t be something you manage after the fact. It should be something you engineer in advance.

Yet most CEOs treat cash like a byproduct of performance. When it tightens, they cut costs. When it loosens, they push revenue. That creates short-term relief, but it doesn’t create control—because it leaves the real cash system untouched.

Cash almost never disappears overnight. It weakens through a slow accumulation of “reasonable” decisions: collections that drift, working capital that expands unnoticed, investments approved without return discipline, and financing terms that don’t match how the business actually consumes and produces cash. By the time the strain becomes visible in the bank balance, flexibility is already gone—and every next move gets more expensive.

That’s what I want to address in today’s issue.

Cash flow engineering starts with the right mental model

Here’s something you’re not used to hearing: cash flow is not a finance “output.”

It’s a leadership system.

It reflects how the company generates cash, preserves it, deploys it, and structures flexibility around it. When any one of those areas is neglected, the business doesn’t just lose cash—it loses timing, resilience, and negotiating power.

The biggest mistake I see is CEOs trying to solve cash with a single lever.

Usually revenue. Sometimes cost cutting. But cash strength is rarely created by a single move. It’s created by coordinating the full system, so growth converts, working capital stays disciplined, investments earn their cost of capital, and financing terms preserve flexibility instead of tightening constraints.

The four levers that determine whether cash compounds or erodes

Operations: How you generate

This is where most CEOs focus—and for good reason. But revenue is not cash, and profit is not liquidity. Revenue growth that doesn’t convert is a liquidity trap: it expands commitments, increases working capital strain, and often creates the illusion of health while the business becomes more fragile.

The operational discipline that drives cash isn’t only growth. It’s pricing power captured early, product mix that converts faster, sales efficiency that shortens cycles, and capacity utilization that extracts more output from existing assets before the business expands its fixed cost base.

These moves don’t just improve margins. They improve timing and reliability of cash generation, which is what funds strategy.

Working capital: How you preserve

This is where cash gets stuck, quietly and predictably.

Every day between spending and collecting is a day your company is financing someone else’s business. This is why small changes in the cash conversion cycle matter. A 10-day improvement can free up hundreds of thousands in deployable cash without raising capital, cutting headcount, or compromising growth.

Working capital leadership is collections discipline that protects relationships while tightening terms, inventory velocity that prevents cash from sitting idle, payment strategy that extends terms thoughtfully without damaging suppliers, and seasonal planning that funds swings early instead of scrambling later.

This is not an operations detail. It is a capital strategy decision, because working capital determines how much growth the business can self-fund.

Investments: How you deploy

This is where discipline separates good CEOs from great ones.

Capital deployed below your cost of capital doesn’t just underperform—it destroys enterprise value. The issue isn’t that companies invest. The issue is that investments are often approved based on narrative, internal politics, or optimistic projections, without a clear return framework tied to cash flow impact.

Investment discipline means prioritizing CapEx that clears a real hurdle rate, allocating growth capital to proven return engines before funding experiments, choosing technology that either reduces costs or accelerates revenue conversion, and evaluating acquisitions based on cash flow impact rather than story.

Great companies don’t “invest more.” They invest with intent—and they measure investment decisions in cash, not only in EBITDA.

Financing: How you structure

This is where you build flexibility, or lose it.

Mismatched debt terms can turn a profitable company into a distressed seller. Raising capital from desperation forces dilution, restrictive covenants, and weak negotiating positions. Maintaining credit access early creates optionality when the market tightens.

Financing leadership means matching debt terms to asset life while maintaining coverage, raising equity from strength rather than urgency, using credit facilities for opportunity—not only emergencies—and refinancing early to lock favorable terms before pressure arrives.

The goal of financing strategy is not to “get capital.” It’s to preserve freedom of action.

The CEOs who engineer cash flow don’t manage one quadrant. They run all four levers together, because cash flow is a system. And systems either compound or deteriorate depending on what you neglect.

5 Upcoming Webinars and Masterclasses

If you want to start 2026 with more control, the fastest way is to sharpen how you plan, measure, and value the business before decisions get locked in.

Secure your spot for our upcoming sessions:

The Cash Flow Strategy Masterclass: How Planning Derails Your Strategy — Thursday, Jan 15 at 7:00 PM PST — https://streamyard.com/watch/zUewdBnmttjx

The KPI Masterclass: Why KPIs Mislead You (and What Savvy CEOs Track) — Thursday, Jan 22 at 7:00 PM PST — https://streamyard.com/watch/3WHhqns9TdZr

The Valuation Masterclass: How Your EBITDA Is Quietly Cutting Your Multiple — Thursday, Jan 29 at 7:00 PM PST — https://streamyard.com/watch/QYvVhgQWHzM2

The Business Scaling Masterclass: Wh Most Companies Struggle to Scale — Thursday, Feb 5 at 7:00 PM PST — https://streamyard.com/watch/HEXzYzpRSZZr

The CEO Financial Intelligence Panel — Tuesday, Feb 10 at 7:00 PM PST — https://streamyard.com/watch/CqT52sm8AJXk

Spots are limited for each masterclass. If you want in, secure your seat early—and plan to attend live to receive the exclusive bonus.

The CEO Financial Intelligence Program and 1-on-1 Strategy Call for the February 11 cohort

Early Bird pricing has ended. The consequences of poor financial decision-making did not.

The CEO Financial Intelligence Program exists for one reason: to turn strategic finance into a leadership capability—so you can see consequences before decisions are made, instead of explaining outcomes after the fact.

Hear directly from CEO Clive Margetts on his experience with the program.

There are very few slots available for the complimentary 1-on-1 Strategy Call bonus for those enrolling. In that call, we’ll map your current financial position, identify your biggest constraints and risks, and build a clear plan for how you’ll apply the program directly to your business—so your six weeks translate into execution, not theory.

Don’t miss out and don’t delay. Secure your spot now.

BONUS: if you want the infrastructure in place quickly not just the CEO Intelligence: check out Financiario

If you want this infrastructure in place quickly—without months of spreadsheet rewrites, reporting delays, and dependency on a single person to “translate” the numbers—we built Financiario for that exact purpose.

Financiario gives you CFO-grade financial infrastructure: real-time dashboards, engineered forecasts, board-ready reporting, and decision tools that connect performance to cash and capital. It supports CFOs and empowers executive teams with shared visibility, so decisions move faster and risk becomes visible earlier.

Check it out if you want to:

1. Replace spreadsheet-driven reporting with a single CFO-grade system your team can trust.

2. Get forward-looking cash and performance visibility without waiting on month-end close or ad hoc models.

3. Walk into board, lender, or investor conversations with decision-ready reporting and defensible forecasts—fast.

Whether you build this capability through the CEO Financial Intelligence Program, operationalize it quickly with Financiario, or combine both, the point is the same: cash flow, capital, and risk cannot remain reactive byproducts of performance. They must become deliberate inputs into how you lead.

The leaders who win are not the ones who move fastest when pressure hits. They are the ones who engineered flexibility long before they needed it.

Warm regards,
Oana

PS. Got questions? Reply to this email and let me know.