PRIVATE COMPANY CFO OF THE YEAR (SMALL)
Bharti Sattar, Chief Financial Officer
FuseFX
Bharti Sattar joined FuseFX as Chief Financial Officer in early 2016, bringing more than 20 years of experience in senior financial roles across a variety of industries. Managing the Finance, Human Resources, Recruiting and Facilities teams at FuseFX, Sattar’s responsibilities include financial reporting, forecasting, risk management and business process optimization. Working closely with FuseFX’s executive team, she serves as a strategic and operational partner to the CEO, increasing Shareholder value as well as identifying key metrics and performance drivers based upon data analytics. Her hard work, strong leadership and dedication to the profession is an asset to FuseFX and the greater finance community.
Although Sattar has only been with FuseFX for about a year, she has had an immediate and dramatic impact on the operation of the company. She inherited an accounting and HR department in disarray, lacking procedures for day-to-day activities, lack of proper personnel, and little reporting or financial controls. She needed to establish new practices and procedures, add or replace staff, and create new reporting methodologies. The company had been growing steadily but with minimal accounting expertise. Sattar has singlehandedly created a professional group that can support the growth to an expected $60 million in gross revenues and over 300 employees in 2017.
She manages both the accounting and HR departments, which operate out of Los Angeles for all three offices of the company. This requires knowledge and implementation of payroll, tax filings, complex tax credit applications in multiple locations with varying tax laws and procedures. Although the majority of the employees are based in Los Angeles (around 200 people), the remote offices are substantial and employ more than 50 people each. With a lean accounting department of just 4 people, and only 2 people in HR, this requires both high-level vision as well as detailed oversight at a transactional level for all locations.
