Executive-level finance and operations leadership — embedded inside your business, taking real ownership, and driving the results that matter. For founder-led companies in food, beverage, and CPG.
Most founders don't need more data. They need someone who can look at the numbers, understand what they mean for the business, and help make better decisions faster — then stick around to make sure those decisions actually land.
Split Oak Advisory Group was built for exactly that. We work exclusively with founder-led businesses in food, beverage, and CPG — industries we know from the inside — as true operating partners, not outside advisors.
Every engagement is structured around what your business needs — not a packaged methodology. We scale up or down as the situation demands.
Ongoing CFO-level financial leadership on a part-time basis. You get the rigor, the infrastructure, and the strategic clarity — without the full-time cost.
Operational leadership embedded in your business — fixing the things that slow you down and building the systems that let you scale.
Full-time, on-site executive leadership during transitions, turnarounds, or ownership changes. Full ownership of the function until a permanent solution is in place.
Expert guidance through the financial complexity of raising capital, buying, or selling a business — from initial diligence through close. We work the deal alongside your investment banker, so you have a single, trusted operator managing the full process from the inside.
Building the foundational systems that growing businesses need — from the ground up, designed to scale, and built to last.
Targeted engagements to solve specific problems — pricing strategy, margin recovery, SKU rationalization, supply chain redesign, and more.
Split Oak has assembled a vetted network of product specialists — each with decades of hands-on experience — who work directly alongside our core advisory practice. When a founder needs to develop and commercialize a new product, we bring the right people in. Fully coordinated, fully aligned, and built into the financial and operational work from day one. Our network covers the full commercialization journey for both food and beverage — from recipe formulation, pilot batch development, and production scaling, to co-manufacturer sourcing and vetting, regulatory compliance, labeling, retail readiness, and COGS modeling. Specialist details available upon inquiry.
When you commercialize a product through Split Oak, the COGS modeling, margin analysis, unit economics, and operational systems are built in parallel with the product itself — not bolted on afterward. That's a capability no standalone food science consultant can offer.
Most founders approach capital reactively — when they need it, not when the business is positioned to get the best terms. Split Oak works alongside founders to identify the right capital structure, prepare the business, and navigate the process from first conversation through close.
Most founders don't start by knowing whether they need equity or debt — they start by knowing what they need the capital to do. We help founders think through the right structure, prepare the business, and navigate the raise from first conversation through close. Whether that's bringing on an investor, securing a credit facility, or structuring a term loan, we work the process alongside you.
In food, beverage, and manufacturing, growth often requires significant capital investment in equipment and facilities — and tying up working capital in those assets is one of the fastest ways to constrain a business. We help founders identify the right financing structure for their CapEx needs and manage the process alongside operations planning so production and finance move in sync.
"Most founders leave money on the table — not because the business isn't fundable, but because they approached the wrong capital source at the wrong time with the wrong story."
Split Oak helps founders get the timing, structure, and narrative right before they ever walk into a lender or investor meeting.
We work exclusively with founder-led and owner-operated businesses — the people who built it and still have skin in the game.
The business has grown beyond what one person can manage alone. The finances are complex, the team is stretched, and the systems haven't kept up. We build what you need to get to the next level.
A sale, acquisition, or fundraise is on the horizon. The financial complexity is real, the stakes are high, and you need someone who has done it before — and can lead the process from the inside.
Something shifted — fast growth, a leadership change, a market disruption. The business needs to get clean, get stable, and get focused. We come in, take ownership, and drive the work.
Profit and cash are not the same thing. Most founders learn this the hard way — after a strong revenue quarter ends with an empty bank account and no clear explanation. Understanding the gap between accrual income and actual liquidity is one of the most important financial concepts a business owner can internalize.
"The P&L tells you what you earned. The cash flow statement tells you what you actually have. In a manufacturing or distribution business, those two numbers can look completely different — and the gap is almost always sitting in inventory, receivables, or a payment timing mismatch that nobody is actively managing."
LJ Govoni — Principal Consultant, Split Oak Advisory GroupMost founders approach a bank with a pitch. Lenders don't want a pitch — they want clean numbers, a credible story, and evidence that management understands the business deeply enough to repay them.
"The number one thing that kills a capital raise isn't the financial performance — it's unclean financials and a management team that can't explain their own numbers. Preparation isn't optional. It's the whole game."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupMost business sales that fall apart do so not because the buyer walks away from the business — but because the financials don't hold up under scrutiny. Here are the five issues that derail deals most often.
"By the time a buyer flags a problem in diligence, it's already too late to fix it cleanly. Sellers who prepare 12 to 24 months before a transaction almost always get better outcomes — in price, structure, and speed to close."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupGrowing companies often hit an inflection point where the founder's spreadsheet and a part-time bookkeeper are no longer enough — but a full-time CFO feels out of reach. There's a better path.
"The goal isn't to hire a CFO. The goal is to have CFO-level visibility into your business. For most founder-led companies between $5M and $30M, a fractional model gets you there faster and at a fraction of the cost."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupIn food and beverage manufacturing, gross margin erosion is rarely one big problem. It's twenty small ones — yield variances, packaging cost creep, labor inefficiency, and distribution concessions — that compound quietly over time.
"Most food manufacturers I work with can tell you their gross margin to the percentage point. Very few can tell me where it went. That's the problem. You can't fix what you haven't measured at the SKU and batch level."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupWhen a business is in distress, the instinct is often to cut everything at once. That instinct is usually wrong. A disciplined turnaround starts not with cuts — but with clarity on where cash is going and why.
"The first thing I do in any distressed engagement is build a 13-week cash flow. Not a budget — a cash map. Where is every dollar going, and when. Everything else flows from that. Strategy without liquidity visibility is just wishful thinking."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupQuickBooks is a remarkable tool for small businesses. But there's a point — usually around $5–10M in revenue with multiple SKUs or locations — where it starts to create more problems than it solves.
"The warning signs are always the same: the month-end close takes three weeks, nobody trusts the inventory numbers, and the management team is making decisions from three different Excel files that don't agree with each other. That's not a people problem — it's a systems problem."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupFor growing CPG brands, the supply chain decision is one of the most capital-intensive and strategically consequential choices a founder will make. The wrong answer at the wrong time can constrain growth for years.
"Co-manufacturing gets a bad reputation it doesn't always deserve. The question isn't whether to own your production — it's whether you have the capital, the volume, and the operational infrastructure to do it well. Most early-stage brands don't, and that's okay."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupBringing on a private equity partner is transformative — and not always in the ways founders expect. Understanding what PE firms actually want, how they measure performance, and what "partnership" looks like in practice is essential before you sign.
"PE sponsors aren't buying your business because they think they can run it better than you. They're buying it because they believe in the growth thesis and they want a management team capable of executing it. The ones who succeed are the ones who understand that distinction from day one."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupThe systems and habits that got a business to $5M in revenue are rarely the ones that take it to $25M. The gap is almost always financial infrastructure — not product, not market, not team.
"Every founder I've worked with who successfully scaled past $20M had one thing in common: they built financial discipline before they needed it. Not after a crisis. Before. The ones who waited usually faced a harder path — and a lower outcome."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupMost founders have a number in their head for what their business is worth. Most of the time, that number is either too high, too low, or based on the wrong methodology entirely. Here's how to think about it correctly.
"Valuation is not a calculation — it's a negotiation grounded in a calculation. The multiple a buyer will pay depends on the quality of earnings, the sustainability of cash flow, the strength of the management team, and how much risk the buyer perceives. All four of those are things you can influence long before you go to market."
LJ Govoni — Split Oak Advisory GroupEvery engagement at Split Oak is led by a principal who has served in the role they're advising on — not studied it, not modeled it, but actually run it, with real consequences attached to every decision.
That's what we mean when we say we're operators, not observers. The judgment, the instincts, and the credibility we bring to a client engagement come from having been in the room when the decisions that actually matter get made.
Additional principals are engaged on a selective basis for specific engagements requiring specialized expertise. All client work is led directly by a Split Oak principal.
LJ brings more than a decade of operating experience as a CFO, COO, and President across private equity-backed and founder-led businesses in food manufacturing, craft beverage, and CPG. He has led financial turnarounds, closed multiple capital raises, guided acquisitions through due diligence and close, and built finance organizations from the ground up inside real businesses operating under real constraints.
His approach is direct, ownership-oriented, and grounded in the conviction that financial clarity is the foundation of every good business decision. He is equally fluent in the boardroom and on the production floor.
There's no shortage of consultants who will study your business, build a presentation, and tell you what needs to change. Split Oak is something different. Every advisor we put in front of a client has held the seat — CFO, COO, President — inside real businesses, with real stakes, where the decisions they made determined whether the company made payroll, closed the deal, or survived the year.
We don't advise from the outside. We get in the building, take ownership of the function, and drive results the same way we would if it were our own business on the line. Because at some point in our careers, it was.
That distinction matters more than it might seem. An operator who has managed cash through a crisis thinks differently about liquidity than one who has only modeled it. An operator who has closed a capital raise under pressure thinks differently about transaction readiness than one who has only advised on it. The judgment that comes from having lived it — that's what Split Oak brings to every engagement.
When Split Oak takes on a function, we run it. We don't produce recommendations and hand them back. We build the systems, manage the process, and stand behind the results the same way a full-time executive would.
Closing a capital raise at midnight. Rebuilding a finance organization under a board deadline. Managing cash through a supply chain disruption. We've been there. That changes what we prioritize and how fast we move.
Founders don't need someone to manage them. They need a trusted operator beside them — someone who respects what they've built, challenges what needs to change, and is fully invested in the outcome.
The goal of every Split Oak engagement is to build something that lasts — systems, teams, and financial infrastructure the business owns and operates long after we're gone.
No sales process. No pitch deck. Just a direct conversation about where your business is, where you want it to go, and whether Split Oak is the right fit to help you get there.