[Home](https://stoneforgegroup.com/) · About Who's in the room # We've sat where you're sitting. Before either of us ever advised an owner, we were the owners – building, running, and eventually selling a business of our own. Stoneforge exists because we know exactly what that seat weighs, and what it takes to put some of the weight down. The name, and where it comes from 01 The name ## Stone is a family name. Forge is a verb. **Stone** honors James's grandmother – her maiden name, before she married into the Walls family. It stands for the part of a business you inherit and protect: legacy, resilience, the belief that the past shapes us. **Forge** is the other half, and it's a verb – you forge a path. That's the work in one word: forging a way off and beyond the plateau, on purpose, with insight, discipline, and action – and the persistence to keep going when the road is steep or unclear. The mark in our logo is that path. Together they're a fair description of the work: we don't tear down what you built, and we don't leave it as we found it. 02 The revenue seat ## James Walls – Fractional Revenue Leader (Fractional CRO). I've led more than $200M of net-new revenue across thirteen countries, running commercial organizations inside large, complex, relationship-driven services businesses. I've also built, run and grown businesses of my own – Estmere among them, built, acquired, scaled, and exited at the end of 2023. That combination is the point: enterprise-grade commercial discipline, applied by someone who has carried an owner's risk and knows the pull to push harder – and exactly where it stops working. I've written the quote at midnight because no one else could, felt the phone buzz on a Sunday and the stomach drop with it, and carried a payroll on decisions that all routed back through me. So when I sit down with an owner, it isn't sympathy from a safe distance. It's recognition. Twenty-five years of it has been in complex, high-value, relationship-led B2B – building how organizations win considered work, and then doing it for myself as a founder and operator. Stoneforge brings those disciplines, right-sized, to owner-led businesses between $1–20M: the strategy, the system, and the team, built so winning work stops depending on the owner. **$200M+ of net-new revenue** led, across thirteen countries Twenty-five years in **complex, high-value, relationship-led B2B** Founder and operator: **businesses built, run and grown** – Estmere exited 2023 03 The financial seat ## Kristina Walls – Fractional CFO. Kristina has spent more than twenty years in strategic financial leadership – inside large technology businesses, and then in the founder's chair of her own financial consulting firm. She leads Stoneforge's [financial practice](https://stoneforgegroup.com/financial-leadership/): resilient financial systems, honest forecasts, and the strategic questions asked before the money moves. What clients describe first is the translation. Complexity goes in – the model, the forecast, the financing decision – and what comes back is plain language you can act on. A Master's in Economics sits underneath it; the clarity is the part you'll feel. **Forecast.** A forward view of what the numbers will do, built from what the business knows now – work already won, work likely to be won, costs already committed, and the timing of both. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#forecast) More than twenty years of **financial leadership** Founded and ran **her own consulting firm** Master's in Economics · **complexity into clarity** 04 One story ## Two seats, one method, one business at the center: yours. Stoneforge began as an advisory practice, and the years of that work taught us the pattern this whole site describes: the problem an owner names is almost never the cause underneath it. Today the work runs as two practices – [revenue leadership](https://stoneforgegroup.com/fractional-cro/) with James, [financial leadership](https://stoneforgegroup.com/financial-leadership/) with Kristina – carried by the same standing rhythm and the same rule: we fix what's broken, and we don't replace what works. We're based in Sarasota, Florida and work remote-first across the United States, with owner-led services businesses from $1–20M – the kind where the work is considered, the relationships are sacred, and the owner is still the one holding it all. If that's you, you already know why we picked this work. 05 Where to start ## The first conversation is free – and it isn't a pitch. ### The Stoneforge scorecards Two quick scorecards – one on your selling, one on your numbers – no email asked for, nothing you answer is saved. Useful whether or not we ever speak. [See Where You Sit →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/scorecards/) ### Tell us where it feels stuck, and we'll tell you plainly whether we're the right fit. And if we're not, we'll say so – and where we can, point you to someone who is. That's the standard the whole practice runs on. [Talk to Us →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/contact/) Fifty minutes, about your business, with the person who'd hold the seat.