Position: Chief Financial Officer
Location: Greater San Diego, CA
Reports to: CEO
Company: Rapidly expanding, sponsor-backed, physical therapy network serving clients referred by personal injury law firms.
Chamberlain Advisors is currently conducting an executive search seeking a CFO for our direct client, a rapidly growing private equity-backed physical therapy network focused on serving clients referred by personal injury law firms. Our client is a critical partner in the personal injury ecosystem, providing high-quality care that increases the value of a client’s claim. As a member of the executive leadership team, you will serve as the primary financial advisor to the CEO, management team, PE sponsors, and board supporting growth at scale. You will be accountable for and provide comprehensive oversight of all financial, capital, and risk-management functions, actively driving the financial strategy required to manage a growing business with a long, uncertain revenue cycle.
In this highly specialized role, you will be tasked with rigorously managing working capital within a contingency-based revenue model, where payment is entirely dependent on the successful, often delayed (1-2+ years), settlement of the legal case. Accomplishing this requires expertise in structuring and optimizing factoring facilities, creating dynamic case risk-modeling, and driving the internal systems and controls necessary to accelerate the case-to-cash cycle while mitigating bad debt exposure and professionalizing the collections function.
Core profile: alignment with one of the following is required to get you in the conversation.
- Chief Financial Officer of a company: A senior executive that has managed the financial actions of a company and has ensured monthly, quarterly, and annual consolidated financial reports are accurate and completed in a timely manner. Accountability and strategic oversight of critical finance and accounting division operating functions to include managing cash flow, capital allocations, planning and budgeting, forecasting and analysis, treasury functions, financial integrations, growth, and strategic planning.
- Significant finance function leadership: A proven finance professional that has led the core aspects of a company’s finance function and is ready now for promotion to the CFO level.
Differentiators: these will set you apart in the selection process.
- Entrepreneurial Spirit and Company Culture Alignment: The ideal candidate should have a strong desire to build, grow, and own the outcomes of a business’s success, with a continuous improvement mindset and a willingness to take a hands-on approach to achieve results quickly. They should have an authentic executive presence and be respected, relatable, and approachable across the organization. The candidate should prioritize team success over individual titles and have experience aligning corporate culture with organizational goals to create a positive and collaborative work environment. Effectively navigates diverse internal, network provider, and law firm relationships.
- Office of the CFO Acumen: A senior executive that has managed the financial actions of a company ensuring monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reports are accurate and completed in a timely manner. Accountability and oversight of critical finance and accounting division operating functions, payroll, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and procurement. Expertly tracks, and monitors income statements, balance sheets, capital structure, investments, cash flow, financial plans, forecasts, EBITA, and tax, analyzing financial strengths and weaknesses and proposing corrective actions where necessary.
- Collaborative Finance Business Partner: Candidates should describe themselves as sharp, hardworking, and capable of quickly noticing issues, trends, or opportunities. Able to work upwards (to CEO, Board Members, and Private Equity Sponsors) and across the business (interdepartmental, sales, marketing, operations, customers, suppliers, etc.); can “see around the corners” to add value to the business and be a strong strategic thinker. Drives a culture of data-driven decision-making by serving as an active operational finance business partner who ensures functional leaders are equipped with relevant, timely decision support data and KPIs to lead effective, on-the-ground efforts.
- Personal Injury Financial Ecosystem Acumen and Operational Collections Focus: operational leader tasked with professionalizing the Accounts Receivable (AR) and collections functions, drawing expertise from the PI factoring, ABL, or contingent revenue services sectors. The core mandate is to implement a sophisticated collections system and governance to measurably increase realized revenue and accelerate the case-to-cash cycle. You will strategically optimize factoring facilities and collaborate on law firm agreements, directly translating to enhanced cash flow and enterprise valuation.
- Factoring, Banking Relations, and Case-to-Cash Liquidity Risk Management: expertise in structuring and optimizing factoring facilities against long-cycle, contingent accounts receivable, with a focus on minimizing the cost of capital and supporting a best-in-class case-to-cash collections process. You must be adept at dynamic, multi-scenario cash flow modeling and risk analysis to maintain liquidity and support aggressive growth. Furthermore, candidates must have a track record of cultivating and leveraging strong banking and factor relationships by positioning business performance and financial controls in a way that directly results in more favorable advance rates, lower discount fees, and improved credit terms.
Core Accountabilities
Strategic Leadership, Planning, and Financial Execution: The CFO serves as the chief financial and accounting expert and strategic partner to the CEO, management team, Private Equity sponsors, and the Board of Directors.
- Strategic Partnership & Advisory: Acts as the chief finance & accounting expert, extending support to the CEO, individual business functions, and private equity sponsors, offering informed recommendations to progress the business.
- Performance Management & Governance: Partners with the executive team and Board of Directors to design and establish annual financial goals, capital, and operating budgets; monitors and analyzes performance against these objectives. Proactively drives performance management by ensuring key metrics are measured and reported.
- Financial Planning & Reporting: Directs annual operations planning, budget, and forecast processes, continuously improving process efficiencies. Delivers accurate and timely consolidated financial reporting packages, performance measurements, and assessments (i.e., board-level reporting, management & internal KPI reporting, bank reporting including covenants). Ensures the accuracy and timeliness of consolidated financial reporting of acquired business entities.
- Function Vision & Leadership: Sets and communicates the vision and objectives for the Finance and Accounting department, identifying and remediating people and process gaps. Provides technical guidance, financial model support, and feedback as the primary finance business partner across the organization.
- Continuous Improvement & Systems: Ensures the firm operates with a continuous improvement and forward-thinking mindset. Optimizes the ERP system and improves financial systems, processes, and procedures to strengthen the foundation as the business scales.
- External Oversight: Cultivates a strong and transparent working relationship with the executive team and board of directors. Partners with and manages external audit relationships, addresses and remediates issues. Oversees treasury function activities, including cash management, forecasting, and banking relationships.
Financial Operations, Control, and Compliance: The CFO leads the operational backbone of the finance function, ensuring system integrity, regulatory compliance, and transparent external communication to all stakeholders.
- Accounting and Reporting: Oversee all accounting functions, ensuring timely, accurate, and GAAP-compliant financial statements. Ensure proper technical accounting treatment (e.g., ASC 606) for revenue recognition in this complex, contingent environment.
- Process and Systems Implementation: Drive selection and implementation of financial and operational systems (ERP, Practice Management, Business Intelligence) to support rapid scaling and automation, linking treatment costs to ultimate settlement values for predictive modeling and enhanced data integration.
- Internal Controls and Governance: Establish and enforce rigorous internal controls around billing, treatment documentation, and compliance to safeguard billing integrity and ensure maximum payment upon case settlement. External Stakeholder Relations: Manage relationships with all external stakeholders, including the Private Equity Board, financing partners (factor/bank), auditors, and tax authorities, acting as a clear and transparent financial communicator.
Operational Finance, FP&A, and Value Creation: The CFO is the primary strategic partner who uses financial analysis and planning to drive operational excellence and guide the firm's growth trajectory.
- Strategic Partnership & Alignment: Serve as a strategic partner to the CEO and Operations, guiding critical business decisions such as clinic expansion, physician/referral partner alignment, and patient acquisition strategy, always framed by the financial risk appetite and working capital constraints.
- Performance Measurement (KPI) Design: Develop and champion specialized Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are critical to the business model, including Settlement Velocity, Collection Percentage Lift, Risk-Adjusted Revenue per Case, Treatment Authorization-to-Settlement Ratio, and Cost-of-Capital per Case.
- Value Creation & FP&A: Lead all Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), budgeting, forecasting, and long-range planning, directly linking treatment volume, clinical efficiency, and referral patterns to financial outcomes. Drive the financial execution of the Private Equity investment thesis, identifying operational and financial levers to enhance profitability and enterprise valuation for exit.
Specialized Accountabilities
PI Law Firm Partnership and Revenue Operations: The CFO utilizes financial expertise as a strategic competitive advantage to secure and sustain high-volume referral relationships with Personal Injury Law Firms.
- Law Firm Financial Structuring: Possesses deep understanding of PI case economics and contingency fee structures to strategically design, negotiate, and execute mutually beneficial Master Service Agreements (MSAs) with key law firm partners.
- Operational Integration: Ensures all financial processes, documentation, and data exchanges are transparent, streamlined, and legally sound to reduce the administrative burden on law firm paralegals and settlement officers.
- Settlement Efficiency: Establishes and oversees internal finance processes that minimize friction during the critical, time-sensitive settlement disbursement phase, ensuring the rapid and accurate issuance of final lien/payoff documentation.
- Referral Network Value: Uses financial analysis to model the lifetime value of referral relationships and guide the company's investment strategy in those key partnerships, aligning with business development goals.
Contingency Risk & Working Capital Strategy: The CFO's core specialized duty is to lead the Contingency Risk and Working Capital Strategy, actively modeling case risk, optimizing factoring facilities, and driving liquidity management to successfully finance a growing business reliant on an unpredictable, long-cycle legal settlement revenue stream.
- Factoring and Capital Strategy: Lead the strategy, negotiation, and day-to-day management of factoring or asset-based lending facilities specifically against contingent legal receivables. Ensure optimal advance rates, minimum cost of capital, and efficient management of factoring reserves to maximize operational cash flow.
- Maximize Collection Rates: Implement and manage a sophisticated collection function designed to optimize negotiation outcomes and secure a measurable increase in the percentage of billed services collected.
- Case Underwriting and Risk Modeling: Develop and maintain sophisticated quantitative risk models to assess the likelihood of successful case settlements and the recoverable value of patient treatment. This includes integrating legal and medical data into predictive financial forecasts.
- Liquidity Management and Velocity: Drive initiatives to accelerate the Case-to-Cash Cycle Time. Develop and maintain rigorous 12-24 month rolling cash flow forecasts, stress-testing the capital structure under various settlement volume and velocity scenarios.
- Reserving and Portfolio Risk: Own the rigorous, auditable methodology for bad debt and write-off reserves, accurately accounting for the contingent nature of revenue. This requires a deep understanding of historical settlement data, case duration, and collection trends to minimize surprises for investors and includes managing credit and concentration risk across the law firm referral network.
Qualifications and Experience
Required Professional Experience
- Executive Financial Leadership: Minimum of 15 – 20+ years of progressively responsible experience in finance, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role (CFO, VP of Finance, or Divisional CFO).
- Executive-Level Strategic Leadership: Demonstrated success as a CFO or senior finance executive providing strategic financial partnership to a CEO and a sophisticated Board of Directors. Must have proven experience in developing and driving a defined value creation plan, delivering results, and preparing a company for a successful financial transaction or sale.
- Specialized Capital/Factoring Expertise: Required, hands-on experience in structuring, negotiating, and managing factoring facilities, Asset-Based Lending (ABL), or other highly structured debt against contingent or long-cycle accounts receivable. Must possess deep knowledge of optimizing discount rates, reserve management, and banking covenant compliance.
- Revenue Model Acumen: Direct experience managing financial operations within the healthcare services sector or a related field (e.g., litigation finance) that involves complex, delayed, or contingent reimbursement models.
- Organic Growth Scaling: Proven ability to lead a finance function through periods of rapid organic growth and network expansion, successfully transitioning financial systems, controls, and reporting to support continuous new clinic launches.
Required Technical Skills
- Expert knowledge of U.S. GAAP, specifically around complex revenue recognition (ASC 606) in a contingent revenue environment and technical accounting for debt instruments.
- Financial Planning and Modeling: Demonstrated expertise in dynamic, multi-scenario cash flow modeling and advanced financial planning and analysis (FP&A).
- Systems Implementation: Experience with ERP system selection, implementation, and optimization to support a scaling business, ideally integrating with practice management or clinical systems used across a multi-site network.
Education and Certifications
- Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, Finance, or Business is required. MBA (Master of Business Administration) is highly preferred.
- CPA (Certified Public Accountant) a plus.
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