Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach and host of The Scaling Executive Podcast, sat down with Jennifer Barnes, founder and CEO of Optima Office, to examine how she built two successful companies in the financial and HR consulting space — and why her 85–86% employee retention rate across 108 people may be the most defensible competitive advantage in her industry.
This episode is for CEOs in people-dependent businesses who are scaling headcount and treating team investment as a cost rather than a capital decision.
Key Takeaways
- CEOs who treat employee investment as a financial runway — rather than a cost — achieve retention rates that most of their competitors cannot match. Optima Office runs at 85–86% retention with 108 employees in a fast-paced consulting firm.
- You cannot train people into your culture. Cultural fit must be assessed at the interview stage through values-aligned questions — not assumed after hiring.
- Jennifer Barnes, who has placed fractional finance teams across hundreds of clients, finds that every growing company needs at minimum a controller — someone who can lead the accounting function, produce accurate financial statements, and build the dashboards that drive profitability decisions. A bookkeeper alone cannot do this work.
- When a client mistreats your team, addressing it directly — and firing the client if necessary — signals to your people that leadership will go to bat for them. That signal builds loyalty that no salary increase can replicate.
- AI and automation should free up time for higher-value client work, not justify rate reductions. The goal is doing more with the same team, not doing the same with fewer people.
How Jennifer Barnes Built an 86% Retention Rate in a Fast-Paced Consulting Firm
Optima Office provides fractional CFOs, controllers, and HR teams to growing companies. The firm appears on national and regional fastest-growing company lists. Barnes attributes that growth to a single operating principle: people over profits — applied as policy, not just philosophy.
“We’re at like 86% retention this year, 85, 86% retention with 108 employees in a fast-paced consulting firm,” Barnes told Gow. “That’s virtually impossible. I don’t know that any of our competitors can say that. And it’s because we’ve always just listened to our team first.”
CEOs Who Hire for Cultural Fit First Avoid the Cost of Misaligned Talent
When Barnes launched Optima Office after scaling her first company, the lesson she applied from day one was not operational — it was cultural.
At her first company, she had inherited employees over time and found it difficult to move people out who were not a cultural match. She resolved never to repeat that at Optima.
“When I had the opportunity to start a second company, I really made sure that culturally every single person that joined me really fit the culture already,” she said. “I find it very difficult for you to train people to fit your culture. They’re either your people or they’re not.”
Barnes translates her values directly into interview questions. Kindness is her firm’s first stated value. Her test is practical and immediate.
“Tell me the last time that you were kind, that you did something kind for somebody else,” she asks candidates. “You can tell pretty quickly if someone’s just — if that’s not one of their attributes.”
The test is not designed to catch candidates off guard. It surfaces the behavior that her business model depends on: employees who genuinely care about clients and coworkers, not employees performing care because the job description requires it.
How CEOs Should Think About Burning Out Their Team
Barnes frames employee investment in terms that CFOs understand: runway.
When a team is wearing five, six, or seven hats, the instinct is to hold headcount costs flat. Barnes argues the math runs in the opposite direction.
“Burnout and not taking care of your team ends up costing you more,” she said. “And so you have to think of it as a runway, of an investment runway. If I do this now, that means six months from now, a year from now, it’s going to pay really positively.”
She is explicit about her preference: she will take on debt before giving away equity to fund the team she needs. A bridge loan that funds retention is cheaper, she argues, than the compounding cost of turnover.
Optima tracks that cost precisely. The firm runs a timekeeping system that logs every hour spent during a staff transition to a “staff transition cost” line.
“If we were to lose somebody, let’s say a controller is on five accounts and we lose that person, all of the time to replace them is put to staff transition cost. And so we know exactly what that is. We know the exact cost to replace certain people, recruiting costs.”
For CEOs who have never quantified turnover, Barnes has a direct recommendation: if you don’t know what it costs you, you probably need help from a firm that does.
When Protecting Your Team Means Firing the Client
Barnes’s people-first stance is not rhetorical. Her team knows it, which means they use it.
“A client’s a jerk. They’re not being nice to my team. The team’s not happy. The team complains. They know that if they call and talk to me, I’m going to take them off that client and I’m going to have a conversation with the client.”
She describes the common outcome: clients who had no awareness they were creating a hostile environment, who apologize when confronted, and who correct their behavior. The team’s response to those conversations matters as much as the outcome.
“My team’s like, wow, thank you for like going to bat for us.”
But she draws a clear line when clients cross into ethical or legal territory. When one client demanded that a backyard renovation be written off as a business expense, Barnes’s team refused. The CEO escalated to Barnes directly.
“He got very mad at me and he ended up hanging up and we — then he wrote us a negative review.”
Her response to the public review was direct: the firm would not facilitate tax fraud, and any client who wanted that flexibility should find a firm comfortable operating in gray areas — one that would not provide good advice and would not protect them in an IRS audit.
“I’d rather have the people than the revenue.”
What Growing Companies Actually Need From Their Finance Function
Jennifer Barnes has placed fractional financial teams across hundreds of clients at Optima Office, and she sees one mistake more than any other: CEOs who expect a bookkeeper to fill a controller role.
“Every single business needs a controller. Even if it’s an assistant controller level person, they need somebody that can lead, manage and direct the accounting department. I’ve never met a bookkeeper who can do every balance sheet schedule correctly, and that can spit out a set of financials that has no issues.”
The “Betty the bookkeeper” scenario is common at growing companies — one long-tenured employee handling all financial and sometimes HR functions, using manual processes and systems they have not updated in years. Barnes does not tell those clients to fire Betty.
“If a company really loves their bookkeeper, we don’t need them to get rid of that person. We’ll just mentor and train and work with that person.”
The issue is not Betty. The issue is asking Betty to do work that requires a different skill set. A bookkeeper will not build a Power BI dashboard, set up KPI tracking, or produce the financial insight a CEO needs to make growth decisions.
The solution Barnes applies is to work above that existing role — adding the strategic financial layer without disrupting what is already working. For CEOs who are not yet ready for a full-time CFO, a fractional firm gives them access to CFO, VP of Finance, controller, and senior bookkeeper expertise on demand.
How Optima Office Uses AI to Deliver More Value Without Cutting Rates
Barnes is clear that Optima Office is not experiencing downward pricing pressure from AI — because she treats automation as a value multiplier, not a cost reducer.
The clearest example is Optima’s integration between QuickBooks Online and Power BI. What previously required three to five hours of manual Excel manipulation now runs in five minutes.
“You could argue, well, that’s cannibalization of your own time. Well, no, because we take all that great information that would have taken us three, four, five hours in the past and now we can spend an extra hour or two sitting down with the client and explaining the financials, hoping to make strategic decisions about what’s going on in their numbers, really finding additional charts and graphs to add to rule drivers of profitability for them.”
The time saved does not translate into a lower invoice. It translates into deeper strategic engagement with the client — which makes the relationship harder to commoditize.
Barnes’s AI framework has one explicit boundary: no offshoring.
“All 108 of my employees are here in the United States and I like providing jobs and opportunity.”
Her position on automation mirrors her position on team investment: efficiency gains go back into the quality of service, not into margin extraction.
“If a company isn’t using AI to their advantage and they’re not boosting productivity and being able to do more with the same amount of money, then they’re missing out.”
The Optima Office Framework: What Jennifer Barnes Does Differently
| Principle | What it means in practice | Named evidence from this interview |
| Hire for culture, not just competency | Interview questions map directly to stated company values — candidates who don’t embody values don’t advance, regardless of skill | Barnes asks every candidate: “Tell me the last time you did something kind for someone else” — this values-screening approach is the practice Barnes credits for Optima Office running at 85–86% retention across 108 employees |
| Treat people investment as a financial runway | Spending to prevent burnout is cheaper than the compounding cost of turnover — take on debt if needed rather than give away equity or understaff | Barnes chose to take on debt rather than give away equity to fund team capacity — Optima now runs at 85–86% retention across 108 employees |
| Fire the client before you lose the employee | When a client’s behavior is unethical or hostile, removing that client protects morale and signals to the team that leadership backs them | Barnes fired a client who demanded tax fraud be recorded as a business expense — and publicly stood behind the decision when the client posted a negative review |
| Know exactly what turnover costs | Track transition costs in real time so the investment case for retention is never abstract | Optima logs all staff transition hours to a dedicated cost line — giving leaders an exact figure for what losing a single controller across five accounts actually costs |
| Use AI to add value, not to cut rates | Automation frees up hours that get reinvested in client-facing strategic work — not subtracted from the invoice | QuickBooks-to-Power BI integration reduced a 3–5 hour manual process to 5 minutes; those hours now go to financial strategy conversations with clients |
Quotes from This Episode
- “Burnout and not taking care of your team ends up costing you more. And so you have to think of it as a runway, of an investment runway.” — Jennifer Barnes, Founder and CEO, Optima Office
- “I find it very difficult for you to train people to fit your culture. They’re either your people or they’re not.” — Jennifer Barnes, Founder and CEO, Optima Office
- “I’d rather have the people than the revenue.” — Jennifer Barnes, Founder and CEO, Optima Office
- “If a company isn’t using AI to their advantage and they’re not boosting productivity and being able to do more with the same amount of money, then they’re missing out.” — Jennifer Barnes, Founder and CEO, Optima Office
- “A client’s a jerk. They’re not being nice to my team. The team’s not happy. The team complains. They know that if they call and talk to me, I’m going to take them off that client and I’m going to have a conversation with the client.” — Jennifer Barnes, Founder and CEO, Optima Office
Frequently Asked Questions
How can a CEO build high employee retention in a fast-growing company?
CEOs who achieve high retention treat employee investment as a financial runway rather than a fixed cost. Optima Office founder Jennifer Barnes recommends hiring for cultural fit from day one — using interview questions tied directly to company values — and tracking the true cost of turnover through a real-time timekeeping system. Barnes reports 85–86% retention across 108 employees at Optima Office by consistently prioritizing team wellbeing, removing hostile client relationships, and reinvesting AI efficiency gains into team capacity rather than margin.
When should a growing company move beyond a bookkeeper to a controller or CFO?
According to Jennifer Barnes, every growing company needs at minimum a controller — someone who can lead the accounting function, produce accurate financial statements, and build the dashboards that drive profitability decisions. A bookkeeper cannot reliably complete balance sheet schedules or generate clean financials. Companies that are not yet ready for a full-time CFO benefit from a fractional firm that provides CFO, controller, and senior bookkeeper expertise on demand, structured around the company’s current stage rather than a fixed headcount commitment.
How should a CEO respond when AI puts pressure on their pricing model?
CEOs in service businesses can counter AI-driven pricing pressure by positioning automation as a value amplifier rather than a cost reducer. Optima Office integrated QuickBooks Online with Power BI to cut financial reporting from three to five hours down to five minutes — and reinvests that time into deeper strategic client conversations rather than adjusting rates downward. The result is a stronger client relationship, not a cheaper one. Barnes’s rule: if AI saves time, use that time to deliver more value to the client, not to justify a lower invoice.
CEOs Work with Glenn Gow to Scale Their Companies and Careers
Glenn Gow is a CEO coach — he coaches ambitious executives into the CEO seat and CEOs into successful exits. With 25 years as a CEO and 5 years in venture capital, Glenn helps leaders scale their companies by scaling themselves first. If this conversation was useful, you can apply for executive coaching with Glenn Gow or apply to be a guest on The Scaling Executive Podcast.
