Controlling Complexity: Elevating Financial Operations in a National Field Services Leader

The Client

Our client is the national leader in roadway traffic safety services and products, operating across 50+ locations in the U.S. With a workforce trained and certified by the American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA), the company serves a wide range of customers—from state and local governments to railroads, military bases, hospitals, utilities, and commercial contractors.

Headquartered in Chicago and backed by a prominent private equity sponsor, the company is experiencing rapid growth both organically and through acquisitions. With national scale in sight, leadership recognized the need to professionalize the accounting infrastructure and implement controls to match the pace and complexity of the business.

The Challenge

As the organization evolved from a regional player to a national force, it became increasingly critical to centralize financial operations and improve accounting discipline across its multi-entity structure. The company required a Corporate Controller with the technical acumen, operational mindset, and leadership capacity to:

• Build out a scalable accounting infrastructure
• Consolidate and standardize financial reporting across dozens of branches
• Implement strong internal controls and improve audit readiness
• Guide ERP integration and finance system optimization
• Lead and grow the corporate accounting team
• Support leadership with timely cash flow visibility, KPI development, and budget analysis

This was a pivotal role—not just about managing the books, but about transforming financial operations to sustain and enable rapid growth.

Our Approach

We targeted senior accounting professionals with a mix of Big Four training and hands-on industry leadership experience—particularly those who had scaled accounting functions within complex, multi-entity, PE-backed businesses.

Key qualifications included:

• CPA certification
• 8+ years of relevant experience, ideally in construction, field services, or industrial environments
• Direct experience with GAAP compliance, consolidations, audit support, and working capital reporting
• Strong process and systems thinking—familiarity with ERP migrations and systems implementations
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence at the executive level

We focused on individuals who could hit the ground running and bring a “builder” mentality—leaders comfortable navigating ambiguity while building structure.

The Placements

We successfully placed two highly capable senior finance leaders:

Placement 1: A results-driven Director of Finance and Accounting with 7+ years of leadership experience. This candidate had a strong track record of transforming financial operations through system enhancement, process optimization, and strategic guidance. Adept at managing cross-functional teams, he brought a high level of discipline and agility to the role, along with deep experience supporting audits, compliance, and executive reporting.

Placement 2: A deeply experienced accounting leader with over 20 years of experience, including 14 years in a Big Four accounting firm. This candidate brought a global perspective to the role, having managed finance functions across public, private, and PE-backed companies. With strong skills in US GAAP and IFRS, ERP implementations (NetSuite), and team building, she provided the company with both technical depth and seasoned leadership.

The Outcome

With these two placements, the client now has a seasoned finance leadership bench to guide its next phase of scale. The new Corporate Controller(s) are leading the charge in:

• Centralizing and upgrading the accounting function
• Streamlining month-end close and financial reporting processes
• Supporting ERP integration and audit readiness
• Creating scalable processes to support future acquisitions
• Improving transparency and alignment between branch operations and corporate HQ

By embedding experienced, strategic accounting leaders, the company is positioned to maintain financial discipline while continuing its rapid expansion—backed by the confidence of its PE sponsor and operational leadership.