Building Financial Clarity and Trust:

How an interim CFO brought financial clarity to a Bay Area nonprofit college — and recruited its permanent CFO.

The Challenge

Saint Mary’s faced several key financial and operational challenges:

  • Complex Financial Data: The institution needed a clearer understanding of financial performance and forecasts.

  • Stakeholder Alignment: The Leadership teams required transparent, accessible financial reporting to drive strategic decisions.

  • Leadership Transition: With a new president set to join, the institution needed a financial leader who could ensure a smooth transition, provide a strong strategic framework, and recruit a long-term leader for the finance organization.

Without a structured financial and operational approach, decision-making risks inefficiency, reduced confidence, and misaligned priorities across divisions and departments.

The Approach

The engagement with Saint Mary’s was built on three foundational pillars:

1. Communicating Top 10 Priorities and Ensuring Peer Alignment

  • Support incoming President

  • Support the Leadership Team’s stakeholders

  • Substantially improve the financial performance in a collaborative and structured manner 

  • Increase effective and efficient communication with our key stakeholders

  • Complete the budget based on relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

  • Re-communicate and improve adoption of agreed-upon policies and procedures

  • Enhance financial reporting for key stakeholders

  • Increase intra-Finance & Administration productivity and cross-functional collaboration

  • Ensure compliance with all regulatory entities, including our lenders

  • Adopt an agility mindset without losing focus

2. Fostering Transparency and Executive Alignment

Even the most sophisticated financial strategies are ineffective if they are not clearly communicated and embraced by leadership. To align institutional priorities, Marc:

  • Created clear, accessible financial reports that empowered leadership teams to make informed decisions.

  • Worked closely with the board, finance committee, and executive leadership to ensure financial discussions were transparent and rooted in shared institutional goals.

  • Established an inclusive decision-making process, ensuring that faculty, staff, and administration were engaged in financial discussions and aligned on priorities.

3. Leading with Empathy and Institutional Awareness

Financial leadership is not just about numbers—it’s about people. Marc prioritized a leadership style that emphasized collaboration, trust, and alignment with Saint Mary’s mission:

  • Balanced financial clarity with human-centered decision-making, ensuring institutional values remained at the core of financial strategy.

  • Provided steady leadership through a period of transition, offering guidance to the new president to provide a more structured, transparent financial environment.

  • Helped recruit and integrate a permanent CFO, ensuring continuity and long-term stability for the institution.

The Impact: A Stronger, More Transparent Institution

Introduction

Saint Mary’s College of California (Saint Mary’s) sought to strengthen its financial and administrative management processes and operational efficiencies during a period of leadership transition. In a rapidly evolving higher education financial environment, the organization needed more than technical expertise. It required a leader who could bring structure, communicate insights effectively, and align financial strategy with institutional priorities.

When Saint Mary’s engaged Marc Loupé, a partner in CFOs2Go as Interim CFO and Vice President of Finance and Administration, the goal was not just to provide robust financial management but to create a culture of transparency, agility, and strategic foresight. This case study explores how Marc’s leadership improved financial decision-making, strengthened institutional processes, and laid the foundation for future growth and his successor. Because 2Go Advisory Group pairs fractional finance leadership with executive search, Saint Mary's gained both interim stability and its permanent CFO from one accountable team.

Through Marc’s leadership, Saint Mary’s achieved:

  • A Clear Financial Roadmap – The financial dashboard and structured reporting processes provided greater visibility into key metrics, enabling proactive decision-making.

  • Improved Institutional Collaboration – Departments operated with increased alignment, fostering a more engaged financial culture.

  • Stronger Leadership Transition – The incoming president stepped into an institution with a defined financial strategy, making it easier to implement long-term goals.

  • Sustainable Financial Processes – The institution now has a structured framework for financial oversight and operational efficiency.

  • Recruit and onboard the permanent CFO – Integral to the plan was the executive recruitment and onboarding of the long-term CFO. 2Go Advisory Group led the executive search and Marc provided transition support to ensure a successful transition.

What Saint Mary’s Leaders Say

Saint Mary’s leadership also described Marc’s approach using the acronym G.R.E.A.T.:

Gracious – Leading with humility and integrity.
Respectful – Understanding the needs of the institution and its people.
Empathetic – Balancing financial clarity with a people-first approach.
Agile – Adapting quickly to evolving financial challenges.
Tenacious – Committed to delivering lasting value.

Key Takeaways for Mid-Tier Companies and Educational Institutions

“Marc’s ability to process and communicate financial data with clarity, his deep expertise, and his genuine commitment to Saint Mary’s success made a lasting impact. His leadership helped refine our approach to financial planning and decision-making.”
— Christine Hutchins, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Saint Mary’s College of California

Financial clarity enables better decision-making. A structured, data-driven approach provides leadership with confidence and agility. See the benefits of a fractional CFO.

Process improvement fosters long-term stability. Standardized workflows ensure efficiency and accountability across an organization.

Strategic leadership transitions set the stage for success. Aligning financial strategies with institutional priorities strengthens operational resilience. Bringing the right leaders to the team is core to long-term success.

Conclusion

At Saint Mary’s, financial leadership was not just about reporting, it was about transformation. Marc’s combination of deep expertise, structured financial processes, and a leadership approach rooted in trust and collaboration, helped the institution achieve greater financial clarity and confidence. Recruiting and onboarding the long-term CFO resulted in a smooth transition.

If your organization is looking for financial leadership that balances strategic insight with a human touch, let’s connect. Together, we can build a foundation for sustainable success.

Let's talk

  • An interim CFO provides senior financial leadership while an organization recruits a permanent hire. They stabilize financial reporting, give the board and executive team clear numbers, keep budgets and compliance on track, and guide the organization through the change. Often the interim CFO also helps recruit and onboard the incoming leader. When Saint Mary's College of California engaged 2Go Advisory Group's Marc Loupé as interim CFO during a presidential transition, he built structured reporting, aligned leadership around clear priorities, and set his permanent successor up for a smooth start.

  • Yes. Nonprofits, colleges, and other mission-driven organizations frequently bring in a fractional CFO, or an interim CFO during a transition, to get CFO-level strategy without the cost of a full-time executive. The role brings financial clarity, transparent board and finance-committee reporting, and financial strategy aligned to institutional priorities. 2Go Advisory Group's nonprofit and higher-education engagements, including Saint Mary's College of California, combine that finance leadership with the operational and governance expertise these institutions rely on.

  • An interim CFO or fractional CFO typically costs 30 to 75% of a full-time CFO's total compensation, depending on the scope and cadence of the engagement, because you pay only for the level of financial leadership you need. For an organization in transition, or one without enough continuous work to justify a full-time hire, it is a substantially more cost-effective way to bring in senior financial leadership.

  • Yes. 2Go Advisory Group pairs fractional CFO and interim CFO leadership with executive search, so the same team that stabilizes your finances can also find your permanent CFO. At Saint Mary's College of California, 2Go Advisory Group led the CFO search while Marc Loupé provided interim leadership and transition support, so the incoming CFO stepped into a defined financial strategy and a smooth handoff.

  • A fractional CFO is a senior financial leader who owns strategy, board reporting, and financial decisions on a part-time, ongoing basis. An interim CFO fills the same senior role full-time but temporarily, usually during a transition or a search. Outsourced accounting runs the books and the monthly close. A fractional CFO or interim CFO sits at the leadership table and often coordinates the accounting function, and many organizations use one alongside outsourced accounting.

  • An interim CFO or fractional CFO is built to move quickly, often within weeks, because the role does not require a months-long full-time search before the work begins. That speed is a key reason organizations bring in interim financial leadership during an unexpected departure or a planned transition.