Joe Johnston, CPA, MSA

Joe Johnston is a Consulting CFO with more than a decade of experience working with business owners to help them accomplish their personal and financial goals. Joe focuses on helping owners prepare for exit, increase revenue, profitability and liquidity with actionable strategies. 

Joe focuses on the lower middle market, with businesses ranging from $5-$100M in revenue. He worked with organizations in Manufacturing, Distribution,  Non-Profit, Cannabis (Cultivation, Distribution & Retail) and many others.

Clients that will gain the most from working with Joe are those that are interested in having an active CFO alongside their executive team and are focused on increasing revenue, profitability liquidity.  Joe leads accounting teams of Controllers, Accounting Managers and Staff to ensure that all department levels are working to accomplish strategic and tactical goals.

Joe’s Technical experiences include Implementation of Cannabis Tax practices and reporting, Financial Package Development, ASC 606 and ASC 842 implementation, Budgeting, forecasting, financial modeling and accounting process development, Loan Negotiation and M&A Due Diligence processing.

Education

San Diego State University
MSA – Accounting 07/2017
BSBA – Accounting 05/2015

Activities
Director, Beta Alpha Psi,
Director, Student Accounting Society
Student Trainer, Toastmasters International

Practice Area and Expertise
M&A Due Diligence and Quality of Earnings preparation, Manufacturing, Distribution, Retail, Cannabis, Commercial Real Estate, Construction, Service. 

Generally Serving Businesses $5-$100M revenue.

Notable Achievements

–  Increased Net Margin by an average of 5-10% across clients from Finance & Treasury Strategy.
–  Increased EBITDA and Gross Margin further through pricing and operating strategy
–  Secured over $10M of Covid era PPP Loans and Forgiveness, ERC Funds and approx. $50M of conventional and SBA lending.
–  Coordinated various software implementations including Netsuite, HubSpot and Industry Specific Systems
–  Built IP protected financial package models for clients

Professional Affiliations
Orange County Small Business Development Council – Speaker
Association for Corporate Growth – Events Sub-committee member
SDSU Beta Alpha Psi & Student Accounting Societies – Alumni
Toastmasters International – Trainer

Community Involvement
Tree San Diego – Finance Committee, Chair & Board Member
Arbor Day Foundation – Member

Personal
Outside of work, I have fun around town with my Wife, Yoshiko, work on our house and play with our dogs.  One of my favorite business books is “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. I believe that we have ultimate control to make our situations better.  One of my favorite non-business books is “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” by Mark Twain.