Ten years ago, several executives admired the view from a balcony in Panama as they daydreamed about their next career moves. Their dream made its way from the back of a cocktail napkin to the Inc. 5000.
The concept behind SynFiny Advisors didn’t start with a multipage business plan or a major boardroom presentation. Instead, it began with a simple question scribbled on the back of a napkin: What if a business advisory firm only gave guidance in areas where they had the depth and breadth of experience and expertise?
Although this seemed like a solid foundation on which to build a firm, the concept (like so many other cocktail-napkin ideas) was set aside for another day. It wasn’t until five years later, in 2014, that the executives revisited their notes and began refining and formulating how they would realize their dream.
With decades of experience revitalizing some of the world’s most well-known companies, Jeff Wuest and Graham Cater founded SynFiny Advisors. The firm’s name, an amalgam of “symphony” and “financial,” reflects the delicate balance between the functional elements of a business and the proper coordination of processes. The founders had both spent decades in financial planning and analysis, and they’d seen firsthand what can happen when a business’s financial operations work in concert. The result is a symphony that benefits the entire organization.
Since its launch in 2014, SynFiny Advisors has lived its fundamental principle, guiding its clients only in the areas where its advisors have extensive, proven experience. All the firm’s advisors are seasoned experts with decades of successful results in corporate America.
While other consulting firms tend to backfill with loads of young professionals, the SynFiny team has grown from a team of two to an organization with over 100 hand-selected advisors, all with extensive knowledge and experience running and refining businesses. That’s not the only difference. SynFiny’s service offerings have evolved with its team. Only when someone comes on board with the relevant experience and expertise does the firm add a new service.
Today, SynFiny Advisors maintains its financial planning and analysis practice, but that’s no longer all the firm offers. Businesses can also work with advisors on source-to-pay, strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, risk management, supply chain management, process improvement, accounting transformation, information technology, C-suite services, and other services. In each of these areas, there are advisors who are not only knowledgeable, but also have the track record to back up the years of hands-on experience. These advisors know how to reinvent companies to achieve better results because they’ve done it.
Whereas other advisory firms may claim experience, every member of SynFiny’s team has truly been there, done that, and has the numbers to prove it. Building on this simple but singular concept, SynFiny has established itself not only as one of the leading advisory in the country, but also as one of the fastest-growing businesses.
SynFiny landed on the Inc. 5000 list for the first time in 2019, and it didn’t just barely make the cut. The firm is listed at No. 347 of all the companies on the list, and is ranked No. 22 among business service providers, No. 8 in Ohio, and No. 2 in the Greater Cincinnati area.
The data behind these rankings is a three-year growth rate of 1,326% and 2018 revenue of $2.7 million. It wasn’t just the numbers that earned the firm its ranking. Ultimately, it was that simple question scribbled on a cocktail napkin some 10 years ago.
A firm commitment to that vision and plan, plus a solid set of core values, propelled SynFiny’s rank-worthy growth. Naturally, there’s been a lot of hard work by the firm’s advisors, but the company wouldn’t be on Inc. 5000’s list if the founding partners didn’t remain true to their vision.
“This is such a great honor. It recognizes both the tremendous effort by our advisors and the results they’ve achieved for our clients,” said CEO and founding partner Jeff Wuest. “It confirms the value of our experience-based consulting model. I am very proud of SynFiny and all that our team has accomplished. More importantly, I am proud of the impact we’ve had on so many businesses.”
As important as being high on the Inc. 5000 list is to SynFiny Advisors, the firm’s success story is much more than another tale of corporate executives excelling in their areas of expertise. It’s a testament to dreams written on scraps of paper and a recognition that those ideas can become realities. Even if they sit unnoticed for years, they can eventually lead to enormously successful endeavors. And, no matter how simple they may be, the right values coupled with a strong commitment can produce impressive results. A values-based commitment sets an organization apart.
“The dream to always bring a depth of experience, coupled with an accumulation of talent and our commitment to living our founding principles are what make SynFiny unique. These are things our competition can’t replicate,” said Wuest. “They’ve driven the firm’s success so far and point to even bigger things to come. The eyes of experience do indeed make a huge difference.”
