About
Finance leadership that builds, not just reports.
Smith Helping Hand was founded by Rodline Smith, MBA, a finance and operations leader with more than a decade of experience building financial infrastructure, strengthening controls, improving performance, and translating complex financial information into decisions leaders can act on.
Her career has been spent inside the rooms where financial information either holds up or falls apart — large cooperative enterprises, audit cycles, treasury and banking relationships, and an early-stage startup where the finance function had to be built from nothing. That range is deliberate. It is why she can sit with a founder in a messy month-end and see both the immediate fix and the structure that prevents it from recurring.
Smith Helping Hand exists for the businesses in between: too established for basic bookkeeping, not yet ready for a full-time finance executive, and facing decisions that deserve better information than they currently have.
“I don’t believe finance should simply tell you what happened last month. It should help you decide what happens next.”
Career highlights
Experience earned in demanding environments
The following are prior career accomplishments achieved in previous roles, not Smith Helping Hand client case studies.
Controller & Operations Leader
Led accounting and operations within a $4B cooperative environment, advising CFO and CEO leadership on performance, risk and capital decisions.
Treasury & banking
Managed treasury operations, banking relationships and line-of-credit activity, keeping liquidity aligned with operating reality.
Audit execution
Led audit execution end to end, building the documentation discipline and controls that make audits routine rather than disruptive.
Executive reporting
Built KPI and executive reporting frameworks that gave leadership a consistent, decision-grade view of the business.
$65M AR reduction
Reduced accounts receivable by $65M in six months through an end-to-end collections and process transformation.
Building from zero
Built financial and operational infrastructure from scratch at a healthcare advertising technology startup — systems, process, controls and reporting.
$500M+ contract billings
Managed complex contract billings across milestone, labor and cost-plus structures earlier in her career.
Education
Academic foundation
Executive MBA
Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business
B.S., Accounting, Auditing & Taxation
Lehman College, CUNY — Magna Cum Laude
How she works
Direct, calm and specific. Engagements start with facts rather than opinions, move quickly to the two or three things that actually change the picture, and leave behind structure your team can run without her in the room.
Smith Helping Hand provides financial and business advisory services and does not provide audit, review, compilation, assurance, tax, or legal services.