John Wirtz, CPA – CFO/CIO Services
Manufacturing Specialist
John has over 30 years of finance, accounting, systems, operations, and management consulting experience. Serving in both financial and IT senior management roles, he specializes in manufacturing and distribution companies up to a billion dollar in revenues in the following primary industries:
- Consumer goods, food processors, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical
- Equipment, tools, tooling, medical equipment, and robotics
- Aerospace and military fabrication and processing
- Steel, aluminum, precious metals, and plastics producers
- Textile mills, dye houses, and apparel
- Automotive, recreational, and specialized vehicle assembly
- 3PL – warehousing, controlled storage, and wholesale distribution
John has specialized experience in the process and food handling sector in a variety of financial and information system roles that focused on the operations of companies with revenues in the hundreds of millions, including:
- Nutro Products
- Pacific Seafood
- Pure Extracts
- Arbonne Cosmetics
- Hidden Villa Ranch
- Stauber Performance
- Cedarburg Pharmaceuticals
- A1 Food Distribution
As CFO, Sr. Director of Systems & Analytics, corporate controller, costing specialist, and management consultant, he accomplished the following:
Mergers & Acquisitions, Chief Financial Officer, & Chief Technology Officer
- Completed several multi-million-dollar post M&A-transactions that included:
- Integrations of accounting, financial reporting, and payroll departments.
- Staffing assessments and reorganization to improve throughput and accuracy.
- ERP implementations.
- Developed long-term forecasts, monthly department level budgets, and 13-month rolling cash flow projections.
- Performed financial due diligence for several distributors and manufacturers with revenues exceeding $100M.
- Cut monthly financial close time 80% (3 weeks to 3 days).
Operational & Information Technology Improvements
- Designed and implemented data analytics that integrated ERP transactions, sales force application data, production data, and marketing data for a $750 million manufacturer.
- Analyzed supply chain and process manufacturing to improve production tracking of yields, labor, process costs, and manufacturing overhead charges for $350 million food processor.
- Implemented picking, packing, automated sorting, and reverse-fill route staging for a $450 million wholesale distributor.
- Implemented over 50 manufacturing ERP systems, sales force automation, and warehouse management systems for mid-market and large companies.
Financial Restructuring
- Negotiated dramatic reductions (50%-70%) in accounts payable.
- Restructured credit lines to significantly reduce borrowing rate.
- Avoided bankruptcy by facilitating sale of company.
Financial Forensics & Fraud Investigations
- Cut class-action wage settlement $1.5million (50%) for $20M distributor.
- Recovered 5% of production costs for a $25M revenue manufacturer performing forensic analysis of inventory costs
- Identified a vendor and employee fraud ring in a multi-facility scheme.
John earned his CPA while with Ernst & Young and also served as senior consulting manager with Moss Adams. He holds specialty certifications in activity-based costing, project costing, inventory analysis, cost alignment, process controls, programming, database design & administration, application development, and systems implementation management. He has a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles.
