The Teel+Co Story

Chuck Teel's Journey from CFO to Innovator
From his earliest days in corporate finance, Chuck Teel saw beyond the numbers. While building his career from staff accountant to global CFO, he recognized a critical gap in how mid-market companies were being served. This insight would eventually lead to the creation of Teel+Co, but the journey there was paved with purposeful steps and invaluable experiences.

Building a Foundation of Excellence
Chuck's path began in corporate accounting, where he quickly earned his CPA credentials. But rather than settling into a traditional accounting role, he pursued positions of increasing responsibility—advancing from controller to vice president of finance, and ultimately to CFO. Working within multinational companies, he gained invaluable exposure to complex financial operations on a global scale.

Beyond the Balance Sheet
While Chuck's world was anchored in precise numbers and clear regulations, he understood that true business leadership meant navigating uncertainty and making decisions in gray areas. This realization led him to pursue an MBA in strategic management, broadening his expertise across sales, marketing, operations, and leadership. The combination of financial precision and strategic insight would later become a cornerstone of Teel+Co's approach.

Sharing Knowledge, Gaining Insight
Chuck's passion for excellence extended beyond his corporate roles. As a faculty instructor with the Becker CPA Review in Chicago, he taught all four sections of the CPA exam to professionals from Big 4 firms and beyond. This experience expanded into academia when he became an adjunct instructor of finance at The Loyola University Chicago Quinlan School of Business, teaching across undergraduate, MBA, and executive MBA programs.  These teaching roles offered Chuck a unique perspective on the accounting profession's evolution and the growing needs of businesses. By bringing real-world examples into the classroom, he helped bridge the gap between theory and practice—a principle that would later define Teel+Co's approach to client service.

The Catalyst for Change
As a CFO, Chuck experienced firsthand the limitations of traditional service models. While working with Big 4 CPA firms, he found their rigid timelines and standardized approaches often disrupted rather than supported business operations. He observed how finance teams were frequently overwhelmed during month-end closes but underutilized at other times. This inefficiency was particularly evident in smaller companies navigating M&A activities. These observations crystallized into a vision: create a firm that would combine corporate finance, public accounting, and management consulting under one roof—but executed with the precision and integration of an internal corporate finance team. The focus would be on managing day-to-day operations while providing strategic guidance, moving beyond the traditional bookkeeping and tax approach of public accounting firms.

Building the Future
After three years of meticulous planning, Chuck took a bold step. In January 2017, he launched Teel+Co with a clear mission: to provide mid-market companies with the level of strategic financial leadership and operational excellence typically reserved for larger enterprises. Chuck's vision was to transform how businesses approach financial and operational management. By packaging corporate-level expertise into comprehensive service offerings, Teel+Co would help mid-market companies navigate complexity, optimize resources, and achieve sustained growth.

The Legacy Continues
Today, Teel+Co embodies Chuck's original vision while continuing to innovate and adapt to changing business needs. The firm maintains its commitment to excellence, integration, and strategic partnership—principles drawn directly from Chuck's experience as a global CFO.   Chuck's story is more than a founder's journey; it's a testament to the power of reimagining traditional models to better serve evolving business needs. Under his leadership, Teel+Co continues to transform how mid-market companies approach financial leadership and operational excellence, creating lasting impact through strategic partnership and innovative solutions.