Senior people who have sat in the seat.
AJM Solutions draws on three senior people: a CFO and audit chair, an operator, and a transactions specialist, each engaged as the work requires, with no junior staff on lead engagements. We work with energy, mining and industrial companies across Western Canada and the Middle East, and the work takes three distinct forms. For owners thinking about succession, we help build a business that runs well without depending on them: sale-ready whether or not it ever sells. For projects and operations, Arthur works as interim or part-time CFO, connecting the project plan to the money: cash requirements, operating performance and the decisions management has to make. For boards, he serves as a director or audit committee chair. Independent by design.
The people who do the work.
No junior staff on lead engagements. When a mandate needs a particular specialist, we bring in a named, experienced hand from our own network. Each of the three below is engaged for what they do, as the work requires.
Arthur Madden
More than 40 years in every seat: board director, audit chair, CEO, CFO, and operations, down to the project report.
Founder and VP Finance and CFO of Cavell Energy from 1994. He took it public in 1996, kept it alive in 1998 when the bank wouldn’t lend, and sold it in 2004 for $148M. Founder, CFO and director of Adamant Energy, 2004–2008, from a blind-pool start-up to $85 million in annual revenue. Eighteen months as CFO of Global Heat Transfer, a manufacturer. Then VP Finance and CFO of Crown Point Energy full time to 2015, where he built the reporting and controls for operations in Argentina and Canada and negotiated bank financing under currency controls.
Eleven years on Painted Pony’s board, nine as audit committee chair and two as corporate governance chair, as it grew from a start-up to more than 65,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day and a TSX listing. Nominated for Canada’s CFO of the Year in 2003. Over $300 million raised across a career. Founded AJM Solutions in 2019.
Michael Cooper
Forty-five years in operations, thirty-eight of them in the Middle East and North Africa. Former Senior Operations Manager at ADWOC, the drilling and workover company owned by the OAPEC member states; has built and led heavy-transport and field operations.
Michael Yeung
A capital-markets background — equity research, institutional sales and investment banking — with transaction experience across oil & gas, mining, renewables and technology. He brings the buyer’s view: what an acquirer, lender or investor looks for.
Michael Yeung’s practice is his own and is engaged and billed separately.
What AJM is, and isn’t.
We’re three senior operators and advisors who work directly on your file, alongside your CFO and reporting to the company or its board. We don’t replace your finance team, and we’re not a software company — experience tells us where to look, and the numbers confirm it. We do not find you a buyer, we do not negotiate on your behalf, and we do not take anyone’s job. We never act for both sides of the same transaction. When shareholders don’t agree, we act for the company, or all shareholders jointly, never for one side. We are brought in by the person at the top and we work through the team already there.
How we work.
We start by understanding how the business actually runs, and where the money actually goes, before recommending anything. Then experienced people go to work, put the fix in place in the operation, and get the business ready for a buyer’s, lender’s or investor’s questions. Then you decide what to keep working on, with us or without us.
Start with a short call.
Tell us where the pressure is: a business that still runs through you, a project whose cash you can’t see clearly, a board seat to fill, or a number you can’t explain. If there’s a fit, the scope is agreed in writing before anything starts. No obligation.