On the first Tuesday of every month, we’ll announce a new Fearless Female, including a video interview of them sharing their business story. Want to be featured as a Fearless Female?
Contact Memberships for more details. The Fearless Female Program would not be possible without our Title Sponsor, Scotiabank.
To learn a little more about the Scotiabank Women Initiative, and why they’ve chosen to sponsor this program, see the video below.
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The Fearless Female we’re featuring for the month of May is Dorothy Zubel, Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer of The Finance Group.
Dorothy Zubel is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Finance Group, where she leads the vision to redefine the future of finance through an insights-driven, technology-enabled model.
With over 15 years of experience across accounting, finance, and systems implementation, Dorothy has held senior finance roles at small, mid-sized, and large organizations. Today, her focus has evolved from client advisory to building a modern finance firm that leverages technology, including AI, to reduce reliance on manual processes and elevate the role of finance professionals.
Dorothy is passionate about transforming finance from a reactive, compliance-driven function into a proactive, insight-led discipline that delivers clarity, confidence, and peace of mind to business leaders. She is equally committed to breaking the glass ceiling for women in finance, creating opportunities for the next generation of leaders to thrive in a more innovative and inclusive industry.
As CEO, Dorothy is focused on scaling a values-driven organization that combines people, process, and technology to deliver meaningful impact — both for clients and within the profession itself.
Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and exploring new parts of the world.
To learn more about Dorothy journey as a Fearless Female, watch the interview below (or read the written format).
Tell us more about The Finance Group and your role at the company.
The Finance Group is a fractional finance firm. We’ve been around for about four years, but I’ve been working in the fractional finance world for about 12 years.
I came from corporate finance, and when I entered the fractional finance world, I noticed it was transactional in nature. A lot of people were just posting entries and spitting out financials to business owners, and business owners really weren’t getting the insights they needed into their finances. And so, I started delivering services in the fractional finance world the way I did in corporate finance, which was finding efficiencies, cost savings, teaching leadership how to read financial statements, and that really resonated and made a difference to the business owners that I was working with.
I subsequently met my business partner, Donna Gleha, and we wanted to bring that vision of fractional finance to a larger audience, and so we launched The Finance Group four years ago.
What inspired you to pursue the finance field?
Originally, I started working really young. So, I started my working career in retail and became a manager of a retail store and realized I enjoyed business but didn’t see a future in retail. It was grueling hours. So, I went back to university, and I did my Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Toronto, which led me to accounting and finance. After graduating from university, I started working with Enterprise Rent-A-Car because I loved their promote from within culture, as well as their leadership development program.
And so, keeping with that, within about seven months of working there, I was hired into their accounting department, and that’s where my real accounting journey began, really learning the ropes, so starting from the ground up, and was able to kind of move and develop through that role as well, and ultimately loved the fact that they taught their branch leaders and branch managers the financials to each branch and how it operated and their profitability. And that allowed those branch managers to effectively manage the branches and to really drive profitability of each individual branch.
And that kind of style I loved. I thought every owner should know how they’re doing, and so that’s what ultimately served me throughout my career, is making sure there was a deep understanding of the financials for most business owners.
How did your experience at University of Toronto prepare you for a leadership role?
Yeah, so a couple things. I mean, after university and after joining Enterprise, I did do my CPA. I was fortunate enough to do my CPA when it was the CMA, and they had a rigorous two-year, like, case program where you would analyze companies and how they were doing. I found that work fascinating.
And, you know, even coming up in my career through Enterprise, I was overseeing people as I kind of grew up, grew in roles there, and then ultimately started working in other small, medium businesses where I had a team reporting to myself, and that allowed me to develop some of my leadership style. Further to that, I think everything is about learning and growth, so I also work closely with a leadership coach where I continue to foster my leadership skills and my ability to be a successful CEO.
What are some of your accomplishments so far?
First off, I think I’m proud of the path I took in terms of taking a step back from regular corporate finance into fractional finance 12 years ago. I received a lot of discouragement from that strategy, and for me it was an extremely successful journey and an extremely empowering journey. And then, you know, obviously a huge milestone for me four years ago with my business partner Donna Gleha, launching the finance group and, you know, us able, being able to grow the business today with over 40 employees and continuing to grow is a huge milestone for us, and we’re extremely proud of it.
What are some of the challenges that you have faced so far?
So, as you’re scaling a business, there’s always challenges that you encounter. You know, we’ve had challenges from not always hiring the right people, from having cash compression issues, as well as not having the correct systems processes in place, you know, as we’re scaling the business. So over the four years, you know, when those opportunities have happened, I call them opportunities, you know, we’ve worked on not dwelling on the mistakes we’ve made, but instead recognizing how that mistake was made and taking corrective action to avoid it going into the future so that we can hit the bumps in the road, not have a car crash, but keep moving and looking at those in the rear view.
If you could go back in time, would you do anything differently?
I don’t think life is about regrets. I think life is about learning and growing from the decisions that you make. And I truly think that, you know, where I am today is where I am because of the path I took.
And so, if I were wanting to change something, it would take me on a different path. And who knows where that would lead?
What are some of the tools you used to grow as a leader?
You know, in part of my journey, even early on in my career, I sat as treasurer of my daughter’s co-op school, in which case for four years, I sat there and we relocated a school, applied for funding and moved to school. So, I don’t take anything half-heartedly.
So that community involvement really helped to keep that school going. So, it’s still open today because of those efforts, because based on their financial positioning, they wouldn’t have been able to sustain that.
I’m part of a peer group through Tech Canada. That team has been fantastic in terms of helping navigate challenges and to bounce ideas from, you know, it can be lonely at the top, so having that peer group. My leadership coach has been huge. And I would say two other things.
One is I have very great partnerships in my life, and that’s not just in my business, but also with my husband, who I’ve been married to for over 25 years, and my business partner, Donna Gleha, who, you know, we very much complement each other, have a lot of respect for each other, and more importantly, we’re also friends. So, I think all those things combined helped to get us to where we are today and get me to where I am today.
How do you define success?
I define success very differently than I would have said in the beginning of my career. You know, I think when you’re young, I think you’re pursuing the financial aspects of success. I’ve realized as I’ve gotten further along in my career and in launching the finance group, I get more satisfaction or view success through the lens of how we’re impacting the businesses we serve. I love to see the growth in the individuals who work on our teams and seeing them step into those leadership positions themselves, as well as I love alignment with my family and my work. Those are the things I really see as driving success now.
What are some of the core values that you have integrated into your business?
So, the core values that drive me are the same ones we have in our business, which are trust, integrity, accountability, curiosity, and being self-directed. You know, trust being the foundation to anything. You can’t start a relationship, you can’t work in finance, as well as in any relationship without that basis of trust. Those are businesses that are entrusting you with their financial position, and so we take that very seriously. Integrity and accountability kind of go hand in hand.
You know, you have to deliver on what you’re promising to deliver on, and you must stay true to, you know, the core self and to the business values. But what I find that really drives me is curiosity. That need to constantly learn and grow as a person and those around me, so I’m constantly the sharer of information, and that’s a value that I find has served me, and I continue to see it serve me throughout my career.
What are some of the strategies that you use to recruit talent and build teams?
The same way we approach fractional finance in terms of, you know, really making it feel like a shared services or an extension of our client’s team, we take the same approach in finance. Many finance people have been lonely throughout their career because they’re usually the last ones at the top of the food chain in accounting, and people come to them for answers, and the buck stops there. So, when they join the finance group, what they get is camaraderie and collaboration, something that they’ve been hungry for in the past.
So, we do really drive change through that. We work hard to build our teams. We invest in our teams and their growth.
We spend a lot of times having people understand what drives them, what makes them tick by using Colby and EQI as metrics and training through those. So that’s how we really build a strong team environment internally, and especially as a remote team, we must put an even higher focus on that.
I’ve been blessed that my business partner, Donna Gleha, was an expert in this sector. She sat in finance recruiting for many, many years, and so she has the unique talent of going and attracting that talent and finding the talent. And then for every 70 people we might interview, it’s only one person who’s really getting hired just because of how rigorous our process is to make sure that we’re equipping our clients with the highest caliber of individuals out there.
What are some of the benefits of establishing your business in Waterloo Region?
So, I would say the benefit of the Waterloo Region is obviously there’s a high concentration of our ICP, our ideal customer profile, right? There’s a lot of small and mid-sized businesses here, and the ones that I’ve worked with are really interested in growth, really interested in reaching that national stage.
And so, I’m always excited to work with, and so is my team, to work with business owners who are really looking to grow and expand and looking for that real financial basis to do that.
What inspires you?
It’s just making a difference. It’s making a difference in the companies that we serve our people. People are huge for me. I want to make sure we’re serving our people well. You would notice if you went to our website, we’re probably about a 25% to 75% split men to women, so we have predominantly women.
Part of what we do is really breaking that glass ceiling for women in finance as well. So, a lot of our leadership training, that’s kind of been one-size-fit-all in the past for people. We make sure that that’s going to resonate with both groups and that they’re able to lead effectively going forward and have the training that actually suits their style.
Did you see any differences as a women climbing the corporate ladder?
Absolutely. When you’re a woman coming up in the ranks in finance and accounting, there was a glass ceiling that you push up against. When you’re having children, there’s always that limiting talk around executives.
And so, I’ve seen lots of women who’ve been overlooked, not because they’re not capable or not because they don’t have the same skill sets, but maybe they’re not as loud or as vocal about their accomplishments as their male counterparts, which has held them back. So, this isn’t just a journey about saying, you know, women being held back. It’s also, you know, how do we help women and empower them to show up in the way that they need to, to be recognized for the skill sets that they have.
What advice would you give to other aspiring female entrepreneurs?
There was an interesting, and I’ll bring in a book. Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Revenge of the Tipping Point, talks about the 25% representation that must be in any group for voices to be heard. What we still see is a big disparity of females on executive teams, still not even close to that 25% voice.
So even as we break through the glass ceiling and those women get invited to the table, we’re still, it’s going to take time to build up to the 25%, you know, ratio to have your voice heard. So, what I would say to women is it’s not about being like a man. I would say if you can lead through curiosity and you can have, bring those difficult questions to the table that have the leadership to thinking in different ways, then you will be able to provide change and value to those organizations that you’re serving.
You don’t have to be the loudest, you don’t have to, but you can do it through curiosity and gain the same results.
What are some of the goals that you have for the future?
Yeah, we’d like to become one of the best-known fractional finance teams out there. That’s ultimately, you know, our goal to grow this business.
We’ve grown by 50% year over year, and we intend to keep growing at that rate. But more importantly, we want to make sure we’re keeping within our purpose of bringing that insights-based finance and that real rigor and structure and using technology and being, you know, on the forefront of finance to the businesses that we’re serving. We just started launching webinars, so we’re doing webinars for people to attend.
So, you know, check us out on LinkedIn and you’ll see links to those webinars there or reach out to me. I’ll have my contact info. And also, you know, as you’ll see over the next three to four years, AI is going to be transformational in finance, and the finance group is dedicated to making sure that they’re on top of those changes in technology.
And so, if you are looking to streamline or fix your finance department or make it more scalable, I encourage you to reach out to us to see how we might be able to support you.
What financial advice would you give to other business owners?
The challenge that I see for business owners is, that they are scared digging into or know much about their financial statements then get held back from getting funding from banks because they can’t tell the story of their business through their financial reporting. And so, having a strong financial reporting is key and one that really reflects their business. It should be a decision-making report they are receiving and if it’s not what they are getting, they probably need to explore how they can get what they need.
Where can viewers find out more about your business?
Go to our website or email me directly at: Dorothy.zubel@thefinancegroup-global.com
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