Chris Ortega: Building Businesses Through Financial Clarity

For many business owners, growth is the goal. But growth without financial clarity can quickly create a different problem. Revenue can increase while cash flow becomes harder to manage, profitability becomes less obvious, and important decisions become more difficult to make.

This is the space where Chris Ortega has built his expertise.

A fractional CFO and the CEO of Fresh FP&A, Chris works with small and mid sized businesses to help their leaders understand their finances, strengthen cash flow, and make better decisions around growth. His approach is built around a simple idea: finance should not simply explain what happened in a business. It should help leaders understand what is changing and what they should do next.

That philosophy has shaped a career spanning finance, accounting, financial planning and analysis, strategic planning, technology implementation, business operations, and executive leadership.

Today, Chris brings more than two decades of financial leadership experience to Fresh FP&A, a firm he founded to provide businesses with access to CFO level financial leadership without the cost of maintaining a full time CFO.

But his story is not simply about becoming a CFO.

It is about learning how finance can become a practical tool for building stronger businesses.

At Fresh FP&A, Chris works closely with CEOs, founders, and business owners who are navigating the realities of growth.

His firm provides fractional CFO and advisory services, financial leadership, FP&A and strategic planning, as well as support for business growth, expansion, and exit planning.

The problems he focuses on are familiar to many growing businesses: cash flow that does not seem to keep pace with revenue, uncertainty about where profitability is being lost, and the absence of financial leadership needed to make confident decisions.

Chris’s response is direct. He views these challenges not simply as business problems, but often as finance leadership gaps that require the right expertise and structure. That perspective is at the heart of the work he has built.

Rather than positioning finance as a department that only reports numbers after decisions have already been made, Chris’s work places finance closer to the centre of business strategy.

It means understanding the numbers, identifying what they are saying about the business, and using that information to help leaders decide what comes next.

Long before Fresh FP&A, Chris developed his financial leadership experience across a range of organisations.

His career began in audit at Ernst & Young, where he worked on financial statement audits, internal controls, Sarbanes Oxley procedures, budgeting, planning, and financial analysis across manufacturing, real estate, and healthcare clients.

That early experience gave him a strong grounding in financial reporting, controls, compliance, and the discipline required to understand how businesses operate financially.

He later moved into corporate finance roles, where his responsibilities became increasingly connected to business performance and decision making.

At ChaCha, he managed accounting and finance functions while developing reporting systems that gave executives greater visibility into cash burn, profitability, cash inflows, and other key business indicators. He also supported investment activities and helped strengthen the company’s cash collection efforts.

His role evolved further at Covance, where he became a financial partner to global operations and commercial functions. His responsibilities included budgeting, forecasting, operating models, and continuous improvement initiatives designed to eliminate unnecessary processes and improve financial performance.

This period of his career is important because it shows a recurring pattern.

Chris was not simply maintaining financial systems. He was looking for ways to make those systems work better for the business.

At WebLink International, Chris took on responsibility for financial planning and analysis while partnering with operational leaders on business guidance and strategic direction.

His work included budgeting, forecasting, financial analysis, pricing models, sales pipeline reporting, and performance measurement. He also worked with the executive team on the company’s strategic business planning process.

That experience reinforced the role he would eventually make central to Fresh FP&A: finance should be connected to the wider business.

Sales, marketing, customer success, operations, technology, and finance do not exist in isolation. Decisions in one area can have immediate financial consequences elsewhere.

Chris’s career increasingly placed him in the position of connecting those pieces.

At Emarsys, that responsibility expanded significantly. He progressed through senior finance leadership roles, eventually becoming Vice President of Finance, where he led global FP&A, finance, and strategic operations across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. He also played a leading role in financial integration and due diligence activities connected to the SAP acquisition.

His earlier role as Director of Finance for the Americas involved responsibility for FP&A, finance, accounting, budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, revenue management, and cash flow optimisation.

These were not simply titles marking career progression.They represented an expanding ability to lead finance functions, support strategic decisions, work across markets, and help organisations navigate periods of growth and change.

One of the strongest themes throughout Chris’s career is his willingness to use technology to improve financial operations.

At Emarsys, he helped introduce Oracle Fusion as the global accounting solution for the US market and implemented Power BI dashboards to improve visibility into business performance and key performance indicators.

Earlier, at Covance, he adopted Oracle Hyperion Smart View to improve the forecasting process and contributed to process improvement initiatives that generated significant financial savings.

At ChaCha, he implemented new tax document preparation software and developed reporting systems focused on business development, revenue tracking, expenses, cash management, and profitability.

These achievements point to a consistent professional mindset.Chris does not appear to view technology as an end in itself. He uses it to make information more accessible, improve processes, strengthen reporting, and ultimately help decision makers see the business more clearly.

That same philosophy is reflected in his work today.

After years of working inside growing companies and taking on increasingly senior finance responsibilities, Chris founded Fresh FP&A.

The move represented a shift from leading finance within individual organisations to providing financial leadership across multiple businesses.

Fresh FP&A was created around a specific need: giving small and mid sized businesses access to experienced CFO leadership without requiring the cost of a full time executive.

The model allows Chris and his team to step into businesses where financial leadership is needed and help CEOs and founders understand the financial side of their growth.

It is a natural extension of the lessons accumulated throughout his career.

The same areas he worked on inside larger organisations, budgeting, forecasting, cash flow, strategic planning, financial reporting, technology, performance measurement, and growth planning, can now be applied to businesses that may not yet have the resources for a full internal CFO function.

Chris’s own professional summary captures the purpose of this work: helping businesses turn financial complexity into clarity, cash flow confidence, and profitable growth.

Chris has also built a reputation around sharing financial knowledge beyond direct client work.

His publications and thought leadership cover subjects including financial planning and analysis, technology’s influence on accounting, uncertainty and technology, AI and the future of FP&A, and practical resources for finance professionals.

He has also been recognised as a guest presenter at the Ohio CPA Cleveland Conference and participated in the Emarsys Leadership Program.

This willingness to share knowledge adds another dimension to his work.

For Chris, financial leadership is not simply about producing reports. It is about helping people understand what those reports mean and how they can use that information to make better decisions.

The most compelling part of Chris Ortega’s professional journey is the evolution of his role.

He began by building a strong foundation in accounting and audit. He moved into financial analysis, then financial planning and analysis, and eventually into senior finance and executive leadership.

At every stage, his responsibilities moved closer to the heart of business decision making.

Today, through Fresh FP&A, he has turned that experience into a service designed around business owners who need financial leadership as they grow.

His work demonstrates why the modern CFO role is increasingly about more than accounting.

It is about understanding the business, anticipating challenges, interpreting data, improving systems, supporting strategy, managing cash flow, and helping leaders make decisions with greater confidence.

Chris Ortega has spent his career building that kind of expertise.

His journey is a testament to the value of continuous learning, practical problem solving, strategic thinking, and the ability to turn financial knowledge into meaningful business action.

From audit rooms to global finance leadership and now to building Fresh FP&A, his career has remained focused on one central question: How can finance help a business become stronger?

That question has shaped the work he does today.

And as more businesses search for sustainable growth, stronger cash flow, and greater financial clarity, Chris Ortega is proving that the right financial leadership can do much more than explain where a business has been. It can help show leaders where they can go next.

This blog post is for educational and informational purposes only. All third-party sources are credited and used in line with fair use.