Senior strategic finance advisory
NorthStrata advises leaders of complex, mission-driven organizations when funding, contracts, operations, capital and institutional risk must be understood as one system.
A point of view
A financial statement tells leadership what happened. Strong finance should help leadership understand why—early enough to act.
That means looking beyond transactions and reports to the economics attached to the funding: what the contract promises, what operations must deliver, when revenue is truly earned, where accountability sits, and what risk remains with the institution.
NorthStrata brings those questions into the same conversation. Because the financial answer is only useful when it reflects how the organization actually works.
Outsource the work when it makes sense. Don't outsource the ownership.
Capacity can come from outside. Institutional knowledge, judgment and accountability cannot be handed away.
What NorthStrata solves
Engagements begin with the leadership question in front of you—not a predetermined service package or a team looking for work to fill.
Who owns the answer?
Designing how Finance should actually work: what belongs inside the organization, what can be supported from outside, where accountability sits, and how controls and decision support remain close to the people responsible for the outcome.
Organizational structure · controllership · internal controls · finance leadership · outsourced support · systems and workflowWhat does the funding require of the institution?
Reading beyond the award or contract to understand the economics, allowable uses, operating commitments, reimbursement path, billing dependencies, downstream obligations, and evidence the organization will need to defend the revenue.
Government contracts · grants · restricted funding · contract economics · reimbursement · cost allocation · audit defensibilityWhat must leadership see before it decides?
Connecting operating activity to financial consequence so leaders can see what is changing, why it matters, and what the organization can realistically carry before the answer becomes visible in a monthly statement.
Forecasting · scenarios · performance insight · financial modeling · resource allocation · growth economics · FP&ACan the institution carry what the transaction commits it to?
Shaping capital strategy around the institution—not just the financing—so structure, timing, covenants, sources, uses, operating readiness, and long-term obligations are understood as one decision.
Capital structure · tax-exempt bonds · taxable financing · NMTC · major capital projects · transaction executionEvidence of the work
NorthStrata's perspective comes from leading Finance where capital, public funding, reimbursement, regulation, operations and mission meet—and where the quality of the financial decision has consequences well beyond Finance.
Executive and advisory experience across healthcare, behavioral health, nonprofit, public-sector and institutionally complex environments.
Complex financing experience, including tax-exempt and taxable bond financing and nearly $100M across three New Markets Tax Credit transactions.
Government grants and public capital secured across contract-driven, restricted and highly accountable funding environments.
Operating revenue growth over five years through funding diversification, financial planning and revenue-cycle transformation.
Experience also includes finance transformation, major systems integration, county-administered reimbursement, government contracting, higher education and university-affiliated institutions, and executive financial advisory within large-scale health information exchange and healthcare data-infrastructure environments.
How the work moves
NorthStrata is deliberately senior-led and hands-on. The goal is not to deliver more analysis. It is to make the economics, obligations and consequences clear enough to act—and stay close enough to see the work through.
Understand the funding, contracts, operations, people and constraints behind the numbers.
Separate the visible finance question from the ownership, execution or institutional issue underneath it.
Put the economics, tradeoffs and consequences into a point of view leadership can use.
Stay engaged through execution, adjust when reality changes, and close the distance between recommendation and result.
Founder & Principal
Fay reads the room as carefully as the numbers—and knows when the two are telling different stories.
She is a healthcare finance executive and strategic advisor who has led through complex financing, public reimbursement, organizational growth, systems change and operational transformation.
Her work is practical by design. She understands the model, the contract and the accounting—but also the organization that must make all three real. She asks difficult questions without making the room defensive, makes the call when ambiguity becomes expensive, and stays close through execution.
NorthStrata is selective and founder-led. Clients work directly with Fay when the decision is consequential and the institution needs more than a technically correct answer.
A thoughtful first conversation
For organizations that need more than an accounting answer.
You do not need to have the problem perfectly framed. Start with what is at stake, where the organization feels exposed, and what a sound decision needs to protect.