About Self‑Made CFO
Self-Made CFO is an independent editorial platform dedicated to helping business owners, operators, and founders understand the financial realities behind running and scaling a business in the United States.
We focus on the intersection of finance, operations, and risk, the areas that most directly determine whether a business grows sustainably or struggles under its own complexity. Our content is written for people who may not have a CFO on staff, but still need to think like one.
Our Mission
Our mission is simple: make CFO‑level thinking accessible without oversimplifying the truth.
Too much financial content is either overly technical or dangerously shallow. Self‑Made CFO exists to bridge that gap by explaining how money, structure, and decision‑making actually work in real businesses especially in regulated and asset‑heavy industries.
About Lilian Pham, Chief Marketing Officer
The Visionary Behind the Growth
Lilian Pham serves as Chief Marketing Officer, bringing a systems-level approach to growth that bridges traditional demand generation with modern entity-driven and AI-native search strategies.
The Transformation of an Industry
Before founding her current consultancy, Lillian was the catalyst behind the meteoric rise of a boutique Orange County accounting firm. When she took the helm of their marketing department, the firm was a respected local servicer with a narrow geographic footprint.
Lillian saw what others missed: The untapped potential of niche-specific authority.
During her tenure:
- Company revenue increased by over 140%
- Organic visibility scaled from minimal local traffic to tens of thousands of monthly visits
- A geographically constrained brand overcame naming and perception barriers to compete nationally
- Broad, undifferentiated services were restructured into clear, industry-specific growth verticals
These outcomes were not the result of short-term tactics or isolated wins. They were the product of a repeatable growth framework built on deep audience understanding, precise industry positioning, and long-term content and entity architecture.
Industry Expertise Without Industry Blindness
Lilian is a marketer by discipline, not by industry allegiance, and that distinction is central to her effectiveness
Rather than relying on surface-level familiarity, she approaches every market through universal business principles:
- How trust is established before a purchase decision
- How pain points are articulated, not assumed
- How visibility compounds when content, authority, and intent are aligned
- How growth stalls when strategy lacks structure
By stripping industries down to their decision-making mechanics, she consistently identifies leverage points others overlook. This ability to translate complex services into clear, authoritative narratives is what enabled rapid expansion into industries she did not originate from and mastery over them.
From SEO to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Today’s businesses must be machine-readable, entity-consistent, and contextually authoritative across large language models and generative search platforms. Lilian operates at this intersection, designing strategies that allow brands to be understood, cited, and surfaced by both humans and AI systems.
Her role is to guide organizations from low visibility and fragmented messaging into nationally recognized, industry-leading brands, using frameworks that scale across markets, services, and search paradigms.
Emma Hacker
Lead Editor
Overseeing content standards, research quality, and editorial integrity across the platform. With a strong background in financial content review and long-form editorial workflows, the role focuses on ensuring accuracy, clarity, and consistency in topics related to finance, compliance, and operational decision-making. Editorial oversight emphasizes translating complex financial concepts into structured, reliable insights tailored for founders, operators, and decision-makers in wellness and professional services industries.