Who runs Northbridge
Most people advising owners on an exit have never carried one.
The method behind Northbridge came out of taking a company from fully owner-run to owner-out. The financial work is led by a KPMG-trained auditor who runs the close for an aerospace corporation under federal contract. Both halves matter when a lender starts pulling on your numbers.
Principal
Doug Royal
Founder · Northbridge Strategies · Anacortes, Washington
I built this as an operator, for operators. I am not an advisor who has read about your business — I own one.
Fifteen years in the oilfield, starting in the field and ending in the office. The work in between was health and safety, then training: taking jobs where a mistake is expensive or fatal and making them repeatable by someone who was not me. That is the same problem an owner has when a buyer asks what happens if he stops answering the phone.
Then I ran a company of my own and put the method through the only test that counts. Fully owner-dependent to genuinely owner-out, in three years — authority moved into roles, the work written down, pricing governed, and the books able to answer a question without me in the room.
I read a profit and loss statement as the person who had to make payroll from it. I know what a slow-pay month feels like, what dispatch looks like when someone quits, and which numbers an owner keeps in his head instead of his system. That is the vantage point the diagnostic is written from.
Started in the field. Moved into health, safety and environment, then into the office as Training Coordinator — responsible for making complex, high-consequence work repeatable by people who were not me.
Took the company from fully owner-run to semi-absentee, and then to owner-out. The five gates are the method that came out of doing it, not a framework applied afterward.
Sell-side readiness for owner-led companies. Principal on every engagement — the diagnostic is not delegated.
KPMG-trained · Big Four audit
Adele Royal
Controller & Finance Lead · Northbridge Accounting & Consulting
Trained in external audit at KPMG. Fifteen years of controller and finance leadership since, and currently the controller for an aerospace corporation running federal contracts under FAR.
The fifth gate asks whether your numbers can be reproduced from source records by someone who was not there. That is the question Big Four audit exists to answer, and Adele has worked it from the examining side — building the schedules, sitting across from the auditor, and writing the formal rebuttal when a finding lands.
Her work at Northbridge is close discipline, reconciliations, internal controls and audit readiness. The standard she applies to a $3M contractor's books is the one she applies to an aerospace corporation's federal contracts.
Where an engagement calls for a signed opinion, Northbridge brings in licensed CPAs from its network. You get the standard without having to go find the firm.
Big Four audit training. Knows what makes a number hold up under examination and what makes it collapse — because collapsing it was the job.
Owns the close for an aerospace corporation running federal contracts — fixed-price, cost-plus, time-and-materials and IDIQ task orders — under FAR cost-allowability standards. Primary liaison to external auditors, including the formal rebuttals when a finding lands.
Contracted controller and CFO-level work. Month-end close, internal controls, reconciliations, and audit readiness.
Doug and Adele are married. Adele leads Northbridge Accounting & Consulting as a separately scoped practice.
The method is on the site. Read it before you talk to us.
The five gates, the evidence each one requires, and how the work is staged are all published. Start with the owner test if you want a read on your own company first — it takes five minutes and scores instantly.