“I have had the good fortune to work with TAF Consulting for many years. I have come to rely on Tracy’s expertise, counsel, strategic solutions and financial knowledge in my position as Vice President for Administration and Finance. The excellence of the work has been of strategic benefit to the University of Maine in a number of areas, including the development of a comprehensive financial forecasting model which has assisted us in navigating these difficult economic times. It is both important and comforting to have the model while we are in the midst of crisis and the defense of numbers!!!  - numbers that some people do not want to hear. Thank goodness that we have all of this to pull from. Using it for enrollment has been critical as one example... I have been very lucky to have Tracy’s talent. 

Our working relationship has spanned many years because I have great confidence in Tracy’s deference to the University’s best interests, professionalism and responsiveness. I highly recommend TAF Consulting.”

Janet E. Waldron, Vice President for Administration and Finance University of Maine

“The academy had been using a variant of the same long-term financial planning model for more than a decade, expanding it as information needs changed. Over time, the various users with different levels of spreadsheet sophistication left their imprint on the document resulting in an extremely unwieldy product. The model appeared to work but occasionally, a change made in a variable did not ripple through the entire model. Trustees and management needed additional financial information to assist in their deliberations. It was time to begin anew. Working with trustees and senior management, the planning team refined the desired key measurements and variables of the model.  

It became evident that we needed someone with a different, independent perspective who could guide us through the process and simplifying the manipulation of the information in the model. We engaged TAF Consulting (Tracy Filosa) for this project. She spent some time listening to our explanation of our requirements, challenged some of our assumptions and suggested multiple alternatives to the approaches we might take to achieve our reporting needs. It was an iterative process with all participants making substantive contributions to the final product, one that is easier to use, more flexible in its reporting capabilities and has satisfied the needs of senior management and the board of trustees.” 

Elliot Hacker, Director of Finance and Assistant Treasurer, Trustees of Phillips Academy, Andover

“I wanted to thank you for today's seminar. Since becoming more involved in strategic planning, I have been aware that there are a number of areas on the budget side where I need to understand a good deal more. You hit on a number of those in the course of the day, so it was a valuable session for me.” 

Simon Sherrington, Director of Planning, International Business School, Brandeis University

"Our needs required outside help whose skills would include the ability to grasp both technical and functional understandings of our system and processes, applied writing skills, and very effective interpersonal skills in working with various project participants, including outside consulting partners. Tracy Filosa met our needs in all of these areas, exceeding my initial expectations of what an outside consultant could add in value to our project…

She applied techniques for documentation that proved very effective in communicating to our customer base. Of great value was her ability to take ideas and concepts, organize them, and iron out details by working freely with only a nominal amount of ongoing direction from the project manager. This clearly save us time and money in reaching our goals."

Robert Loughlin, Senior Director of Financial Services, Tufts University

"Tracy worked extensively on documenting current business processes. Her deliverables were extremely detailed, accurate and clearly written. The breadth of knowledge and expertise in business writing that Tracy brought to the project assisted us greatly in meeting our very aggressive deadlines."

Peter Kebuz, Time and Labor Lead, PeopleSoft Consulting

"We turned to you, asking you to transform a 26 page, fact-filled analytical piece to a few pages of high level, strategically focused dialogue that would showcase our results relative to the recent past, and more importantly, to our future vision. We also asked you to do this in a short time span to meet a mailing deadline.

We appreciated the approach you took, which included:

• Review of the analytical work and narrative;
• Interview with the Vice President for Finance and Treasurer and Senior Director, Finance and Planning where you offered major themes and structure for our feedback;
• A draft 5 page document for our review, allowing us to see what you had envisioned and to choose certain directions and themes;
• A redraft to a three page final document that achieved our goals;
• Expeditious turnaround and reasonable fee;
• A bridge from the old to the new, which next year will be incorporated along with the audited financial results to form a true annual report.

I look forward to tapping your expertise again in the future."

Sue Leverone, Senior Director, Finance and Planning, Tufts University