Karl Ohlemann
A 25+ year founder-operator and CFO leading KSIG engagements across liquidity, turnaround, FP&A, capital, finance systems, construction finance, and ownership transition.
View Karl’s profile →Interim & Fractional CFO · Founder-Led & PE-Backed Companies
Hands-on executive finance leadership for companies navigating growth, turnaround, liquidity pressure, capital needs, systems transformation, and ownership transition.
Institutional-grade financial leadership. Founder-accessible engagement.
25+ years as a founder-operator and finance executive · $100M+ enterprise experience · teams of 200+ · construction and project-finance depth across capital, bonding, lender readiness, margin, systems, and exit preparation. Institutional rigor without the cost and commitment of a full-time executive hire.
Sector Depth · Construction & Infrastructure
Fractional CFO support for construction, AEC, specialty trade, broadband infrastructure, and related businesses where project economics and cash conversion have to stay connected.
Explore Construction & Infrastructure CFO Services →What We Do
Full-function CFO leadership across the situations that determine outcomes—scoped around the business mandate, not a packaged advisory program.
Own the finance seat through leadership transition, growth, vacancy, or sponsor-driven change—building the function and running it week to week.
Stabilize the business when margin, cash, lender confidence, or the operating plan no longer supports the decisions being made.
Prepare the financials, operating model, and management evidence required to withstand diligence and support a defensible transaction value.
Translate the investment thesis into operating priorities, measurable performance, clear variance explanations, and accountable execution.
Strengthen the economics and operating discipline that support more durable earnings and a more credible enterprise value.
Apply AI and automation to forecasting, reporting, cash management, financial analysis, and operating workflows. Select and deploy finance systems with practical controls, integration depth, and adoption built into the operating model.
Selective interim or fractional CEO leadership is also available where the mandate requires broader operating ownership through transformation, transition, turnaround, or a period of founder support.
Supporting Executive Infrastructure
When financial strategy intersects with growth, KSIG can also help owners clarify market positioning, executive messaging, digital presence, sales materials, and the communication layer around capital, growth, or ownership transition.
This is not agency work. It is a supporting layer for founder-led and PE-backed companies preparing for lenders, investors, buyers, or the next stage of professionalization—where an unclear website, inconsistent materials, or weak executive narrative can make a capable business look less mature than its underlying performance.
Helping the business look as institutional as the financials.
Full Scope
The six situations above are how most engagements start. Underneath them, the functional coverage runs the full enterprise-finance stack — reviewed end to end, not scoped to a single specialty.
Reviewed as a full breadth assessment across all 13 domains — a structured executive self-assessment, not a third-party certification. Full Capability Review →
When KSIG Steps In
KSIG routinely enters when experienced finance leadership is needed now. The immediate issue may be narrow; the work builds the visibility, systems, and accountability required for the business to move forward.
How It Works
Every engagement starts with financial truth. What follows depends on the immediate risk, the operating mandate, and how quickly the company needs to move.
Recent CFO Mandate · Turnaround + Institutional Readiness
At Broadband Development Group, Karl entered a multi-state infrastructure and construction business that needed financial visibility, operating discipline, lender credibility, and a finance function capable of supporting growth.
Founder Track Record · 13-Year Scale & Exit Discipline
At Macadam Floor & Design, Karl founded and scaled a flooring and design company from a standing start to Washington State's #2 market position within seven years, building the finance function alongside the operating business the entire way.
Construction and infrastructure finance depth carries across ventures: job costing, WIP and percentage-of-completion accounting, retainage, surety and bonding, prevailing-wage administration, and project-level P&L across operating environments including Nils Bernard (2021–2025) and Broadband Development Group.
The Operator
Karl Ohlemann · Principal | Interim & Fractional CEO/CFO
Karl is a 25+ year founder-operator and CFO. His record includes part-ownership of a Portland/Seattle enterprise generating $100M+ in annual revenue, opening and building its Seattle market, later acquiring his partners’ interests, scaling the operation to $30M+ in annual revenue, leading teams of 200+, raising growth capital, evaluating private-equity acquisitions, and building and scaling businesses from $0 that collectively generated more than $200M in cumulative revenue. He also built and led the finance departments and operating systems required to support that scale.
Most recently, as CFO of Broadband Development Group, he helped lead a rapid financial turnaround and strengthen profitability during a period of high growth.
Across the operating companies he has built and led, Karl has also developed and managed brands, websites, market positioning, digital content, sales collateral, and executive communications—always as part of the broader operating system, not as a separate agency discipline.
He also founded and operates BlackBoxx.ai, where he architects and pressure-tests governed multi-agent systems, AI-enabled workflows, automation, and finance technology. That hands-on work informs KSIG engagements involving systems selection, permissions, auditability, integration, human review, and adoption.
"I'm a strategist and problem solver at my core. Complex situations with high stakes and no clear playbook — that's where I do my best work."
— Karl Ohlemann, Principal · Interim & Fractional CEO/CFOCredentials
Our Team
KSIG pairs principal-led executive finance work with focused research, analysis, modeling, and communication support.
A 25+ year founder-operator and CFO leading KSIG engagements across liquidity, turnaround, FP&A, capital, finance systems, construction finance, and ownership transition.
View Karl’s profile →A University of Washington Foster School of Business student supporting supervised financial analysis, research, model preparation, client materials, and special projects. Sydney also contributes research-backed content for KSIG Insights and LinkedIn.
View Sydney’s profile →The Network
"KSIG doesn't try to do everything internally. We do what we're exceptional at — and we know who to bring in for the rest."
KSIG maintains relationships across M&A, capital, legal, accounting, technology, operations, and executive leadership, and can coordinate additional expertise when the situation requires it.
These are independent third-party specialists, engaged directly by the client. Most engagements never need them — but when one does, the relationships are already in place.
M&A advisory, growth capital, debt structuring, and private equity and family office relationships — independent firms, engaged directly by the client when a transaction or raise is genuinely in front of them.
Business and commercial counsel, contract structuring, employment and equity, regulatory matters, disputes, and transaction documentation through independent law firms. Karl remains actively involved in commercial strategy, issue assessment, and outside-counsel coordination.
Controller and accounting depth, tax strategy and compliance, audit preparation, construction and job-cost accounting, and additional fractional finance capacity when scope demands it.
Karl leads finance-system, AI-workflow, automation, and technology-governance work directly where appropriate, with implementation specialists added when needed—designed around permissions, auditability, integration, human review, and adoption.
Operational leadership, HR and organizational design, supply chain, process optimization, and executive coaching — including support that reduces owner and operator dependency.
Personal financial planning, wealth management, estate strategy, and trust structuring for founders and executives following a transaction — provided by independent third-party advisory firms under their own agreements and regulatory obligations.
The Name
"Built on something that lasts."
KSIG carries a deliberate legacy. Karl Siegmar Ohlemann and his father Siegmar Karl Ohlemann — two names, mirrored across a generation. His father escaped East Germany at 14, became the fastest 800m runner in North America, won Silver at the Pan American Games, and carried Canada's closing ceremony flag at the 1960 Rome Olympics.
He trained under Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon alongside a young Phil Knight, and remained a lifelong friend of both men. He is named in Bowerman and the Men of Oregon — the book that documents the founding of Nike.
Two generations. One belief — the people who build lasting things do it through will, over time, with no guarantee of an easy path.
Working Together
KSIG works nationwide with a limited number of founder-led and PE-backed companies where hands-on interim or fractional CEO/CFO leadership can materially improve visibility, liquidity, reporting, sponsor accountability, capital readiness, systems, or transaction preparation—without adding a full-time executive.