The people behind CFOrte
CFOrte was founded by practitioners who have spent their careers inside the financial operations of growing businesses. Not advising from the outside, but building the systems, controls, and reporting infrastructure these businesses run on. Between us, we bring together audit, FP&A, tax, governance, and technology, applied directly to the businesses we work with.
Why CFOrte exists
The gap we kept seeing
We kept working with businesses that had good accountants, good CA firms, and sometimes even a Tally or ERP system, and still could not answer basic questions about their cash, their margins, or their working capital. The problem was never the data. It was the layer between the data and the decision.
Why we built CFOrte
CFOrte was built to be that layer. Not a CA firm. Not a full-time CFO. Something in between, practitioners who go into your systems, pull out what actually matters, and help you and your team act on it every week.
The Founding Team
Hrishikesan S, CA
Founder
Seven years in financial operations, including five years inside a Rs 1,500 Cr agri-biotech company. Hrishi builds financial infrastructure for growing businesses from the ground up, streamlining processes, establishing control environments, and deploying automation across ERPs and BI tools to turn raw data into decisions. He works directly with most CFOrte clients and is equally at ease in a boardroom conversation about margins as he is inside the systems that produce those numbers.
Karthik Narayan, FCA
Co-founder
Karthik started at PwC Chennai on statutory audits of listed entities and group audits under IFRS, then moved to the World Bank’s South Asia Financial Management Unit in New Delhi, contributing to research on public finance reforms across Indian states. Since 2020, he independently advises businesses on GST litigation and compliance. His range spans a Big Four audit room, multilateral policy, and the courtroom, and that breadth shapes how CFOrte approaches internal audits and risk consulting.
CA P. Shanmugam, FCA, ACS
Co-founder
Shanmugam brings fourteen years of post-qualification experience in internal audit, direct tax advisory, and Company Law. His long association with S. Krishnamoorthy and Co., one of Coimbatore’s leading CA firms, gave him an unusually broad view of how businesses across manufacturing, textiles, engineering, and services operate, where controls break down, and where risk tends to hide. His dual qualification as a Company Secretary adds a governance and regulatory lens that most audit practitioners do not carry. At CFOrte, he connects what is happening on the ground in your operations to what it means from a compliance, tax, and governance standpoint.
CA C. Karthikeyan, FCA
Partner
Karthikeyan brings over a decade of experience in statutory audit, direct taxation, and regulatory compliance. He began his career at S. Krishnamoorthy and Co., Coimbatore, conducting trust audits and internal audits across diverse industries. His specialisation sits at the intersection of direct tax advisory and charitable trust compliance, a niche that demands both technical depth and careful regulatory navigation. He also brings hands-on experience with RTA and Depository Participant audits, adding a working understanding of the capital markets ecosystem. At CFOrte, he adds a layer of assurance and tax intelligence, particularly useful for business groups with trust structures, holding entities, or compliance obligations that go beyond routine filing.
What makes us different from a CA firm
We do not do compliance
No GST filing, no statutory audit, no tax returns. Your CA firm handles all of that. We work on the layer above, the decisions your numbers should be helping you make every week.
We work inside your systems
We go into Tally, your ERP, your spreadsheets. We do not sit outside and ask for reports. We find out what is actually in there and build something your team can use.
We stay involved weekly
We are not a one-time engagement. Our value shows up over months, through a rhythm of weekly visibility and monthly reviews that keep leadership ahead of problems instead of reacting to them.
Want to see how we work before committing to anything?
Book a 30 minute diagnostic call. We will look at your situation honestly and tell you whether we are the right fit, and if we are not, who is.