A company can look profitable on every report and still run out of cash. Paul Whitley has spent thirty years
taking the call that proves it, usually on a Tuesday, usually from a smart, hardworking founder who never
saw it coming.
Profitable and Broke follows Marcus Fenn, the fictional CEO of a growing firm who keeps getting surprised
by his own bank account. Through Marcus, Whitley walks the reader from confusion to clarity: what cash
flow really is, why profit and cash diverge, how the cash conversion cycle works, and how to build a weekly
rhythm that makes surprises rare.
It reads like a story and works like a field guide. Every chapter pairs Marcus's experience with a real tool a
CEO can use on Monday morning, from the 13-week forecast to the ten questions most leaders cannot
answer about their own cash.
Underneath the numbers, it is a book about the chair you sit in as a leader, and the people who trust you to
see clearly before a problem becomes a crisis.
