About
Rebecca Warren — fractional CFO and HR director for businesses that have outgrown their systems.
Fifteen-plus years of accounting, financial operations, cash-flow planning, budgeting, financial and management reporting, people leadership, risk, and day-to-day operations — offered to established and growing owner-led businesses at a scope and budget that fits where they actually are. Specialized experience in hospitality, restaurants, vacation rentals, real estate, property management, and other property-based and service businesses.
The practice
Most owners do not have a numbers problem. They have a systems problem that shows up in the numbers.
I’m Rebecca Warren, a fractional CFO and HR director. RW Strategy Services exists to give growing businesses the kind of financial and people leadership that usually only arrives with a full-time executive hire. My background spans accounting and financial operations, cash-flow planning, budgeting, financial and management reporting, risk, and the operating side of the business — across hospitality, restaurant and hotel operations, vacation rentals, property management, and real estate and property operations, including multi-state operations. These are businesses where cash is seasonal, payroll is complicated, and money is often held on someone else’s behalf.
At that level the finance and people questions are the same question. I have managed budgets over $1 million, supported HR and payroll for workforces of up to 300, and directly led teams of up to 50 — so a staffing plan, a margin, and a cash position get looked at together rather than in separate meetings.
I came to finance through the kitchen. I hold a culinary degree, and I have served as controller for a restaurant and hotel group — so I have read a P&L for a property and also stood in the room where the food cost, the schedule, and the guest experience are decided. That combination means conversations with hospitality and restaurant owners begin with a practical understanding of how the operation runs—not just how the numbers appear on paper.
That work has covered trust accounting, cash-flow strategy, people operations, risk management, and process improvement: separating and reconciling held funds, building forecasts owners can plan against, documenting the routines a team runs every month, tightening the controls around who can move money, and removing the manual steps that quietly consume a week.
The specialization is real, but it isn’t a boundary. The same problems — books built for tax filing, late reporting, cash decisions made on instinct — show up in owner-led businesses of every kind, and the work translates.
Areas of depth
- Hospitality and hotel operations
- Restaurants
- Vacation rentals
- Real estate and property operations
- Property management
- Trust accounting
- Budgeting and management reporting
- Cash-flow strategy
- People operations
- Risk management
- Process improvement
How I work
Fix the foundation first
Forecasts and dashboards built on unreliable books are just confident guesses. The accounting has to be sound before anything sits on top of it.
Build what your team can run
Every system, report, and procedure is handed over with documentation. The goal is for the work to continue without me in the room.
Plain language, always
You should be able to explain your own numbers to a lender, a partner, or a new hire. If a report needs me to interpret it, it is the wrong report.
Small enough to matter
This is a focused practice, not a staffed firm passing you to a junior. The person who scopes the work is the person who does it.
Working together
- 01
Conversation
A short call about what is happening in the business and what is making decisions hard right now.
- 02
Scope
A written proposal covering what gets done, in what order, over what period, and at what cost.
- 03
Build
The work itself, with regular checkpoints so nothing is a surprise at the end.
- 04
Handover or continue
Documentation and training, then either a clean handover or an ongoing fractional CFO rhythm.