Nice to Meet You

NICE TO MEET YOU

I'm Bryan Wierson

I was raised in a family of entrepreneurs, and I grew up dreaming of one day becoming a business owner. I chose to study finance in college and later earned a Masters in Accountancy. I wasn't particularly passionate about numbers, but I knew that if I wanted to run a company, I needed to be able to speak the language of business. I started a career in accounting, running a few small businesses on the side while looking for my opportunity to go full-time as my own boss.

In the spring of 2017, while working as an auditor at a CPA firm, I received a marketing email for a product that promised to help facilitate Virtual and Fractional CFO services. The product was quickly forgotten, but the Virtual/Fractional CFO concept stuck with me. I had never heard those terms before.

There were parts of auditing I loved. My clients were medium-sized local businesses still being run by passionate founders and their families. I had the opportunity to interact with successful entrepreneurs and members of management,  examining the strategies and procedures they used to build successful companies. Still, there was an element missing that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

That fall, I decided that it was time to go out on my own. I called my good friend, Adrian Palacios, for encouragement. A fellow accountant and lifelong entrepreneur, Adrian loved the Fractional CFO concept and urged me to take the leap. I figured that I could survive on tax preparation and accounting services while I worked on finding Fractional CFO clients. The month before I was set to open my office, I got a call from Adrian. He had met a local attorney at a Christmas party who desperately needed help with his firm’s finances. It was a perfect match for the Fractional CFO concept. We decided to team up to serve our first CFO client. I quickly realized exactly what had been missing in my audit experience. In our CFO work, we not only dealt with procedures, strategy, and financial analysis. We became part of the entrepreneurial journey. We helped the firm owner decide what to do, but the most significant impact came in HOW we reached conclusions. Over time, we saw a change in MINDSET that allowed the firm owner to go from the brink of bankruptcy to incredible success.

At the beginning of 2023, Adrian and I had a long conversation about what we had learned in our first 5 years as Fractional CFOs. We discussed every aspect of the services we had offered up to that point. We talked through our favorite clients and our most difficult, the industries we enjoyed and those we would never work in again, and the times we made our most meaningful contributions. We decided to narrow the firm's focus in order to deliver our most impactful services to the clients we understand best. We additionally decided to pursue separate, complimentary projects based on our individual strengths.

For me, that project was obvious. I knew I wanted to share what I had learned, and I knew who I wanted to work with.

Consilium CFO was born

I created Consilium CFO to provide owner-focused coaching and training programs to single-owner law firms. I deeply understand the challenges of running a professional service firm, and I have come to learn the unique opportunities and threats facing attorneys as they balance responsibilities to their profession, their business, their family, and themselves. Ultimately, Consilium CFO is based on two core belief. First, a law firm really can and should be designed to serve the goals, aspirations, and values of its owner. Second, every law firm owner can develop the mindset necessary to create that firm.

More About Bryan

Bryan has a degree in Finance from the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business and a Master’s degree in Accountancy from the University of Texas at El Paso. He has been a CPA since 2013. Bryan started his accounting career in cost accounting at a multi-national corporation and later worked in audit at a large local CPA firm. 

Since the beginning of 2018, he has provided tax and Fractional CFO services to law firms, medical practices, veterinarians, chiropractors, import/export companies, franchisees, farmers, food distributors, restaurants, hotels, oil and gas contractors, construction contractors, trucking companies, and retail establishments.

Bryan lives in El Paso, Texas with his wife, Melanie, and their children, Caleb and Abigail. He devotes most of his free time to coaching his son’s baseball team and watching his daughter’s ballet recitals. He is a wine enthusiast and hopes to complete a wine sommelier certification in the near future.