Approach
Clear judgment. Focused action. Measurable results.
Northwater engages when the stakes are high and the path forward isn't clear. Whatever prompts the call, the approach is the same.
Diagnose
Get to the truth quickly.
Establish a fact-based view of performance, economics, organizational capability, and the issues or opportunities that matter most to enterprise value.
Focus
Turn insight into a clear value agenda.
Define the few priorities that matter, quantify the value at stake, establish ownership and measures, and align leadership and investors around the path forward.
Deliver
Convert the agenda into measurable results.
Drive execution through rigorous operating cadence, decision discipline, and accountability, measuring progress, adapting as conditions change, and sustaining performance.
Practice
Where we engage.
Built for the middle market, where experienced executive judgment and hands-on execution can materially change the trajectory of a business. Particular depth in software and recurring-revenue businesses, digital commerce, and consumer and education products.
Strategy and value creation
Translating ownership objectives or the investment thesis into an operating plan with clear accountability.
- Value creation and long-range planning
- Initiative identification, sizing, and prioritization
- Pricing and commercial economics
- Board and investor communication
Office of the CFO
A finance function commensurate with the plan and with the expectations of owners, investors, and lenders.
- Driver-based forecasting and planning
- Cash, working capital, and liquidity management
- Lender relationships and covenant management
- Finance systems and reporting design
Finance team assessment and remediation
An objective view of the people, processes, and controls behind the numbers, and a plan to close the gaps.
- Finance function diagnostic and ninety-day plan
- Organization design and role prioritization
- Controls remediation and audit readiness
- Continuity through CFO transitions
Performance improvement
Decisive action when results fall short of plan, and the analysis to know where to act.
- In-year performance recovery plans
- Unit economics, cohort, and customer profitability
- Marketing spend efficiency and ROI
- Cost structure and working capital
Transactions
Finance leadership through acquisitions, financings, and the integration that follows.
- Buy-side diligence and add-on integration
- Day 1 and hundred-day planning
- Refinancing and lender processes
- Transformation office finance leadership
Exit readiness
Preparing the business for diligence well before a process begins, informed by experience through transactions and ownership transitions.
- Sell-side readiness and quality of earnings preparation
- Equity story, KPIs, and management presentation
- Data room preparation and diligence management
- Readiness for a sale, recapitalization, or first institutional capital
Across every engagement
Analytics and AI
Turning the company's data into a decision advantage, and putting AI to work where it measurably improves the speed, accuracy, and insight of finance and operations.
- KPI, cohort, and unit economics analytics
- Business intelligence and reporting leadership can trust
- AI-enabled forecasting, close, and reporting workflows
- A practical AI roadmap tied to measurable value
Selected experience
The situations that prompt the call.
Experience leading through the moments sponsors and owners face most often.
Built and led a remediation plan for a ~$2B eCommerce business, prioritizing initiatives and rationalizing cost to close the gap within the year.
Assessed the team, processes, and controls, set a ninety-day plan, launched controls remediation, and built the company's first input-based forecast and KPI-driven board package.
Partnered with the sponsor and lenders on a $755M refinancing and repricing of a $3.5B first-lien term loan.
Built and led a pricing center of excellence for a ~$2.6B marketplace, redesigning pricing architecture, promotional economics, and margin discipline.
Returned a $795M business to sales and profit growth through sharper driver analytics, promotional discipline, conversion, and marketing efficiency.
Led diligence, transaction rationale, and integration planning for a public company merger, and supported two buy-side acquisitions through diligence, valuation, and integration.
Founder-led
Engagements are led and delivered by the founder. There is no pyramid and no handoff.
An ownership lens
Every recommendation is weighed the way an owner would: by its impact on enterprise value, cash, and risk, and its credibility with boards, investors, and lenders.
Operating credibility
Judgment formed in the CFO seat across privately held, sponsor-backed, and public companies, grounded in Big Four discipline.
Founder
Jim Hulslander
Founder and Managing Partner
Jim Hulslander is a CFO and operating executive whose career has been built at the intersection of finance, strategy, and business performance. He brings more than 20 years of experience across private equity-backed, public, and privately held companies, with a consistent focus on translating strategy into execution and measurable enterprise value.
His perspective is shaped by an unusually broad set of leadership experiences: serving as CFO of sponsor-backed middle-market companies, leading finance inside a large-scale private equity transformation, owning a business P&L as a general manager, and leading pricing, commercial strategy, and finance organizations across complex public companies. That breadth allows him to approach a business not simply through the finance function, but through the operating, commercial, organizational, and financial decisions that determine performance.
Jim works alongside sponsors, boards, CEOs, and management teams when decisions are consequential and clear judgment matters, bringing the analytical rigor of a finance leader, the perspective of an operator, and a bias toward action and accountability.
Prior leadership experience
Northwater takes its name from the northern Michigan waters where Jim spent much of his youth.
Contact
Based in Chicago. Working with investors, owners, and management teams nationally.