Jackie Cahan, MBA, CPA, is a seasoned financial strategist, turnaround expert, and educator who has spent over two decades teaching professionals how to truly understand the numbers that drive business decisions. From publicly traded conglomerates to high-stakes turnarounds in venture-backed startups, Jackie has lived on the front lines of financial chaos-and helped steer countless organizations back to stability through clarity, structure, and tough-love leadership. She originally wrote this book more than twenty years ago while training executives, managers, and frontline employees across Fortune 100 companies. Since then, the lessons inside these pages have proven timeless. In her work as CFO, COO, and trusted adviser to private equity firms, family offices, and distressed companies, Jackie has seen businesses fail and families suffer-not from lack of effort or good ideas, but from one critical gap: they simply didn't know their numbers. But Jackie is more than a fixer-she's a teacher at heart. A long-serving adjunct professor of accounting and personal finance, she's trained hundreds of students and business professionals on the fundamentals of finance in plain, actionable language. Her mission is simple: help people see accounting not as intimidating or inaccessible, but as a powerful tool-one that can predict storms, prevent collapse, and point the way forward. In this book, Jackie offers a roadmap for those who don't speak "finance" fluently but know they need to. Whether you're running a business, managing a team, planning your finances, or just trying to make sense of a balance sheet, this manual will help you stop guessing and start knowing. Because when you know your numbers, you take control-of your company, your career, and your future. Jackie lives in Chicago, where she serves on nonprofit boards, teaches college-level accounting, and continues to advise businesses on strategy and transformation.
