MEET BILL SHENKIN
The CFO Who Thinks Like a Founder. The Founder Who Thinks Like an Athlete.
Four decades at the intersection of financial leadership, company building, and board governance —
held together by the same discipline that gets a person across an Ironman finish line.
CPA · CITP — Certified Public Accountant and Certified Information Technology Professional
CPA · CITP — Certified Public Accountant and Certified Information Technology Professional
M.S. Accounting · B.S. Jazz Piano — Florida Atlantic University
M.S. Accounting · B.S. Jazz Piano — Florida Atlantic University
Founder & CEO, CeFO, Inc. — Built, led, and sold a national advisory firm
2000-2024 2024-present, President of CeFO, LLC, a Numera Company — Built, led, and sold a national advisory firm
Board Member — US Triathlon Association; NSBA, nonprofit governance and fiscal leadership
Board Member — USA Triathlon Foundation; NSBA, non-profit board governance and fiscal leadership
Ironman Triathlete — Competitive cyclist and ballroom dancer
Ironman Triathlete — Competitive cyclist and ballroom dancer
Forthcoming Author — The CEO's Guide to Financial Success
Forthcoming Author — The CEO's Guide to Financial Success
CPA · CITP — Certified Public Accountant and Certified Information Technology Professional
M.S. Accounting · B.S. Jazz Piano — Florida Atlantic University
Founder & CEO, CeFO, Inc. — Built, led, and sold a national advisory firm
Board Member — US Triathlon Association; nonprofit governance and fiscal leadership
Ironman Triathlete — Competitive cyclist and ballroom dancer
Forthcoming Author — The CEO's Guide to Financial Success
Forthcoming
"The CEO's Guide to Financial Success"
In Plain Terms
Who Bill
Actually Is.
Bill Shenkin is a Certified Public Accountant, a founder who sold his company, a board member who has navigated fiduciary governance from every seat at the table, and a competitive Ironman triathlete who understands the discipline it takes to compete in 140.6 mile events. Because discipline is not a strategy — it's a practice.
He has spent 40 years at the intersection of finance, strategy, and governance — advising everyone from startups in their first year of revenue to companies completing multi-billion-dollar acquisitions. He built CeFO, Inc. into one of the country's most respected financial advisory firms and then executed its sale — which means every conversation he has about financial leadership, exit planning, or advisory work comes from a place of lived experience rather than studied theory.
The combination — technical depth, founder credibility, board-level governance experience, and the mental discipline of an elite endurance athlete — is genuinely rare. It's what makes his speaking engagements memorable, his advisory work unusually effective, and his perspective worth reading every other Tuesday.
40+
Years in Practice
From Ernst & Young to founding and selling CeFO — four decades of C-suite financial leadership
$2B+
Transactions Guided
Multi-billion-dollar acquisitions, M&A processes, and capital events across multiple industries
7x
Ironman Finisher
Competitive triathlete, cyclist, and ballroom dancer — elite performance as a daily practice
#1
Merger of Its Kind
First firm in the country to merge with Century Business Services (CBIZ) — history in the making
The Career Arc
How Four Decades
of Work Shaped
One Point of View
Bill's perspective is not inherited from a single company or a single industry. It
is the accumulation of decisions made at every level of financial leadership,
across four decades and dozens of engagements, each one adding a layer
that the previous ones couldn't have provided.
1980s · West Palm Beach, FL
Chapter I — Where It Begins
Bill starts his career at Ernst & Young in West Palm Beach, Florida — one of the most formative environments a young CPA can enter. His specialty is serving high-net-worth Palm Beach families: learning early that financial advice at the highest level is never primarily about the numbers. It's about the decisions the numbers make possible, and the relationships in which those decisions have to land.
This is where Bill develops his core conviction: the most valuable thing a financial advisor can offer is not just technical accuracy, but strategic clarity. Anyone with a CPA can produce accurate numbers. Very few can tell a family — or a founder, or a board — what those numbers actually mean for their future.
"The most valuable thing a financial advisor can offer is not technical accuracy, but strategic clarity."
Ernst & Young — High-net-worth family practice, West Palm Beach, FL
Specialized in complex financial advisory for families with multi-entity and multi-generational structures
Foundation in the belief that financial counsel is a relationship discipline, not a technical one
1980s · West Palm Beach, FL
Chapter I — Where It Begins
Bill starts his career at Ernst & Young in West Palm Beach, Florida — one of the most formative environments a young CPA can enter. His specialty is serving high-net-worth Palm Beach families: learning early that financial advice at the highest level is never primarily about the numbers. It's about the decisions the numbers make possible, and the relationships in which those decisions have to land.
This is where Bill develops his core conviction: the most valuable thing a financial advisor can offer is not just technical accuracy, but strategic clarity. Anyone with a CPA can produce accurate numbers. Very few can tell a family — or a founder, or a board — what those numbers actually mean for their future.
"The most valuable thing a financial advisor can offer is not technical accuracy, but strategic clarity."
Ernst & Young — High-net-worth family practice, West Palm Beach, FL
Specialized in complex financial advisory for families with multi-entity and multi-generational structures
Foundation in the belief that financial counsel is a relationship discipline, not a technical one
"We were the first. That mattered — not for the recognition, but for what it forced us to figure out that no one had figured out before."
Relocated to Denver, Colorado in 1989
Shenkin Kurtz Baker & Co. — was the first firm acquired by Century Business Services, a public company (CBIZ).
First firm in the country to merge with Century Business Services, a public company (CBIZ)
Named National Partner at CBIZ through 2000
1989–2000 · Denver, CO
Chapter II — Building Something Worth Acquiring
In 1989, Bill relocates to Denver and joins Shenkin Kurtz Baker & Co. as a partner. What follows is a period of rapid growth that culminates in a historic milestone: the firm becomes the first in the country to merge with Century Business Services (CBIZ), one of the largest professional services consolidators in the industry.
Bill becomes a national partner at CBIZ — a role that exposes him to the mechanics, dynamics, and decisions involved in building organizations large enough to be acquired. He learns what acquirers look for from the inside. He sees what integration requires. And he begins to develop the conviction that the distance between a great company and an acquirable company is not talent or product — it's financial infrastructure and governance discipline.
"We were the first. That mattered — not for the recognition, but for what it forced us to figure out that no one had figured out before."
Relocated to Denver, Colorado in 1989
Shenkin Kurtz Baker & Co. — was the first firm acquired by Century Business Services, a public company (CBIZ)
First firm in the country to merge with Century Business Services (CBIZ)
Named National Partner at CBIZ through 2000
1989–2000 · Denver, CO
Chapter II — Building Something Worth Acquiring
In 1989, Bill relocates to Denver and joins Shenkin Kurtz Baker & Co. as a partner. What follows is a period of rapid growth that culminates in a historic milestone: the firm becomes the first in the country to merge with Century Business Services (CBIZ), one of the largest professional services consolidators in the industry.
Bill becomes a national partner at CBIZ — a role that exposes him to the mechanics, dynamics, and decisions involved in building organizations large enough to be acquired. He learns what acquirers look for from the inside. He sees what integration requires. And he begins to develop the conviction that the distance between a great company and an acquirable company is not talent or product — it's financial infrastructure and governance discipline.
2000–Present · Denver, CO
Chapter III — Build It. Grow It. Sell It.
In 2000, Bill makes a deliberate bet: he founds CeFO, Inc. — not as a safe harbor from the CBIZ world, but as a conviction-driven platform for a specific model he believed the market was underserving. High-level CFO counsel and financial advisory services, delivered with the personal touch that large firms had traded away for scale.
He builds CeFO from the ground up. He grows it into a nationally recognized firm serving high-net-worth families, PE-backed companies, and business owners across complex multi-entity and multi-state structures. And then — at a moment of his own choosing — he sells it.
That decision, and everything that happened between founding and sale, is what makes every exit-related conversation Bill has today fundamentally different from anyone else's. He is not speaking from case studies. He is speaking from the experience of sitting exactly where his clients are sitting — and choosing to sell the company he built.
"I built CeFO with the same discipline I bring to a triathlon — with a finish line in mind from the first day of training. Most founders start building without knowing what race they're running."
— Bill Shenkin
What CeFO Built
National reach serving high-net-worth families, PE-backed companies, and founder-led businesses
Full suite of services: tax planning, M&A advisory, family office management, CFO consulting
Successfully sold the firm — giving Bill the founder perspective that defines his advisory work today
2000–Present · Denver, CO
Chapter III — Build It. Grow It. Sell It.
In 2000, Bill makes a deliberate bet: he founds CeFO, Inc. — not as a safe harbor from the CBIZ world, but as a conviction-driven platform for a specific model he believed the market was underserving. High-level CFO counsel and financial advisory services, delivered with the personal touch that large firms had traded away for scale.
He builds CeFO from the ground up. He grows it into a nationally recognized firm serving high-net-worth families, PE-backed companies, and business owners across complex multi-entity and multi-state structures. And then — at a moment of his own choosing — he sells it.
That decision, and everything that happened between founding and sale, is what makes every exit-related conversation Bill has today fundamentally different from anyone else's. He is not speaking from case studies. He is speaking from the experience of sitting exactly where his clients are sitting — and choosing to sell the company he built.
"I built CeFO with the same discipline I bring to a triathlon — with a finish line in mind from the first day of training. Most founders start building without knowing what race they're running."
— Bill Shenkin
What CeFO Built
National reach serving high-net-worth families, PE-backed companies, and founder-led businesses
Full suite of services: tax planning, M&A advisory, family office management, CFO consulting
Successfully sold the firm — giving Bill the founder perspective that defines his advisory work today
Career-Defining Engagements
Colorado Rockies MLB Franchise
Designed the financial forecast and business model presented to MLB investors and the Colorado Governor — helping secure Denver its Major League Baseball franchise
National Geographic IMAX
Served as interim CFO for a National Geographic IMAX film company — redesigning financial systems across international subsidiaries
International Operations
Worked internationally with fitness clubs in Singapore and Taiwan — advising on acquisitions and large-scale development plans
Multi-Billion Dollar Acquisition
Acted as interim CFO for a high-growth company — managed rapid growth and positioned it for purchase by a multi-billion-dollar public company
Spanning the Career
Chapter IV — The Work That Defined the Range
Alongside the CeFO story runs a parallel career of landmark engagements that span industries, geographies, and deal types in a way that few financial advisors can match. These are not name drops — they are the context that explains how Bill can walk into any boardroom, in any industry, and find a pattern he has seen before.
The Colorado Rockies engagement is the most visible — a financial model and business plan that helped secure a Major League Baseball franchise for Denver. But it is one chapter among many: international operations in Singapore and Taiwan, the National Geographic IMAX CFO role with cross-border subsidiaries, the multi-billion-dollar acquisition that began as a fractional CFO engagement.
The breadth is not incidental. It is the product. The advisor who has seen finance work — and fail — across professional sports, international entertainment, startup growth, and family business succession brings a pattern library that no single-industry career can produce.
Career-Defining Engagements
Colorado Rockies MLB Franchise
Designed the financial forecast and business model presented to MLB investors and the Colorado Governor — helping secure Denver its Major League Baseball franchise
National Geographic IMAX
Served as interim CFO for a National Geographic IMAX film company — redesigning financial systems across international subsidiaries
International Operations
Worked internationally with fitness clubs in Singapore and Taiwan — advising on acquisitions and large-scale development plans
Multi-Billion Dollar Acquisition
Acted as interim CFO for a high-growth company — managed rapid growth and positioned it for purchase by a multi-billion-dollar public company
Spanning the Career
Chapter IV — The Work That Defined the Range
Alongside the CeFO story runs a parallel career of landmark engagements that span industries, geographies, and deal types in a way that few financial advisors can match. These are not name drops — they are the context that explains how Bill can walk into any boardroom, in any industry, and find a pattern he has seen before.
The Colorado Rockies engagement is the most visible — a financial model and business plan that helped secure a Major League Baseball franchise for Denver. But it is one chapter among many: international operations in Singapore and Taiwan, the National Geographic IMAX CFO role with cross-border subsidiaries, the multi-billion-dollar acquisition that began as a fractional CFO engagement.
The breadth is not incidental. It is the product. The advisor who has seen finance work — and fail — across professional sports, international entertainment, startup growth, and family business succession brings a pattern library that no single-industry career can produce.
Present · Denver, CO
Chapter V — The Boardroom and the Finish Line
Today, Bill operates at the intersection of the three dimensions that have defined his entire career: financial leadership, governance, and elite performance. He serves on the board of the US Triathlon Association — bringing fiscal oversight and governance discipline to a rapidly growing national organization. He advises growth-stage companies, PE-backed firms, and family offices through his advisory work. And he trains, year-round, for the next race.
The parallels between elite athletic performance and elite financial leadership are not a speaking device for Bill. They are the operating framework of his daily life. The same long-horizon planning, systems discipline, and resilience under pressure that takes a person across an Ironman finish line are the same frameworks he applies in every boardroom and every advisory engagement.
He is also a competitive ballroom dancer — a pursuit that, like triathlon, demands mastery of timing, partnership, and the willingness to look graceful under enormous physical demand. He finds the parallels amusing. His clients find them instructive.
What Bill Is Doing Right Now
Board Member, USA Triathlon Foundation — fiscal governance and strategic oversight; National Small Business Administration (NSBA) — on the tax committee that represents 65,000 small businesses in Washington DC
Keynote Speaker — CFO conferences, PE summits, entrepreneurship stages, leadership forums
Strategic Advisor — Board governance, fractional CFO, and tax strategy for PE-backed companies and family offices
Active triathlete — Training year-round; competing in Ironman events; 7x Ironman Finisher
Writing — Completing The CEO's Guide to Financial Success
On the Board:
Present · Denver, CO
Chapter V — The Boardroom and the Finish Line
Today, Bill operates at the intersection of the three dimensions that have defined his entire career: financial leadership, governance, and elite performance. He serves on the board of the US Triathlon Association — bringing fiscal oversight and governance discipline to a rapidly growing national organization. He advises growth-stage companies, PE-backed firms, and family offices through his advisory work. And he trains, year-round, for the next race.
The parallels between elite athletic performance and elite financial leadership are not a speaking device for Bill. They are the operating framework of his daily life. The same long-horizon planning, systems discipline, and resilience under pressure that takes a person across an Ironman finish line are the same frameworks he applies in every boardroom and every advisory engagement.
He is also a competitive ballroom dancer — a pursuit that, like triathlon, demands mastery of timing, partnership, and the willingness to look graceful under enormous physical demand. He finds the parallels amusing. His clients find them instructive.
What Bill Is Doing Right Now
Board Member, US Triathlon Association — fiscal governance and strategic oversight; National Small Business Administration (NSBA) — on the tax committee that represents 65,000 small businesses in Washington DC.
Keynote Speaker — CFO conferences, PE summits, entrepreneurship stages, leadership forums
Strategic Advisor — Board governance, fractional CFO, and tax strategy for PE-backed companies and family offices
Active triathlete — Training year-round; competing in Ironman events
Writing — Completing The CEO's Guide to Financial Success
The Story Is Still Being Written
40 years of experience. One book. One newsletter. Four keynote programs. And a training schedule that doesn't take weekends off.
BEYOND THE BOARDROOM
The Disciplines
That Don't
Stay at the Office.
The qualities that make Bill an exceptional advisor and speaker are not confined to the boardroom. They are the product of a life built around disciplined, high-stakes performance across multiple domains simultaneously.
He is a triathlete who trains for events that take 10 months to prepare for — which means his understanding of long-horizon planning, periodization, recovery, and racing under fatigue is not theoretical. It is earned on the training road.
He is also a competitive ballroom dancer — a discipline that demands a completely different kind of mastery: partnership, timing, the ability to make something technically demanding look effortless. His clients describe working with him the same way.
🏊
Ironman Triathlon
Full-distance competition across swim, bike, and run. Ten months of training for a single race teaches long-horizon planning, periodization, and what it means to perform under fatigue when the conditions are never ideal.
🚴
Competitive Cycling
The bike leg of an Ironman is 112 miles. Competitive cycling at that distance is a systems and pacing problem — not a strength problem. The same framework applies to building a company.
💃
Ballroom Dance
Partnership, timing, and the discipline of making technically demanding performance look natural. Bill competes in ballroom dance — a pursuit that has nothing in common with finance, and everything in common with how he advises.
🎹
Jazz Piano
A Bachelor's degree in Jazz Piano from Florida Atlantic University — before the Master's in Accounting. The ability to improvise within structure, hear the room, and respond in real time is a skill that translates completely into advisory work.
7x
Ironman Finisher
A combination of full Ironman events (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) and Half Ironman events. The discipline that defines his approach to everything else.
Board
Non Profit Board Foundation
Treasurer and board member — fiscal governance and strategic oversight for one of the largest triathlon organizations in the country.
Jazz
B.S. in Jazz Piano, FAU
Before finance, music. The ability to improvise within structure — a skill that never left the building.
"Triathletes and great CFOs train for races most people can't even see yet. The
finish line isn't the hard part.The training — the daily discipline when no one is
watching — is where the race is won or lost."
— Bill Shenkin · Program V: Discipline, Performance & the Long Game
Bill Shenkin
The CEO's Guide to Financial Success
40 Years of Pattern Recognition, Finally in Print
Forthcoming — Join the List
The Book
40 Years of Pattern
Recognition. Finally
in Print.
Every client conversation, every board meeting, every transaction, every exit — they all leave a residue of pattern. After 40 years, Bill has accumulated a library of those patterns that no single engagement could have produced. The CEO's Guide to Financial Success is the first time that library is being made available at scale.
This is not a book about accounting. It's a book about the financial decisions that determine whether a company builds toward something or drifts toward nothing — written for the executive who wants to understand their CFO, the founder who wants to build a company worth selling, and the board member who wants to govern rather than simply oversee.
Part 1
The CFO as Architect
Reframing financial leadership from scorekeeping to strategic architecture — and what that shift demands of every executive in the room
Part 2
Building for Exit, Not Just Profit
The financial disciplines that make companies acquirable — built from the founder's experience of actually doing it
Part 3
Tax as a Wealth-Building Tool
Why the executives who retain the most wealth treat tax strategy as a year-round offensive discipline, not a year-end obligation
Part 4
Governance That Actually Protects
What fiduciary responsibility demands in the real boardroom — not the theoretical one that governance courses describ
Part 5
Playing the Long Game
The disciplines of elite athletic performance applied to financial leadership — and why the overlap is a framework, not a metaphor
The Book
40 Years of Pattern
Recognition. Finally
in Print.
Every client conversation, every board meeting, every transaction, every exit — they all leave a residue of pattern. After 40 years, Bill has accumulated a library of those patterns that no single engagement could have produced. The CEO's Guide to Financial Success is the first time that library is being made available at scale.
This is not a book about accounting. It's a book about the financial decisions that determine whether a company builds toward something or drifts toward nothing — written for the executive who wants to understand their CFO, the founder who wants to build a company worth selling, and the board member who wants to govern rather than simply oversee.
Part 1
The CFO as Architect
Reframing financial leadership from scorekeeping to strategic architecture — and what that shift demands of every executive in the room
Part 2
Building for Exit, Not Just Profit
The financial disciplines that make companies acquirable — built from the founder's experience of actually doing it
Part 3
Tax as a Wealth-Building Tool
Why the executives who retain the most wealth treat tax strategy as a year-round offensive discipline, not a year-end obligation
Part 4
Governance That Actually Protects
What fiduciary responsibility demands in the real boardroom — not the theoretical one that governance courses describ
Part 5
Playing the Long Game
The disciplines of elite athletic performance applied to financial leadership — and why the overlap is a framework, not a metaphor
Bill Shenkin
The CEO's Guide to Financial Success
40 Years of Pattern Recognition, Finally in Print
Forthcoming — Join the List
A Note on Board Service
Why I'm Opening a Few Board Seats
This Year.
I've spent forty years watching boards either accelerate companies or get in their way. The
difference is rarely talent — it's whether the right financial voice is in the room at the right
moment. I'm making time for two to three paid board engagements in 2026 where I
believe that voice will matter. If your organization fits the profile below, I'd like to hear from
you.
— Bill
Where Bill Fits Best
PE portfolio companies needing an independent director who can stand alongside the CFO and translate finance to the full board
Family-owned businesses formalizing governance ahead of institutional capital, generational transfer, or a sale process
High-growth companies in the 3–5 year window before a planned exit or liquidity event
National nonprofit organizations requiring rigorous fiscal oversight at the board level
Search firms and nominating committees evaluating independent directors with founder, CFO, and seller experience in a single seat
Engagement Profile
What Bill Offers a Board
Independent Director
Audit Committee Chair
Finance Committee Cha5r
Advisory Board Member
Board Observer / Pre-Director Role
Current Board Commitments
Treasurer, USA Triathlon Foundation · Board Member & Tax Committee, National Small Business Association
Inquiries reviewed personally. Suitable engagements proceed to a 30-minute introductory conversation.
What People Say
In the Words of Those
Who Have Worked With Bill
From the boardroom to the keynote stage to the advisory table.
Bill came on board as acting chief financial officer for our company, which was
experiencing tremendous growth — for which the controller was overwhelmed.
He assisted in managing that growth and ultimately assisted in positioning
the company for a purchase by a multi-billion-dollar public company. His
ability to translate our financial complexity into a story a sophisticated buyer
could trust was unlike anything we had seen before.
Chief Executive
HIGH-GROWTH PORTFOLIO COMPANY . FRACTIONAL CFO ENGAGEMENT
Bill was treasurer of our organization when I started two years ago, and blessedly agreed to serve another term. Amid under-resourced finance and foundation teams, his fiscal oversight, specialized expertise, and broad organizational acumen guided our rapidly growing philanthropic operation through the most challenging waters I've encountered. He is the kind of board member every organization wants and very few find.
Executive Director
USA Triathlon Foundation
Bill's presentation to our CEO group enlightened them on important ways to look at their business to increase efficiency and ensure good accounting practices. He shared stories of companies he helped rescue from damaging financial practices — and the room was riveted. There was nothing theoretical about it. Every insight came from something he had personally lived.
Event Organizer
CEO Peer Group · Annual Conference
What separates Bill from every other financial advisor I've worked with is that he has been on both sides of the table. He's been the CFO who had to present to the board, and the board member who had to evaluate the CFO. That dual perspective makes every conversation he has more useful than the sum of its parts.
Operating Partner
Private Equity Firm
Press & Media
For Journalists
and Podcast Hosts.
Bill is available for media interviews, guest contributions, and expert commentary on financial leadership, board governance, exit planning, tax strategy, and the intersection of elite athletic performance with business discipline.
All press and media inquiries are handled through the Gridwell Group. Response within one business day.
For podcast hosts: Bill is an active guest booking participant. Submit a guest pitch through the contact page for fastest response.
Suggested Podcast Topics
How I Built and Sold a Company — and What I'd Do Differently
What PE Firms Really Think of Family Businesses (And Vice Versa)
The Tax Decisions That Protect the Most Wealth — Before the Wire Clears
Board Governance: The Questions Management Hopes No One Asks
Triathletes and Great CFOs: The Framework That Connects Both
The Financial Metrics Sophisticated Buyers Actually Look For
Full Biography — Long Form (250 words)
Complete career narrative for program books, conference websites, and media profiles
Download
Short Bio — Introduction Format (75 words)
For on-screen introductions, emcee use, and event announcements
Download
Headshots — High Resolution
Landscape, portrait, and square formats — print-ready at 300dpi and web-optimized
Download
Speaker Information Kit — Full PDF
All five programs, AV requirements, testimonials, and booking information in one document
Download
Podcast One-Sheet
Guest biography, three signature topics, suggested questions, and show information for producers
Download
Book Information Sheet — The CEO's Guide to Financial Success
Forthcoming title information, synopsis, and author credentials for media and publishers
Download
For Event Organizers
Book Bill as Your Keynote
Speaker
Four programs built from 40 years of lived experience — customized for your audience, your industry, and what you need your attendees to think differently about when they leave.
For PE Firms & Family Offices
Put the Experience to Work in Your Organization
Board governance, fractional CFO engagements, and tax strategy advisory — available for the companies and organizations where Bill's background is most directly relevant.
For Everyone
Get the Thinking Delivered Every Other Tuesda
The Shenkin Letter — straight talk on financial leadership, board governance, and the long game. Free, direct, and the best way to stay connected without any commitment.
Copyright 2026 . All rights reserved