Clarity and Control Start Here.
70+ senior finance professionals across Irvine, Las Vegas, Nashville and Louisville. Helping leaders nationwide gain clarity and control. Founded 2017 by Brennan de Raad.
Built for the businesses that need it most.
Most growing businesses can't afford a full-time CFO. So they make do — a bookkeeper, an outside CPA, and the owner absorbing whatever falls through the cracks. The numbers get done. But no one is really watching where the business is going.
Vessel Advisors was founded on the belief that this is the wrong way to run a business. The financial leadership large companies take for granted — a CFO who sees around corners, a controller who closes clean, a team that gives leadership the numbers and context to make real decisions — should be available to growing businesses too. Not a watered-down version. The real thing, right-sized for what the business actually needs.
We build finance functions that work, deploy the right people at the right level, and stay until the work is done. Our clients lead with confidence because they finally know where they stand.
Our Story
Why we started — and why it still matters.
Vessel Advisors was founded by Brennan de Raad in 2017 after years inside growing businesses where he watched the same story play out repeatedly. Small and mid-sized companies were either paying too much for overqualified financial professionals who weren't right-sized for their situation, or making do with junior staff who couldn't give leadership what they needed. There was no good middle.
Brennan had lived it from the inside — the 60 and 70-hour weeks, the pressure of a business growing faster than its infrastructure, decisions made without full information because the information simply wasn't there. He understood what it cost.
So he built Vessel Advisors to be the answer he didn't have — a firm where fractional and interim CFOs and Controllers are the default engagement structure, where people are deployed by outcome, not title, and where the focus is on building the right finance function, not protecting a seat. Nine years later, that idea scales across the country with offices in Irvine, Las Vegas, Nashville, and Louisville.
The Differentiator
Depth. Expertise. Availability.
You're not working with a solo consultant. You're accessing a bench of 75+ US-based financial professionals — each one an experienced CFO, controller, or accountant — deployed where you need them, as long as you need them.
Chief Financial Officers
Strategy, cash flow modeling, M&A support, and board-level financial leadership for companies $5MM to $500MM+.
Controllers
Close automation, internal controls, financial reporting, and systems design that scale with the business.
Accounting Professionals
GL management, reconciliation, and operational accounting that keeps the numbers clean and audit-ready.
How Engagements Start
The Financial Discovery Assessment™.
We don't take engagements blind. Most relationship begins with a structured diagnostic — digging into the books, the processes, the team, the risk exposure, and the reporting. At the end you get a written findings report with quantified impact wherever we can put a dollar on it, plus a prioritized action plan.
Assessments identify significant value, many times more than its cost. More than the savings found, the assessment uncovers hidden efficiencies and opportunities unleash an organization's potential.
The Assessment stands alone. Many clients choose to continue working with us afterward because we've demonstrated that we know finance and how it can be the foundation for a healthy, successful business.
Leadership
The team at the helm.
Brennan de Raad
Founder & CEO
Todd Monteros
Head of Operations
Katie Gruver
Head of People
Katrina Ibarrientos
Head of Administration
Joshua Walters
Head of Revenue
Phil Stone
Head of Assessments
How We Work
We're not built to stay forever.
A finance function that requires us in perpetuity isn't a finance function — it's a dependency. Our job is to build the systems, train the team you have, hire the people you're missing, and step out when the function stands on its own.
Some clients keep us on a smaller ongoing retainer for CFO judgment after the build is done. Others graduate fully. Either is fine. What we don't do is engineer ourselves into a permanent line item.
How We Show Up
Six values that guide everything.
Fanatical Attention to Consistency & Detail
The numbers either tie or they don't. Process either runs the same way every close or it doesn't. We treat consistency as a feature, not a chore — because that's what makes finance reliable.
Extreme Ownership
If we own a piece of the finance function, we own the outcome — not just the task list. When something breaks, we don't deflect. We figure out what we missed and we fix it.
Be Responsive
Business doesn't wait. We don't either. We respond fast, even when the answer is "I need a few more hours." Silence is the most expensive thing in a professional services relationship.
Learn, Adapt or Die
Tools change. Rules change. Standards change. We hire and develop people who treat continuous learning as the work, not as professional development on the side.
Go the Extra Mile
The engagement defines the floor, not the ceiling. If the right thing to do is outside the scope, we do it anyway. It's why our clients stay.
Be a Good Human
We work alongside our clients' families, employees, lenders, and partners. How we treat them when no one's watching is who we are. We hire for it. We protect it.
Community
We give back where we live and work.
Vessel Advisors and our team members support organizations creating real impact in the communities where we operate.
Ready to build your finance function?
Let's talk about what better financial leadership looks like for your business. We deploy quickly — the sooner we talk, the more options you have.
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