About Our CFO
The experience to know what works.
The clarity to say
what he thinks.
45 years in business and finance.
One platform built to help South African businesses grow with confidence.
Founder & CEO
Michael Gray
The Founder
Michael Gray
CA · CFO · Business Strategist · 45 Years in Practice
I have spent more than 45 years in business and finance - across mining, banking, airlines, franchising, corporate travel, accounting practice, and management consulting. I have helped businesses grow, watched good ideas fail for the wrong reasons, and learned the difference between advice that sounds impressive and advice that actually works.
I have been a Business Owner, CEO, Director, CFO, and Strategist. I have sat on Audit, Risk, Remuneration, and Investment Committees. I have experienced the exhilaration of building something that works - and the sobering reality of what happens when vision, timing, or teamwork fall short.
What 45 years gives you, above all else, is the ability to recognise patterns. To know which waves are worth catching and which swamps will drain your energy before you realise what happened. I am a Chartered Accountant by training. But I have always been an entrepreneur and strategist at heart.
What I Have Learned
"The difference between success and failure is not in the latest cutting-edge tool - but in bringing the right people, at the right time, with the right ideas, doing the right thing, together."
- Mike Gray
Hard lessons, honestly held.
There is no single solution to the challenges that confront business owners trying to build something sustainable. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
I spent a long time learning that lesson - and an even longer time unlearning the things that got in the way of it. The compromises that come with chasing the wrong version of success. The way that focusing on outcomes can make you lose sight of the work itself.
Money is not good or bad in itself.
It can do harm - or it can create options.
What matters is how it is made and what it is used for.
I am not embarrassed by success anymore. But I am particular about the kind worth building toward. I say what I think. At this stage of my career, I have no interest in softening inconvenient truths to win business I would not enjoy. The clients I work with value that. The ones who don't are probably better served elsewhere - and I will tell them that too.
Why I Built Our CFO
Laser-focused on helping small businesses grow.
Our CFO exists because I found something I am genuinely good at and genuinely love: helping small and medium-sized businesses get their financial house in order and grow into what they are capable of being.
Not with off-the-shelf templates or generic advice. With 45 years of real experience, direct engagement, and a platform built to deliver CFO-level thinking at a scale that growing businesses can actually access and afford.
Our CFO is structured, scalable, and built with governance and quality control at its core. A business built properly is a business that creates real value - for the clients it serves, for the people who work in it, and for the community around it.
That is what I am focused on. It is the work that gives my life meaning right now. And I am having a very good time doing it.
45+
Years in Business & Finance
3
Specialist Divisions
98%
Client Satisfaction
10+
Industries Served
Experience &
Specialisations
A Chartered Accountant by training, with four decades of applied experience across industries, disciplines, and market cycles. No two businesses are the same - and no solution should be either.
Industry Experience
Mining
Banking
Airlines
Franchising
Corporate Travel
Accounting Practice
Investment
Management Consulting
Finance & Strategy
Corporate Finance
Business Strategy
Mergers & Acquisitions
IFRS
Tax Structuring
FP&A
Financial Management
Governance & Oversight
Corporate Governance
Risk Committees
Audit Committees
Investment Committees
Remuneration Committees
Family Office Management
Growth & Commercial
Entrepreneurship
Franchising
Brand & Marketing
Corporate Travel
Sales Management
Board Advisory
Investor Readiness
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries."
— Shakespeare
The tide is real. Knowing when to act on it - that is what experience is for.
