In many companies experiencing strong growth for the first time, only one person truly knows the forecast. The CEO.
He knows which deals are coming. Which clients pay late. Which roles he wants to fill next. Usually, he also knows which months will be tight. This is often tracked in his head far more accurately than it appears at first glance.
The problem starts when exactly this person is simultaneously tied up in product, in sales, or with clients.
Then the company doesn't have a forecast. It has a memory.
The team can't update the forecast. The advisory board gets a version created the night before. Hiring happens in parallel, without anyone checking it against the coming months.
The point is not to strip the CEO of his intuition.
The task is to get it out of his head and into a format the company can rely on: traceable, weekly, and usable by more than one person. Then his judgment remains the guiding force. And the numbers stop being available only when he is personally sitting at his computer.
That is the work an experienced finance professional delivers in the first few weeks.