Flagship Case Study · Office of the CFO
He had weeks to take over the finances of a 47 location company. We built him an unfair advantage in four days.
An incoming Chief Financial Officer of a Southern California automotive retail group accepted the role with an acquisition mandate, a board expecting a 13 week cash forecast, and 47 locations he had never visited. The usual answer is a notebook, a hundred meetings, and six months of catching up. He asked Heed for a better one. He walked in already knowing the business.
and an acquisition mandate
in secured production
across four days
on the first reputation scan
A new seat, a short runway, and a company in other people's heads.
A senior finance executive accepted a CFO role at a 47 location automotive retail and service company with a warehouse operation and a mandate to acquire. He had a few weeks before day one and a problem every incoming executive knows. The knowledge he needed was scattered across other people's heads, inboxes, and filing cabinets. Org charts that did not exist. Financials he had not seen. Forty seven locations he had never visited. A board expecting a 13 week cash forecast and a plan.
The usual answer is a notebook, a hundred meetings, and six months of catching up. He asked Heed for a better one.
He won the role before the tool existed.
This was not a cold engagement. We have worked together for years, and this is one of several companies he has brought us into to help clean up and stabilize. He knows Heed as a reliable technology resource. The difference this time was the ask. It was not about IT or risk management. It was about him, and about augmenting his own ability to perform at a higher level.
We were already discussing training him to use Claude in his day to day work. When we walked through systems we had built for other clients, a door and supply contractor, a structural engineering firm, and a law firm, he saw the potential immediately. He carried that vision into his interviews. While other candidates talked about their experience, he talked about experience plus a concrete plan to take command of the business faster than anyone expected. That was his differentiator, and he got the offer.
For an experienced professional, staying current and relevant is not optional. It matters for performance and it matters for how you are perceived. He understood that better than anyone. Once he accepted the role, he commissioned his command center, and within a few days we built it on Claude, Perplexity, and Whisper.
A private command center that turns everything he learns into an asset.
Not a chatbot bolted onto a website. A secure system shaped like his actual job, built on Claude, Perplexity, and Whisper, with serious AI working on top of his own knowledge base.
Capture, from his phone
He records a meeting or uploads a file. The system transcribes it, summarizes it, pulls out every person, store, and system mentioned, surfaces the questions he forgot to ask, and adds action items to his list.
A takeover checklist that fills itself
Every document an incoming CFO needs, tracked. When data arrives that fills a gap, the item checks itself off.
The whole company, organized
Every location with its region, staff, products, and his private notes. A people directory that builds itself from an uploaded roster, showing who runs what and who reports to whom.
Money insights his books were not showing
Payables analysis that prices forfeited early pay discounts in real APR terms. Receivables aging. A rolling 13 week cash forecast. The financial math is deterministic arithmetic, computed exactly. AI explains the numbers and never invents them.
Eyes on the outside world
Live web research with citations on any competitor, supplier, or location. Reputation monitoring that reads customer sentiment across Yelp, Google, Facebook, and Reddit and structures it into what is winning business, what is losing it, and what needs attention now.
An always on advisor and a writing desk
A CFO mentor grounded in everything he has captured. A compose tool that drafts emails, memos, SOPs, and board updates in his voice, then revises them conversationally until they are right.
Zero trust access, encryption at rest, full audit logging, single tenant. His data works for him and trains no one's models.
The command center, screen by screen.
Anonymized views from the live product. Every figure is real arithmetic and real structure, with the company's identifying details removed.
Capture, from his phone
Record a meeting, drop in a file, or paste a note. It comes back transcribed, summarized, tagged, and waiting with the questions he forgot to ask.
A takeover checklist that fills itself
Every document an incoming CFO needs, tracked across the first 90 days. Items check themselves off as uploaded data fills the gaps.
The whole company, organized
All 47 locations grouped into regions, with every document, capture, and insight rolling up to the right store.
Money the books were not showing
The payables calculator prices a skipped 2/10 net 30 discount at a 37.2 percent effective APR. Deterministic math, computed exactly, never invented.
A rolling 13 week cash view
The forecast the board asked for, live. Enter inflows and outflows and the tightest week flags itself. Roll it forward each Monday.
Context beyond his own walls
Industry benchmarks and live research with citations, tuned to the thresholds that feed his lenders, board, and operating model.
A writing desk in his voice
Emails, memos, SOPs, and board updates drafted from his real data, then refined conversationally until they sound like him.
Spec on Monday. A calm, branded, working product by Thursday.
- Day 1. Spec to working software, deployed to production with bank grade access control.
- Day 2. He sent a ten item feedback list. Every item shipped the same day, including a full rebrand to his company's colors and an accessibility panel.
- Day 3. We walked the live product together on a call. The bugs and ideas from that conversation were in production before dinner.
- Day 4. Version 1.9. A guided setup assistant, conversational document drafting, reputation monitoring, and a calm executive grade interface.
On the first live reputation scan, the system read hundreds of public customer reviews across four platforms and handed him a structured brief. Overall sentiment 7 out of 10, the staff and value strengths winning business, the specific friction points losing it, and three issues needing attention now, mapped to individual locations. His reaction, his word: "badass." His next sentence was asking how fast his sales director could get it.
He walked in already knowing the business.
The new CFO walks in the door already knowing the business. His questions are sharper, his first board update is grounded in data, and every conversation he has makes the system smarter. That is the Heed model. Not software licenses, not a chatbot bolted onto a website, but a working tool built around one person's actual job, delivered in days, supported by a partner who answers the phone.
The financial math is deterministic and computed exactly. The web research and reputation work cite their sources. The AI explains, drafts, and advises, but it never invents the numbers. For a finance executive, that distinction is the whole game.
The Heed Method
We build around a person, not a use case.
The product is shaped like one executive's job. His checklist, his stores, his voice, his board. That is the opposite of buying a seat in someone else's software and bending your work to fit it. Software that fits you, not the other way around.
Speed is the differentiator. Spec to secured production in 24 hours. Feedback to deployed fix in hours, during the call where the feedback was given. And after launch there is a feedback button wired straight to your builder, training for you and your team, and a support relationship. You are never handed a zip file and a goodbye.
Keep reading.
Heed AI for CFOs
What an AI advantage looks like for your finance function, and how we prove it on your real data first.
See the CFO hub →Companion case study
How a Southern California distributor gave five executives conversational BI and recovered 62.5 hours per week.
Read the case study →The thinking
Why executives are done with static reports and want to ask the business questions in plain English.
Read the post →For the finance reader
How a CFO spots the workflow leakage and hidden financing cost the books are not showing.
Read the post →Trust and governance
Zero trust access, encryption, audit logging, single tenant, and ISO 42001 aligned controls.
See the approach →Talk to Heed
Tell us about your role or your company. We will tell you what a command center would do for you.
Book a call →Thinking about what this would look like for your role or your company?
That conversation is free. Bring us your job, your board, your stores, or your stack. We will show you what a command center built around you would do, and how fast we can put a working one in your hands.
Or call directly: 844 659 1333 / [email protected]