Charlie Sonneborn, Phoenix Area President

Charlie has 20 years of executive experience as a CFO.  He also was a finance team executive on a privately held company that grew from $80 million to $450 million in revenues.   This expansion was financed through internal cash flows with one third of the revenues falling to the net income after tax line.

He has also been a Fractional CFO for companies in the industries of intellectual property, automotive body repair, commercial banking, assembly and distribution of equipment, and agriculture.

By functioning as a strategic partner to management, he has performed turnarounds of two companies and a commercial bank through focusing the efforts on execution of the strategic plan encompassing the expansion of core business product lines, efficient use of resources, gross margin improvements by re-engineering products, processes, methodologies and improvement of Customer experience and satisfaction with each of these.

Charlie has been the CFO for Canyon Community Bank, N.A., Copper Star Bank, Prochem manufacturing, and the Eastwood Company a retail and distribution Company. He was the Chief Accounting Officer for a publicly traded software and professional services company.

Accomplishments include:

• Recent turnaround of a commercial bank from losses to profitability in twelve months through focused attention of the team to profitable growth of the bank’s earning asset base, significant improvement of Customer service and keeping the Bank within regulatory guidance.
• Reduced expenses by $1.242 million on a revenue base of $14 million to align the Company’s cost structure to increase profitability.
• Raised $10 million in capital to support growth of a Community Bank and negotiated a $1.2 million senior debt-financing package to support a company during its sales process.Through use of management analysis and system information reduced:
  • Inventories by 21% on a $7.0 million inventory base to re-invest cash in growth
  • Days sales in A/R from 84 days to 45 days, a 46% reduction of accounts receivable to much needed cash during a restructuring period
  • Internal costs by $11.2 million by aligning revenues and costs by profit centers and re-negotiation of service and overhead contracts
  • Interest rate risk to the Bank by balancing term, pricing resets and investment structures within capital risk tolerances acceptable to the Board and the regulators

Expertise areas below have been developed from a beginning as a cost accountant, to an accounting manager, division controller, corporate controller and then CFO:

• Working with the Management Team to enhance company EBITDA and value
• Strategic planning and understanding the Company’s core business model
• Integration and utilization of systems to improve reporting and operating results
• Consolidation of services for all companies to a central services group, yet developed a de-centralized accounting group to track and improve company performance and cash flows
• Accounting and administrative processes and procedures
• Establishing KPI’s and daily/weekly management reporting to improve EBITDA and liquidity
• Assisted with an MBO to drive entrepreneurial thinking and actions of line management
• Expense control during growth
• Contribution Margin enhancement, yet building infrastructures to support growth and serving Customers through FP&A
• Addressing manufacturing inefficiencies, and administrative and sales overhead levels for business size

Charlie enjoys his daily walks through Central Phoenix with his dog Sammy and watching sporting events, particularly baseball and college football.

Meet the Team