FortyTwoFifty

About FortyTwoFifty

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Our Mission

Founded by Ian Magee, FortyTwoFifty provides strategic consulting to nonprofit and other organizations. We bring a clear, insightful approach to each client, solving their most pressing financial and operational issues.

Ian has spent more than 25 years in corporate, nonprofit and philanthropic finance, and now does this work alongside AI.

Our Expertise

Financial strategy
Business model transformation
Financial systems architecture
Strategic planning
Fractional or interim CFO
Planning, forecasting and cash flow models
Board reporting and financial storytelling
Coaching for finance leaders

What changed this year

As Interim CFO of The END Fund this year, I set out to build a budgeting, planning and risk management infrastructure like the one we built at New Profit. That kind of system takes months.

Then the AI models changed everything. I built a much more sophisticated planning model in a week than I could have built in months the old way.

All through the year, AI's FP&A capabilities kept improving dramatically. I'm still learning how best to work this way, but it's very different to 6 or 12 months ago.

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Wooden hourglass on a soft peach background

Why decades of experience matter more now

AI makes building fast. Someone still has to know what to build, which number looks wrong, and what the board is going to ask next. That judgment comes from decades of doing this work, and it's what I bring.

It also takes judgment to know what shouldn't change. At The END Fund, the close, funder reporting and the operating expense workflow stayed in the existing system. Cash flow analysis and decision support moved to the new model.

I check every number I hand over, and I answer for it. I'll tell you how AI is being used on your work, and we'll agree up front what data goes into it.

Experience

I studied mechanical engineering and economics at Cambridge, spent the first half of my career in for-profit finance, and the second half in nonprofits and philanthropy.

The END Fund: Interim Chief Financial Officer
New Profit: Managing Partner and Chief Financial Officer
F.B. Heron Foundation: Vice President, Finance and Operations
University of Chicago: Executive Director of Strategy and Research; earlier Director of Financial Strategy
American Express: Vice President, after roles in finance, strategy and business development
Mitchell Madison Group: Associate, management consulting
University of Cambridge: BA and MEng, Mechanical Engineering and Economics

Ian Magee smiling outdoors, with green hills behind him

Contact Ian

Email: ian@fortytwofifty.com

Insights

What Should Organizations Do With a Large Unsolicited — and Unrestricted — One-Time Gift?

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Learn More

Why Impact Investing Wins the Prisoner's Dilemma

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Learn More

Why the name FortyTwoFifty?

Painted chart of a glowing route across a blue ocean, passing icebergs toward a bright star

It’s personal on a few levels. FortyTwoFifty refers to the coordinates where the Titanic went down, 42° North and 50° West. The ship was built in my hometown of Belfast, where my great‑grandfather was a carpenter, and where generations of my family worked in the shipyard. It was a marvel of engineering and ambition, and also a painful lesson in what happens when systems fail.

I work with visionary leaders trying to change the world, and I see myself as the engineer who helps make sure their systems actually support the mission. Not only will they not hit the iceberg, they won’t get close to it. We’ll know where all the icebergs are, and we’ll have great visibility into the path of the ship.

There’s also a nod to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which cracked my mind open when I was young. In that story, 42 is the answer to the meaning of life, but no one knows the question. Turning 50 was the moment that pushed me to reflect on what I wanted to build next, and that reflection ultimately led to this work.

So FortyTwoFifty holds all of that: ambition, systems, judgment, and meaning. (And I thought it would be easy to remember, too.)