“It is what it is; we go with the flow, adapt, and keep moving forward.”

Danielle Tatum is an accomplished finance executive and strategic advisor whose career spans more than four decades across banking, financial services, accounting, cybersecurity and technology, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate finance. As a CFO and Vice President of Finance-level leader, Danielle has built her career around helping organizations establish financial discipline, manage risk, strengthen internal controls, and position themselves for sustainable growth. Her experience encompasses organizations ranging from developing businesses to complex enterprises with billions of dollars in assets, giving her a valuable perspective on how financial strategy must evolve as companies grow, transform, and pursue new opportunities. Throughout her career, she has combined technical financial expertise with a practical, hands-on leadership style focused on solving problems and creating lasting organizational value.

Danielle began building her financial foundation at Standard Federal Bank, where she served as an accountant and developed extensive experience within the highly regulated banking environment. That early chapter established the accounting rigor and attention to detail that would become hallmarks of her leadership approach. In 1993, she joined Flagstar Bank and embarked upon a career of more than two decades with the organization. Through a series of increasingly responsible positions—including Assistant Vice President, Vice President, First Vice President, and ultimately Senior Vice President and Director of Financial Accounting and Reporting—Danielle developed into a senior financial leader capable of managing sophisticated reporting, accounting, governance, and regulatory responsibilities.

Her tenure at Flagstar coincided with a period of substantial organizational expansion and transformation. Danielle helped lead financial accounting and reporting as the institution grew from a privately held organization into a major publicly traded banking enterprise with approximately $19 billion in assets and 140 depository locations. She was responsible for financial accounting and reporting operations across the holding company, bank, and subsidiaries while helping develop accounting policies and internal controls designed to support Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. She also served as disclosure committee chair for SEC filings and participated in important audit and compensation committee activities, providing her with extensive exposure to the intersection of finance, governance, regulatory requirements, executive decision-making, and stakeholder accountability.

Danielle’s leadership has consistently extended beyond maintaining financial systems to improving the infrastructure upon which organizations depend. At Flagstar, she helped transition manual general ledger processes from Excel to an automated Oracle-PeopleSoft environment, improving productivity while completing the initiative within established timelines and budget parameters. She also worked closely with attorneys and auditors during significant transactions associated with the company’s public-market activities, coordinating schedules, financial statements, and reporting requirements. Experiences such as these strengthened Danielle’s ability to operate effectively when financial accuracy, regulatory compliance, organizational change, and executive-level coordination must all occur simultaneously.

In 2022, Danielle brought that experience to Creative Breakthroughs, later CBI where she advanced from Controller to Vice President of Finance. In this executive leadership capacity, she focused on organizational growth, financial operations, digital transformation, and preparing the business for strategic transactions. Working in partnership with senior executives, she formalized budgeting and financial reconciliation processes, strengthened financial controls and documentation, standardized operational practices, and managed complex responsibilities including multistate sales-tax requirements and reseller tax matters. Her work demonstrated an ability to translate sophisticated financial requirements into practical processes that could support both day-to-day execution and long-term corporate strategy.

Mergers and acquisitions became an especially important dimension of Danielle’s leadership. As a member of the M&A due diligence team, she worked alongside senior leadership in connection with the approximately $60 million sale of Creative Breakthroughs to Converge after participating in the identification and evaluation of acquisition targets. She subsequently helped guide integration activities following the transaction. Danielle also took ownership of digital transformation efforts designed to improve organizational readiness for a sale, merger, acquisition, or other strategic event. Her experience enables her to understand transactions not simply from a valuation perspective, but through the broader lenses of financial controls, operational preparedness, due diligence, systems integration, reporting integrity, risk management, and post-transaction execution.

Following the sale of CBI to Converge, Danielle left Converge in 2024 and transitioned into fractional CFO work, providing financial leadership to clients across the hospitality industry, including craft breweries, bars, and large event services companies in Tennessee and Michigan. After nearly two years, she was recruited to join Premier Entities, Inc., doing business as Premier Creative Group, Inc., as Vice President of Finance, where she brings CFO and executive level financial leadership to support the company’s next stage of growth while demonstrating one of her key strengths: the ability to quickly understand new industries, business models, and financial environments and translate that knowledge into effective strategy and execution.

Across her career, Danielle has developed deep expertise in mergers and acquisitions, financial risk management, forecasting and budgeting, process improvement, financial analysis, corporate accounting, revenue recognition, consolidations, equity accounting, cash management, financial reporting, internal controls, Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, investor relations, and financial systems integration. She understands that dependable financial leadership requires more than producing accurate statements; it requires creating the analytical infrastructure and performance measures that allow executives to understand where an organization stands, where risks are developing, and where opportunities may exist. Her approach centers on building reliable financial systems while ensuring that those systems contribute directly to better business decisions.

Danielle also brings experience in capital strategy and organizational growth. She has supported strategic initiatives involving acquisitions and due diligence, helped establish performance measures aligned with organizational direction, and developed control environments intended to preserve corporate assets and strengthen accountability. Her background encompasses IPO-related activity, SEC reporting, external audits, GAAP, capital budgeting, operational planning, financial modeling, tax, vendor management, cash flow, and business planning. Combined with her experience in banking and the cybersecurity and technology sector, this breadth enables Danielle to engage with both the financial and operational dimensions of an organization rather than viewing corporate finance as an isolated function.

Her academic and professional development further reinforces that foundation. Danielle earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Walsh College and holds the Certified Treasury Professional credential through the Association for Financial Professionals. Her education, treasury expertise, extensive banking experience, and decades of executive financial leadership have given her a strong understanding of liquidity, financial risk, controls, reporting, capital allocation, and organizational resilience. She has also gained international exposure in Germany, adding another dimension to a career shaped by organizations operating within complex and evolving business environments.

Today, Danielle is particularly interested in bringing her experience to organizations through board and advisory service. Her interests include banking, mortgage, hospitality, events, bars and breweries, accounting, nonprofit organizations, and other businesses where experienced financial leadership can contribute to growth and stronger governance. She is especially interested in smaller and middle-market organizations, including companies around the $100 million to $150 million scale, where strategic guidance and disciplined financial infrastructure can have a meaningful impact. Having also served as an advisor through AdvisoryCloud, Danielle understands the importance of listening to leadership teams, evaluating challenges objectively, and transforming decades of experience into actionable guidance.

Board service represents a natural continuation of Danielle’s career. After more than 40 years in accounting and finance across diverse organizations and industries, she is motivated by the opportunity to share what she has learned with leadership teams confronting complex financial, operational, and strategic decisions. She brings the perspective of an executive who has experienced organizational growth, public-company reporting, major technology implementations, regulatory demands, M&A due diligence, business sales, post-transaction integration, audits, and transformation initiatives firsthand. Her objective is not simply to identify issues from a distance, but to provide proactive, practical counsel that helps organizations understand challenges, evaluate alternatives, and build solutions capable of delivering long-term value.

Beyond her professional accomplishments, Danielle values family, charitable involvement, and nonprofit work. Her children are an important part of her life, while her commitment to charitable and nonprofit causes reflects a broader desire to contribute her experience in ways that benefit others. Her personal philosophy—“It is what it is, we go with the flow and adapt”—captures the resilience and pragmatism that have characterized a career spanning significant changes in banking, technology, regulation, corporate ownership, and financial operations. For Danielle, adaptability does not mean abandoning discipline; it means understanding circumstances clearly, responding constructively, and continuing to move an organization forward.

Danielle Tatum ultimately brings together the financial rigor of a seasoned accounting executive, the risk awareness of a banking leader, the transaction experience of an M&A participant, and the practical perspective of an operator who has helped businesses navigate meaningful change. She understands how financial controls protect an enterprise, how accurate reporting supports accountability, how technology can transform financial operations, and how thoughtful planning can prepare an organization for its next stage of growth. As she expands her board and advisory involvement, Danielle offers organizations an experienced financial voice grounded in integrity, adaptability, disciplined execution, and a genuine commitment to helping leadership teams create enduring value.

Character:
Danielle leads with integrity, resilience, accountability, and a practical commitment to doing what is necessary to move an organization forward. Her dedication to family, charitable causes, and nonprofit work complements a professional philosophy centered on adapting constructively to change while maintaining high standards.

Knowledge:
More than four decades in accounting, banking, financial reporting, risk management, corporate finance, cybersecurity and technology environments, and M&A have given Danielle an unusually broad financial perspective. Her knowledge spans sophisticated technical disciplines—including SEC reporting, SOX controls, GAAP, treasury, financial systems, audits, forecasting, budgeting, and transaction due diligence—as well as the operational realities of implementing them successfully.

Strategic:
Danielle approaches finance as a strategic function capable of shaping growth, managing risk, strengthening organizations, and preparing businesses for transformative events. Her experience supporting organizational expansion, M&A transactions, digital transformation, public-company requirements, and integration initiatives enables her to connect immediate financial decisions with longer-term enterprise objectives.

Communication:
Spending her career working across executive leadership, finance teams, auditors, attorneys, operational stakeholders, and transaction partners, requiring complex financial matters to be communicated clearly and practically. Her hands-on advisory approach emphasizes listening carefully, establishing shared understanding, and translating financial and strategic considerations into actionable guidance.