James Crane, CPA, is Entrepreneurial Practice Leader at Charles River CFO. He works primarily with entrepreneurs and their companies, and with investment funds that finance those companies. From 2005 to 2019, he served as the de facto CFO of a Boston-based $200 million hedge fund that took companies public in the U.S. and provided at-the-market (ATM) financing to U.S.-listed small-cap companies, overseeing all of its accounting and tax filings. He was also the de facto CFO of many of the fund's portfolio companies during this time period.

Over more than 27 years, James has directed the accounting and SEC filings for 24 companies going public, including 16 reverse mergers and 8 self-registrations. He has helped clients raise more than $120 million, served as CFO of a NASDAQ-listed company and an NYSE-listed company, and completed seven successful exits for clients, in many of which he held an equity position. He has also helped clients secure more than $50 million in R&D tax credits.

His expertise is broad. It spans CFO leadership, capital markets opportunities, M&A, technical accounting and tax, as well as cross-border market entry, regulation, tax regimes, foreign capital markets and business practices. He works with clients across the globe, having served companies in 27 countries and lived and worked throughout Asia and Europe during his career. At Charles River CFO, he has also led the Tax Services Practice since 2017 and is now leading the firm's internal and external AI services buildout by re-envisioning every possible business task or workflow that could be enhanced with AI.

James began his career in external audit at Ernst & Young and founded his own CPA firm in 2001 before joining Charles River CFO in 2014. He holds a B.S. in Accountancy from Bentley University and is a Massachusetts CPA.