Growth is exciting. Growth is also messy.

Chris Summers works with companies right in the middle of that tension.

As a Fractional CFO Director at Backbone CFO, Chris partners with growth stage founders who have built something meaningful and now feel the weight of bigger decisions. Scaling operations. Hiring leadership. Managing longer cash cycles. Making capital investments. The stakes are higher, and gut instinct alone is no longer enough.

We asked Chris a few questions about his work, what he sees most often, and what “control” really means in a growing business.

When does a founder realize instinct is no longer enough?

I work with founders who are transitioning from running the business on intuition to running it with structure. They are smart operators. They know their industry. But the business has reached a point where financial visibility has to catch up with growth.

Usually that looks like improving cash flow visibility, professionalizing reporting, or helping the leadership team think through higher stakes strategic decisions. The company is not in crisis. It is simply at a stage where better financial clarity unlocks better decisions.

That shift from founder led instinct to data driven leadership is where a fractional CFO makes the biggest impact.

What made Backbone CFO the right fit for you?

Backbone CFO is not just about producing reports. It is about being a real partner to founders.

The firm’s focus on practical insight, accountability, and trust resonated with me immediately. We are not removed advisors dropping in once a quarter. We are embedded. We sit in leadership meetings. We help shape decisions.

What has kept me here is seeing the real impact. Watching a leadership team move from uncertainty to confidence never gets old.

If you had to pick one number that business owners misread the most, what would it be?

Cash flow. Almost every time.

Many owners assume profitability equals cash in the bank. But growth often masks cash strain. You can have strong margins on paper and still feel pressure if timing, collections, inventory, or project cycles are misaligned.

I help reframe cash flow as a strategic tool rather than a survival metric. When leaders see how operational decisions affect liquidity, they stop reacting to cash and start managing it intentionally.

That is when financial control begins.

Where do you see leadership teams get stuck?

Looking backward instead of forward.

Many leadership teams spend their energy reviewing what happened last month. Forecasting feels uncertain, so it gets avoided.

But forecasting is not about predicting the future perfectly. It is about understanding possible outcomes early enough to influence them.

When financials shift from being a report card to being a decision framework, the entire conversation changes. Instead of asking, What happened, the team starts asking, What should we do next?

That mindset shift accelerates everything.

When you say “control,” what does that really mean?

Control does not mean rigidity.

To me, control means visibility.

It means knowing where the business stands today. It means understanding which financial levers matter most. It means having the systems and discipline in place to respond quickly when conditions change.

At Backbone CFO, we talk about moving companies from chaos to control. Control is when a leadership team can answer the question, Can we afford this, with clarity instead of anxiety.

How do you measure success beyond revenue growth?

Revenue is important. But it is not the first signal.

Success looks like clarity inside the leadership room. It looks like confidence in the numbers. It looks like proactive decision making instead of reactive scrambling.

When leaders trust their reports and use forecasts to drive strategy, that is when the engagement is truly working.

What advice do you find yourself giving repeatedly?

Always tie decisions to your goals.

And to do that, your financial information has to be robust, timely, and accurate. Without that foundation, even strong operators are forced to rely on instinct alone. With it, they gain a structured way to evaluate risk, allocate capital, and scale responsibly.

What mindset do you respect most in strong business owners?

Intellectual humility.

The ability to ask good questions, listen carefully, and change course when the data points in a different direction. The best leaders are decisive, but they are not defensive.

That openness creates room for real progress.

When growth gets noisy, how do you stay clear headed?

Staying in the now.

In growing businesses, it is easy to dwell on the past or stress about the future. I focus on what can be done right now. Clear thinking usually follows.

Also, coffee early in the morning, before the day fills up.

At Backbone CFO, we believe seasoned financial leadership should bring clarity, confidence, and control to growing businesses.

Chris Summers helps make that real every day.

If your business is scaling and the numbers feel heavier than they used to, it may be time to put a true finance seat at your leadership table. Schedule a Discovery Call and let’s talk about what financial control could look like in your business.