Mike McKenzie — The Interim CFO
vs. Professional Service Firms
The Case for a Professional Practice
Professional service firms — AlixPartners, Alvarez & Marsal, EY, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte — are built on a leverage model. Partners sell; associates execute. Work is pushed to its lowest billable level to maximize firm margin. The result: a parade of junior staff learning on your dime, longer timelines that justify larger teams, and an institutional incentive to expand scope rather than solve problems.
Mike McKenzie's model is the structural opposite. As a solo professional practice with 4,387 engagements across four decades — including Goldman Sachs, Bankers Trust, and EY on his own résumé — he arrives as a single, senior operator with the pattern recognition of someone who has lived through 137 restructurings, turnarounds, and bankruptcies. There is no team to feed, no utilization target to hit, and no incentive to extend an engagement by a single day.
The engagement model is simple: show up as the interim CFO — a benign, unintrusive presence inside the portfolio company — assess rapidly, act decisively, and leave. Where firms measure success in months of recurring billings, McKenzie measures it in days to resolution. His billing rate is higher per hour, but total cost to the sponsor is dramatically lower because he doesn't need a team and doesn't need time to get up to speed.
For PE sponsors and private credit firms protecting a thesis under pressure, this is the difference between retaining a partner-caliber operator and renting a branded org chart. More clowns don't make for a better circus.
| Dimension | Mike McKenzie — The Interim CFO | Professional Service Firms (Alix, A&M, Big 4) |
|---|---|---|
| I. Engagement Structure | ||
| Model Type | Solo professional practice — principal does all the work Edge | Leverage model — partners sell, associates deliver |
| Team Size on Site | One senior operator | Teams of 4–15+, scaling to justify fees |
| Who Performs the Work | The person you hired Edge | Work pushed to lowest billable level; associates & analysts |
| Typical Duration | Days to weeks Edge | Months to quarters; incentivized to extend |
| Scope Discipline | Solve the problem, then leave | Expand scope to keep team utilized |
| II. Economics & Value | ||
| Billing Rate | Higher per-hour rate | Lower per-hour — but multiplied across headcount |
| Total Engagement Cost | Dramatically lower total spend Edge | Higher total cost; team × months × blended rate |
| Revenue Incentive | None — no team to feed, no utilization targets | Institutional pressure to sell follow-on work |
| Value Orientation | Maximize client value per day Edge | Maximize firm revenue per engagement |
| III. Experience & Judgment | ||
| Seniority of Delivery | 40+ years; Goldman, Bankers Trust, EY, Accenture Edge | Junior staff under partner supervision |
| Pattern Recognition | 4,387 engagements; 137 restructurings/turnarounds | Distributed across firm; no single practitioner owns it |
| Domain Fluency | Finance, ops, accounting, legal, stakeholder relations | Siloed by practice group; cross-functional gaps |
| Speed to Insight | Credible IC assessment in ~2 weeks Edge | Weeks of discovery before recommendations |
| IV. Confidentiality & Risk | ||
| Information Exposure | Single point of contact — minimal leakage Edge | Larger team = larger attack surface for leaks |
| Privilege Protection | Retained by client's law firm when privilege required | Difficult to structure under attorney-client privilege |
| Error Rate | Principal accountability; single-owner QC | More hands = higher error risk in time & quality |
| Conflict of Interest | No cross-selling agenda; no other clients at same portco | Firm may serve multiple parties in same transaction |
| V. Optics & Positioning | ||
| How You Arrive | Benign, unintrusive interim CFO Edge | Branded task force signals distress to employees & vendors |
| Perceived Role | Interim PE Partner — trusted insider | Outside consultants — often resisted by management |
| Management Disruption | Minimal — works within existing org | High — parallel workstreams, data demands, meetings |
| Signal to Lenders / Board | Quiet, decisive expertise | Escalation signal; can spook counterparties |
| VI. Alignment with PE Sponsors | ||
| Incentive Alignment | 100% client-aligned; no firm overhead to service Edge | Firm P&L takes priority over client outcome |
| Communication | Direct to sponsor — no layers of project management | Filtered through engagement managers & directors |
| Accountability | One person; nowhere to hide Edge | Diffused across team; easy to deflect blame |
| Relationship Continuity | Same person from first call to last day | Staff rotate off; partner attention declines post-sale |