Kathleen has been on both sides of the table. She’s sat inside the business making the calls, and alongside owners helping them see around corners. She has built, scaled, and sold her own companies. She has taken a struggling business from 12% operating margin to 38% in under two years while adding headcount and managing the sale of the company.

She built Canoan Strategy & CFO because that combination is rare. And because the owners who need it most are the hardest to serve with what currently exists in the market.

Big 4 Foundation

Kathleen graduated from Iowa State University with degrees in both advertising and accounting. The accounting half took her to KPMG, where she was a senior auditor working with financial and other institutions like Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Hills Bank, Bankers Trust, Frontier Leasing, and Meredith Corporation.

KPMG was where the foundation was built. Rigorous, honest, always looking beneath the surface. Auditing teaches you to ask hard questions, follow the numbers to the truth, and spot what doesn’t add up. Financial clarity is the foundation everything else is built on.

Strategy at scale, then a founder

From KPMG, Kathleen zigged when others zagged. She moved to a full-service advertising agency to flex her marketing and advertising muscles. She developed and rolled out a strategic marketing planning tool for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and built the team that helped more than 12,000 home mortgage consultants use it for media placement in their local markets. She learned early: strategy without execution is just a document.

In 2008, in the middle of an economic recession, Kathleen founded Measured Intentions, a strategy consulting business. Built from nothing, scaled to $3M, and ultimately sold it to her partner 10 years later.

Inside the business, not alongside it

In late 2023, Kathleen stepped into the President and COO role at Applied Art and Technology, a struggling creative services and technology firm. She owned the P&L, financial reporting, cost restructuring, and business development while building the finance function from the ground up.

In under 24 months: a 26-point operating margin improvement (12% to 38%), 21% revenue growth, and the full company sale. Two letters of intent in 60 days, due diligence in 45 days, assets purchase agreement finalized in under six weeks. Post-acquisition, she was appointed VP of Growth and Innovation at the acquiring company to lead the integration strategy for a combined $20M+ organization.

This is what Kathleen means when she says Canoan is built by operators. It is not a positioning statement. It’s what she’s actually done.

The practice she built, and what it taught her

Between Measured Intentions and Applied Art and Technology, Kathleen spent nearly a decade building and running a financial and strategic advisory practice. She’s worked with more than 60 business owners and senior leaders across B2B services, healthcare, technology, financial services, and manufacturing.

She developed a 7-point diagnostic framework for assessing financial and operational risk, identifying growth levers, and building transformation roadmaps. She obtained her Certified Exit Planning Advisory (CEPA) certification, deepening her expertise in enterprise value creation, M&A readiness, and exit planning.

What she believes about how owners deserve to be served

Owners who hold their business to a higher standard deserve a Strategic CFO who holds themselves to the same one. A partner who has been in the room where decisions are made. Who has built and sold companies. Who brings outside perspective that internal teams are structurally unable to provide. And who stays in the fight through whatever is required.

Outside of work

Kathleen is a mom to three teenage boys and is married to her high school sweetheart. She is a ardent supporter of the community and serves on a number of boards, including Endow Urbandale Community Foundation, Scouts of America Mid-Iowa Council Executive Board, and the Dowling Catholic High School Band Boosters. While Kathleen and her family live in the Des Moines, Iowa, area, she loves to travel and see the world. She also enjoys crocheting crazy hats for her family and friends. Ask her to see some of her creations.

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