Financial Controller

Job Description

Job Description

The Work That Matters

Wilson Kester exists to empower families through the hardest transitions of their lives. Divorce, custody, paternity, PPOs, adoption. The work matters because the families matter, and the families matter because the children matter. The Controller's job is to make sure the firm's financial house holds up so that work can scale across Michigan without losing the standard that built it.

• The monthly close. Books closed by Day 10. Reporting package on the CEO's and Fractional CFO's desks the same day.

• Trust integrity at 100% (MRPC 1.15 compliance at 100%) and trust coverage on WIP at 95% or better, weekly.

• The Monday cashflow meeting. You own it. You prepare it. You present it.

• The 13-week rolling cashflow forecast (expenses within 5%, revenue within 10%) and the 12-month strategic forecast.

• The Billing and Collections team. Two specialists who need a manager. You're it. You develop them.

• Financial analysis that lets a growing firm scale with margin discipline intact: utilization, ROI, SKU cost models. Real work that drives real decisions, not reports that sit in a folder.

• 7+ years of progressive accounting or finance leadership experience.

• Prior Controller or senior accounting leadership role.

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance. CPA or CMA strongly preferred.

• Auditor's instinct. You see what doesn't reconcile, you ask why, you document the fix.

• Calm, grounded confidence. Clear communicator. Systems thinker.

• You see finance as an enabler, not a gatekeeper.

• Genuinely interested in developing direct reports.

• Law firm experience and working knowledge of attorney trust accounting (MRPC 1.15, IOLTA, three-way reconciliation) is strongly preferred.

• Treats 100% client confidentiality as a professional standard, not a checkbox.

• Not looking for a back-office Controller seat where the work is a thousand reconciliations and the seat never meets leadership.

• Not a gatekeeper of forms.

• Not the compliance cop.

• Not someone who wants to displace or compete with the Fractional CFO.

• Not someone who treats confidentiality as a checkbox.

This is an A-Player seat. The standard is leadership-grade confidence in the numbers at all times.

The Controller works directly with the CEO and Fractional CFO and sits in the firm's financial decision-making. The Controller will hire and develop the team, design the systems, write the SOPs, build the analytical work that lets the firm scale, and shape how a growing family law firm runs its money.

For the right person, this is the most consequential financial role at this stage of a career.

This firm exists to empower families through the hardest moments of their lives. The team that does that work needs a financial house that holds. That is the Controller's contribution. It is real, measurable, and it scales.

The firm operates under one word: empowering. Clients. Team. The work itself.

• Base Salary: $115,000 to $135,000, commensurate with experience.

• Target Incentive: $11,500 per year, paid quarterly against a four-gate scorecard.

• Stretch Incentive: Additional $5,750 at year-end when the firm wins all four quarters and AR is materially worked down.

• Total Target Compensation: $126,500 to $146,500. Stretch Total: $132,250 to $152,250.

• Benefits per firm-standard package.

• Hybrid work arrangement. The seat manages a hybrid Billing and Collections team.