Strategic Finance · Founders · PE-Backed · Healthcare · Family Offices

Strategic finance leadership for the ambitious.

Institutional discipline. Operator results. Steady hands.

Vigil Rock Partners stands watch over the financial goals and aspirations of your business, so you can stay focused on what matters most. Vigilant. Steady. Embedded inside your team.

Start with a Performance Diagnostic See how we work →

01.

Why Vigil Rock

You came to build, to lead, to serve. Not to be the CFO of your own business.

But the financial side never stops asking for attention. Cash flow, capital allocation, banking, loans and covenants, M&A, reporting — each one a full-time job layered on top of the one you actually came to do. That's why Vigil Rock Partners exists. We watch out for our partners — keep them steady, keep them on track — so they can stay focused on what matters most. Their purpose. Their clients and patients. Their team. The work that called them here in the first place.

02.

About

Built on institutional discipline. In service of owner-led businesses.

Sarmad Gilani

CPA · MBA · Founder, Vigil Rock Partners

Sarmad Gilani is the Founder of Vigil Rock Partners. He founded the firm to bring institutional-grade financial leadership to founder-led and growing businesses.

Over a fifteen-year career spanning private equity, investment management, mergers and acquisitions, and executive leadership, Sarmad has advised investors, boards, and business owners on growth, performance, and value creation. Most recently, he served as Chief Financial Officer and Head of Operations at Waterstone Human Capital. Earlier, he held leadership roles at Brookfield Asset Management and PwC Canada.

Today, he works with founder-led and owner-operated businesses seeking the financial discipline, strategic insight, and operational rigor needed to scale with confidence and build long-term enterprise value.

Sarmad is a CPA, holds an MBA in Financial Management, and was recognized with the Emerging CPA Leader Award in 2022.

03.

What we do

Three integrated practices. Each can stand alone. Most engagements begin with the diagnostic.

Practice One

Office of the CFO

Fractional Chief Financial Officer

Senior financial leadership for owners and founders running businesses too busy or complex for a bookkeeper or controller, and too lean for a full-time CFO. We take ownership of:

Cash, capital allocation, and working capital management
Banking, lending, and covenant management
Operational performance through a financial lens — pricing, mix, productivity, vendor spend
Monitoring and reporting across the business or portfolio
Board-grade reporting and KPI design
Growth, M&A, integration, and exit / transition preparation

Practice Two

Performance & Diligence

The Performance Diagnostic

A time-focused diagnostic that surfaces where money is leaking, where reporting is broken, and where margin is sitting in plain sight. Coverage spans accounting systems and processes, accounts receivable aging, cash flow patterns, expense integrity, tax planning gaps, payroll setup, vendor concentration, and reporting cadence — and the operational drivers behind each.

Deliverable: a prioritized opportunity roadmap with quantified upside.

Complimentary · No obligation

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Practice Three

Managed Accounting

Outsourced Bookkeeping and Controllership

Clean, current books delivered through a vetted partner under Vigil Rock oversight, built on a modern stack with AI-augmented workflows for accuracy and speed. PIPEDA-compliant data handling and enterprise-grade security baked in by design.

For owners trying to manage their own books, or with bookkeeping they cannot fully trust, this replaces it with a premium-managed service at a comparable price point — fully integrated with the CFO and diagnostic work above.

04.

Who we serve

We partner with the ambitious — builders, not maintainers.

01 Ambitious founders and owner-operators $2M–$50M revenue, committed to building something meaningful
02 PE-backed portfolio companies Growth, integration, or transition mandates
03 Dental and healthcare practice owners Single and multi-location practices with ambition to scale or transition
04 Single and multi-family offices Outsourced finance leadership for the office and embedded CFO support across the portfolio. Operational, not investment-advisory.

When Vigil Rock adds the most value

When the work has outgrown your bookkeeper or controller.
When your team is solid on day-to-day execution but capacity has been swallowed by it.
When you're preparing for a transaction, transition, or step-change in scale.
When you want a senior finance partner inside the tent — not another vendor outside it.

05.

Why this is different

Four things you will not find in a typical fractional CFO engagement.

Institutional discipline at a mid-market scale

Most fractional CFOs come up through bookkeeping and tax. We came up through institutional capital markets, private funds, M&A advisory, and PE-backed operating leadership. We bring that caliber of discipline to businesses that don't usually have access to it.

ii.

Healthcare in the foundation

A Bachelor of Health Sciences, formative finance and commercial roles across Baxter, Eli Lilly, and Sunnybrook, and deep ongoing exposure to clinical practices mean we speak the language of healthcare from the first conversation.

iii.

Modern, AI-augmented, and secure

Led and implemented AI and automation initiatives in the industry that have eliminated tens of thousands of hours of low-value finance work at the institutional level. We bring that toolkit and the same data security standards down to the mid-market.

iv.

Operator, not advisor

We sit inside your team, own the numbers, and stay engaged through implementation. The brief does not end when the report is delivered.

06.

The Performance Diagnostic

Start with a complimentary diagnostic.

A structured assessment of your books, cash flow, and financial reporting — at no cost and no obligation for qualifying practices and businesses.

i. Independent assessment of where your finances stand today
ii. Prioritized list of opportunities to improve profitability and reduce risk
iii. Quantified upside, typically 3–10% of annual revenue
iv. A clear view of what working together would look like, if there is a fit

Whether we engage further is your call. The diagnostic is yours regardless.

Request your diagnostic

Tell us a little about your practice or business. We respond within two business days.

Name

Phone

Practice or business name

Annual revenue / collections

What's prompting this conversation?

Confidential. We respond within two business days.