Paula Waggoner-Aguilar CFO Bio

Paula Waggoner-Aguilar is an experienced Chief Financial Officer CFO CPA, strategic cfo advisor, and founder/CEO of The Energy CFO. She has dedicated more than 25 years helping companies develop, construct, start-up, grow, change, and revitalize their investments in energy (oil & gas, oil field services, energy services, lng and gas projects, midstream, gas distribution, power plants, and renewables), chemicals, operating technology and software, engineering and construction, and manufacturing (various oil field equipment and even recycling old pipelines). 

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Paula has always focused on helping people solve challenging problems that are inhibiting their businesses. She is a broad strategic thinker with an understanding of markets and has a strong business and financial acumen having run global, foreign, domestic, family-owned, and her own businesses. Paula really loves looking at companies, understanding the big picture and building a plan to synchronize the functional and operational parts of the business. Through her entrepreneurial work, as well as her career as a corporate executive, she has developed institutional knowledge that enables her to pivot in and around organizations and customize a solution for each of her clients. Her insights help guide owners and executives to grow their businesses and take them to the next level.

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Over the last decade, Paula has served as a CFO Advisor and/or Interim CFO to 15+ private clients. Her clients range from large private companies with pre-COVID annual revenues exceeding $200 million, family-owned middle market companies, management backed startups seeking private equity or raising funds directly from investors, and energy infrastructure developers seeking project finance (from concept to large integrated projects raising > $3 billion). Her consulting work includes recommending various business and pricing strategies, introducing new corporate governance, advising negotiators behind the scenes on financial and commercial aspects of agreements and/or transactions, and special projects for public companies such as analyzing sales data for products/markets/customer insights.

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Paula started her career in the 1990’s working in the oilfield as an internal auditor in Latin America. She has since worked in petroleum planning, investor relations, finance, finance planning and analysis, and accounting senior leadership roles for several Fortune 500 and Global Fortune 100 public companies including Buckeye Partners LP and GP Holdings (pipelines and storage), BHP Billiton (petroleum, oil and gas, LNG, mining), Suez Energy formerly Tractebel (LNG Division including terminals tankers and supply, power, gas, trading, greenfield energy development, and EPC), Duke Energy International (electric power including renewables), Enron International (IPP power and gas), Halliburton formerly Dresser Industries (oil field services, oilfield supply products, petroleum equipment manufacturing), and most recently for Lewis Energy Group (one of the largest private vertically integrated shale gas producers in the US and first US company to explore and drill in Mexico since 1938), owned by the billionaire wildcatter Rod Lewis. Paula is also an Ernst & Young Alumni.  Paula's corporate experience includes working as a Vice President and Business Controller, CFO, Interim CFO for a foreign joint venture, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, Director of Investor Relations, Corporate Controller, Financial Controller, Mexican Controller and Accounting Officer, Director of US GAAP and IFRS Technical Accounting Research, and Director of Derivative Accounting.

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Paula is a San Antonio CPA (1999). She obtained her Masters of Science in Taxation (MST) from the University of North Texas and her Bachelors of Business Administration (BBA) in Accounting from the University of Texas at Arlington. In addition, she has completed post-graduate studies in an employer-sponsored intensive "MBA type" program administered by INSEAD & Emory University.