MY CLIENTS

Getting The Job Done Right!

I have been working with Ben Mueller as my Remote CFO from October 2021 to present during which
time he has provided a lot of clarity for me as to how to proceed with maximizing the financial
wellbeing of my business. I own a small conglomerate of retail stores that needed to be
reorganized and restructured and Ben has been very helpful in this transitional time. Ben takes
the time to explain any of the details I need to know and follows-up on my requests in a timely
manner. He takes his work very seriously and has a knack for finding the financial root cause of
any problem. Having him on board has been a worthwhile investment, giving me vision for the
future, and easing the burden of executive level decision-making.

I strongly recommend Ben for your finance projects as he has certainly helped me posture
myself to take on more growth and more challenges. Please feel free to contact me with any
questions.
Rene Ferreira
Owner & CEO, Crystal Love Collective

I've had the pleasure of working with Ben Mueller as my fractional CFO at NextGem, a
startup out of Minnesota, building a social network and marketplace for 40 million trading
card enthusiasts and is venture-backed with over $1.9M to date.

Ben's professionalism and genuine desire to help in all aspects of our financial budgeting,
planning, and modeling, have been tremendously helpful. Ben was able to build out our Pro
Forma, maintain our books, forecast/plan future expenditures,
perform tax preparation, and maintain our Quickbooks and stay in sync with our tax and legal
teams.

Ben also has provided insights on how best to handle various wages and salary planning,
insurance cost projections, and kept very accurate financial statements.

I would highly recommend Ben for any startup or small business that is looking for a CFO
(fractional or full time) who can provide fast and accurate financial guidance, and problem solving,
as well as someone you can rely on due to his honesty and integrity.

James DonFrancesco

CEO, NextGem

I just wanted to take time out and let you know how much we appreciate your work ethic.

We have only worked with each other for a few months but it feels we have been working together for years.

You have been a tremendous asset to my boss, getting her back on track and on her way to being a profitable business again. It truly makes a world of difference when you hire the right people that have only your best interests in mind.

Julie Toelle

Employee, Gilchrist Interiors

I would highly recommend you Ben to anyone that wants to make their business more streamlined and profitable.

I have had the pleasure of working closely with and managing Ben over the past 5+ years. I hired Ben in late 2008 to come in a take over our chief financial officer + controller position, as the business was going through a downsizing. The position was in a state of turmoil due to the restructuring, and Ben came in over the Christmas holiday season and got to work taking over the books. Ben's initial position was as a contract controller/accountant with responsibility over our entire accounting function including: multiple entity financial statement preparation and reporting, entity consolidation, bill pay, all accounting entries, planning and budgeting.

Ben was able to quickly show his abilities, and impressed us with his efficiency, autonomy and work quality. Quickly thereafter, and due in large part to Ben's abilities we began adding more entities for him to oversee, some of which were operating businesses with significant work load requirements. Ben has been able to take on all of the work which we have given him with grace and professionalism.

As Ben's manager, I have further insight into his abilities, personality and work quality. When I first hired Ben, I had been used to managing employees who needed significant direction, and management oversight. I used this management style during my initial interactions with Ben. Ben very quickly approached me and let me know firmly that this is unnecessary and frankly not productive, as he is a professional, and that I can trust him to get the work done. This conversation and the ensuing relationship and work product that followed have been extremely valuable to me, and allowed me to take much more of an oversight role, and focus my time on areas where it is better utilized. I have never had to doubt if work will get done accurately and on time, as it always does. He truly "owns" his position and takes complete responsibility for his deliverables. Ben's work quality has always been extraordinary, and deadlines are never missed.

I have worked with many accountants and controllers in this company and others, and Ben's abilities and understanding of accounting are second to none.

Aside from Ben's quality of work he has been a great pleasure to work with. Ben has a fantastic sense of humor, a quick wit, and very much adds to a positive working environment.

Chad Wanger

CEO, GDBA Investments

I am pleased to write a letter of recommendation for Mr. Benjamin Mueller. Mr. Mueller has been working with Life Force International for over 10 years. During that time, his level of commitment, passion and loyalty has been instrumental in his efforts to engage our membership base. With his knowledge of the industry, he has assisted our marketing department in creating tools for our members to help them be successful in their marketing business.

He is solely responsible for the recent expansion into the African market with his ability to connect and manage the creation of this new operation thereby expanding our global reach.

Mr. Mueller has the ability, desire and energy to make a significant and positive impact with any organization he becomes involved with and therefore, I would recommend him for any endeavor for which he chooses to pursue.

Anyone that has the ability to work with him and transform his work ethic and knowledge into an business, would be very wise to do so.

Kathy Meadows

Executive Vice President, Life Force International

I have worked closely with Ben Mueller for over two years, and during that time I have found
him to be very focused and competent. Ben has compiled financial statements for a number of
foreign companies, and has had to obtain and aggregate data from a large number of sources in order to complete the work. J have found that Ben works easily with other professionals, and has the ability to organize difficult projects and work with a team to get them completed on schedule.

In my capacity as a tax advisor, I have had occasion to work with Ben in reviewing specific
items on financial statements, interacting with foreign accounting and tax professionals and
resolving technical problems or issues of fact. Ben has been able to focus a wide group of people on specific objectives, and help them to work together in order to get the project
completed.

Finally, Ben seems comfortable with a wide range of accounting issues and has a
good sense of what is required to get projects managed and completed.

David Browning, C.P.A.

I nominate Ben Mueller for a 2006 Spirit of Service Award for his efforts in preparing financials for the Qwest foreign entities. Ben has been employed in the Qwest accounting department since February 2005, first as a contractor and then as an employee. I am an analyst in the Qwest tax department who is responsible for filing the tax returns for the Qwest foreign entities and I have communicated with him on an almost daily basis (sometimes several times a day) in his efforts to prepare these financials.

At the time of his hiring, over 100 financials were lacking for one or more years for each of the 28 Qwest foreign entities. In regard to those financials which had been prepared, most needed to be restated.

Since 2003 I have assisted 13 different Qwest employees, 4 independent contractors (non-Big 4), and 3 accounting personnel from Big 4 accounting firms who in various capacities worked on the financials for the 28 foreign entities. Although I am a tax lawyer and am not an accountant, I have worked with the accounting personnel on a regular basis to impart my knowledge of the foreign transactions with which I had greater historical familiarity. As such, I believe I can offer a relative assessment as to Ben’s general attitude, dedication, focus, ability to dissect complex transactions, ability to complete tasks, and work ethic. Ben has a tremendous work ethic. He is intelligent, conscientious as to details, and does what it takes to complete the task at hand. He has organized the records so that it is now relatively easy to locate the financials for past years and the detail upon which they were based. His memory is remarkable; and he can quickly recall the decision-making process related to various entries.

Ben completed or restated 4 years of financials for the Qwest entity in Australia; 8 years of financials for 2 entities in Japan; 4 years of financials for the Taiwan entity, 4 years of financials for the Korean entity, and 12 years of financials for the 3 entities in Hong Kong. For the first time since the accounting functions of the Asian entities moved from Hong Kong to Denver 3 years ago, the tax department has been able to file up-to-date tax returns for all 3 of the Qwest entities in Hong Kong (2 active and 1 inactive), and the Qwest entities in Australia (active), Taiwan (inactive), Japan (1 active and 1 inactive), and Korea (active). In regard to the remaining active entities in Singapore and the UK, up-to-date tax returns will be filed shortly. Ben has also been involved in bringing up-to-date financials for 4 inactive entities in the Netherlands (23 sets of financials) and 2 inactive entities (18 sets of financials) in the UK.

Ben was able to stay focused and complete the tasks in regard to the above despite difficult circumstances:

The booking of transactions that were 3-4 years old and as to which some original invoices had disappeared;
The need to switch priorities from one set of financials to another in response to threats of penalties and prosecution from various tax authorities;
The need to perform the time consuming task of working with the tax department and the business unit to create a set of complex transfer pricing formulas and data;
The interruption of his primary task to comply with requests for books and records in response to audits by foreign tax authorities (Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore);
The interruption of his primary task to comply with requests for books and records by the tax department for planning purposes;
His lack of ability to communicate directly with the KPMG foreign auditors in Hong Kong and Singapore due to the requirement of communicating through the local KPMG affiliate which caused substantial delays in completing the audits in those countries. I have been copied on many of the requests for information from the local and foreign auditors, and from the foreign tax return preparers, and I have been regularly amazed at the speed with which he complies with their requests for information;
The difficulty of digesting and complying with different sets of accounting rules for each of the countries;
The difficulty of communicating with tax return preparers and auditors in Asia and Europe whose primary language is other than English;
The difficulty of communicating with tax return preparers and auditors in Asia and Europe because of the time differences and different vacation schedules;
Complying with other regular duties assigned to him such as monthly closing of accounts; and
Assisting with new initiatives related to the reorganization of the international accounting reporting.

I can personally attest that he often worked at home during non-business hours late at night to complete his projects and comply with requests for documents. Within the past several weeks he became the father to a set for twins who were born prematurely and has taken time to go to the hospital to be with his children. On several occasions he took the time to respond to my calls to his work desk from the hospital and from home demonstrating the ability to be both a good father and a good employee.

I am aware of compliments paid to him by others who have worked with him:

David Browning, independent contractor: “He is like a freight train.” (plowing through one set of financials to the next).
Bob Simon attorney for Baker and Hostetler remarked how rapidly he responded to Bob’s requests for documents requested in regard to tax issues related to the UK subsidiaries.
Robert Davidson, business director located in Hong Kong, recently remarked that he is a great “international” worker meaning he is willing to get up early and stay up late to call the Hong Kong office during the Hong Kong workday.

In summary, Ben is one of the best and most productive employees with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working in my 6 years at Qwest and 9 years at U S WEST and deserves to be recognized for his accomplishments.

Syd Barron, C.P.A. Qwest

Benjamin Mueller worked as the Chief Financial Officer for ADM Labs from May 2018 to April 2020. Throughout his time at ADM Labs, Mr. Mueller oversaw all financial aspects of the company, including an audit of the previous year’s financials. Mr. Mueller compiled and constructed comprehensive financial reports for investors and implemented controls to streamline reporting chains, thus increasing the efficiencies of the organization.

Mr. Mueller is a seasoned professional with excellent communication and self-starter skills and has the ability to work under extreme conditions to meet deadlines. Additionally, he has proven his ability to work both in office as well as remote without any disruption to his day-to-day responsibilities.

Mr. Mueller would be an asset for any organization in need of a finance professional.

If you have any questions with regard to Mr. Mueller’s background or qualifications, you may contact me at any time.

Nico Anthony

President, ADM Labs

I am a CPA with 15 years of work experience. I was a senior manager with one of the big 4 firms and have held the Corporate Controller position at 2 different companies. I am presently the general accounting manager for Qwest Corporation, an SEC registrant with $10 billion in annual revenues.

I have known Ben Mueller for the last year and a half, and worked extensively with him for approximately 5 months on the international restatement project. This project involved retroactively creating five years of auditable financial statements for approximately 20 different international companies.

Prior to Ben's arrival at Qwest, the company had invested significant amount of resources, and had only made almost no progress on the project. The project was especially challenging because records for the international entities were incomplete, and most of the key people who were involved in the transactions for the entities were no longer with the company. Also, many important legal and accounting agreements had never been completed ( i.e. intercompany billing agreements). The project was particularly urgent because Qwest had received notices threatening to imprison local directors or shut down operations unless we completed regulatory financial statement and tax filings.

Ben came in and immediately dug into the project. Ben had to search through hundreds of old boxes and contracts to locate records to satisfy the auditors. Ben worked effectively with staff of all levels-

including foreign employees/service providers and the assistant Corporate Controller of Qwest to gather the required information to assemble the financial statements. Ben produced excellent documentation of what he did and developed spreadsheets which became the basis of the international financial statements. Ben worked with tax professionals to develop the cost plus billing agreements and calculations used to record intercompany transactions and did extensive work to reconcile the intercompany payables and receivables between the various entities. Ben worked with very demanding and difficult audit personnel in a professional manner. Ben worked extensive overtime to the meet the project deadlines- and frequently took work home. The project required getting up early to lead phone calls with professionals in Europe and staying up late to lead calls with professionals in Asia. Ben assisted foreign professionals in converting the financial statements from US GAAP to local GAAP. Once the financial statements were complete, Ben calculated the required adjustments to correct the consolidated company books.

Despite many setbacks and difficulties, Ben completed the project and met the deadlines. While many people helped with the project, I credit Ben for bringing it to closure.

I would wholeheartedly recommend Ben for an international accounting manager role, or for other accounting roles of similar responsibility.

He has the solid technical skills required. He can organize, document and reconcile anything. He is tenacious, dedicated, and is easy to get along with. If Ben were to leave his current position, it would be a significant loss for Qwest.

Please feel free to contact me further for additional information about Ben.

Allen Pack, C.P.A.

Reference and points of recommendation for Ben Mueller. Ben has been working as my accountant for approximately two years and has been just a god sent member of my team and I am dreading the transition that lies ahead. Packed with intelligence, detail-oriented focus, drive and experience he has been just a great support and guide to me and my business during that time frame.

Ben’s cost accounting and accuracy controlling, fixing and creating nuances for my business books and other supporting documentation he developed to make my business hum has been just terrific. He is an honest, intuitive, motivating and fun person to work with weekly. I don’t see him in person often as most of my work is done remotely, but we speak weekly attacking items and projects with a smooth stroke together. He is accurate and effective at his tasks well beyond most people I have worked with in years and I am an aggressive, driving highly focused individual who has very high expectations, which Ben meets or exceeds every goal/item I have set for him as my accounting navigator.

I would recommend him highly, not only for a cost accounting position, but for any business cost control, finance or business development position you are thinking of putting him in. He is driven to succeed and will do just that. He is a worthwhile hire for any size organization and has helped me my grow my business 45 and 50% annually for the past 2 years.

Scott Bergman

President Brush Strokes Painting