# Patricia Doon

Patricia Doon is an interim CFO who works with nonprofits and independent schools, strengthening financial systems, supporting staff, and preparing organizations for their next permanent finance leader.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/patricia-doon/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patriciadoon
- LinkedIn followers: 2,542
- Topics: leadership
- Based on 12 dated posts, latest 2026-10-05

## Summary

Most useful for interim CFO services and commentary on nonprofit and independent school finance transitions.

- Best for: Nonprofits or independent schools needing interim finance leadership during a transition.
- Not for: Paid sponsored posts, product endorsements, or vendor collaborations for finance software.
- Check first: Confirm engagement lengths, fees, availability, references, and audience demographics.

### Takeaways

- Interim leadership is usually a planned handoff, not a rescue.
- An engagement is judged by what is left behind.
- The finance seat is a people job.

## Main ideas

- **Interim leadership is usually a planned handoff, not a rescue**: Doon argues against the common assumption that an interim leader signals something has gone wrong, saying the opposite is often true. The organizations that call have boards and executives who recognize they need seasoned financial leadership now rather than after a search finishes, because momentum matters. The role is meant to bring clarity where there is uncertainty, not just keep the lights on.
- **An engagement is judged by what is left behind**: Doon defines the work by its end state: an organization stronger than when the engagement began, systems that outlast the interim, staff who have been coached, and a permanent hire able to step in with confidence. Length of stay is not the measure; becoming less necessary over time is the intended result, not a failure.
- **The finance seat is a people job**: Doon treats compensation design, performance conversations, succession planning, and the conversations nobody else wants to have as core to the modern CFO/COO role, not a separate HR matter, calling this "the work within the work." Their training includes a coaching certification from the Gestalt International Study Center and the SHRM-SCP credential. The same focus on people appears in the interim work, where developing staff is part of what an engagement is meant to leave behind.
- **Interim work as a chosen career, not a fallback**: Doon describes leaving a permanent CFO role for a gap year, then taking one short-term engagement after another when hiring froze in 2020 and organizations still needed help with uncertainty, remote operations, and new ways of working. There was no plan beyond the work in front of them. They say this became the work they were meant to do: bringing a full career's experience to nonprofits and independent schools for exactly the season they need it.
- **Explaining the interim CFO role to the schools that use it**: Doon contributes the perspective to the sector's own audience, writing for NBOA, the association serving independent school business officers. The argument in that piece is not summarized here because the article itself is not included in the posts here, but the post shows Doon addressing school leaders directly about what an interim CFO brings to a school, rather than only describing the work to a general audience.

## Work to read

- [Seven years on from a permanent CFO role: how the interim path started](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/patriciadoon_gapyear-nonprofit-interimleadership-activity-7486274184663404545-zTre)
- [Starting a new interim CFO engagement — and why organizations call](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/patriciadoon_this-week-i-began-a-new-interim-cfo-engagement-activity-7478715169917825024-dYdm)
- [A published perspective for school business officers](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/patriciadoon_reading-the-room-what-an-interim-cfo-brings-activity-7498620416673046531-9PPF)
- [SHRM-SCP certification and the people side of the finance seat](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/patriciadoon_hr-cfo-interimexecutiveleadership-activity-7472717024633323520-2k6g)

## Brand relationships

- **NBOA** (mention)
- **SHRM** (mention)
- **Gestalt International Study Center** (mention)

## Partnerships

No partnership or sponsorship offer appears in Patricia Doon’s posts here. The four LinkedIn posts share their commentary on interim CFO work in nonprofits and independent schools, plus a note that NBOA invited them to contribute a perspective piece. None describes sponsored posts, brand collaborations, advertising formats, rate terms or a partnership inquiry process. NBOA is the only outside organization named in a promotional-sounding context, and the post frames its invitation as a contribution of written perspective, not a paid partnership. Buyers considering an interim CFO engagement will find no published creator-side package to evaluate; they should ask Doon directly whether they accept paid collaborations and what terms apply.

## Alternatives

- Sarah Horowitz: When the board, not the finance function, needs attention. Horowitz writes about directors who can see financial performance, capital allocation, risk and succession but not whether the organization has the capacity to deliver everything it has committed to. They also write about executive teams that respond to a changed market by adding approvals, oversight and restructuring layers to systems built for quieter conditions. If the school or nonprofit is carrying several commitments at once — a capital project, a new finance or ERP system, a restructure — and the finance committee learns about strain from missed milestones rather than early indicators, that diagnosis is the closer match. Horowitz also writes from an HR and executive-leadership position, addressing the people side of a transition.
- Thomas Ward: When the vacancy extends beyond finance. Ward describes serving as Interim Executive Director of the Center for Creative Living, running the day-to-day operation of a nonprofit: finances and operational decisions alongside volunteers, community partnerships, funding and making things work on limited resources. Another post covers CMMC and NIST 800-171 compliance, gap assessments, system security plans and fractional CISO work, drawing on more than 26 years in enterprise IT, cybersecurity and business leadership. If the transition is an executive director vacancy with finance oversight folded into it, or if the underlying concern is data protection and compliance rather than reporting, Ward’s documented ground is closer than a finance-only specialist’s.
- David Mosscrop: When the real constraint is operational rather than financial. Mosscrop writes as an interim supply chain and operations director across manufacturing, distribution, logistics and multi-site service businesses, covering planning and IBP, working capital, procurement, network design, post-acquisition integration and stabilising operations ahead of a sale. Named projects include Evergreen Garden Care, Selecta, Fitrite, Northgate, Senior Bird Bellows and Propelair. There is also a different engagement shape: Mosscrop joined Your Virtual Board as an associate, in a collective of specialists assembled around one agreed mission — scaling up, preparing for exit, increasing business value, reducing owner dependency or restoring operational control — rather than one person on one brief.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/