About the practice
Built inside the institutions we now advise.
Agile Capital Advisory is a principal-led finance transformation practice. We take a small number of engagements at a time, and the person you meet is the person who does the work.
We work the cause, not the symptom
A late close, a missed forecast and a control breach are usually the same problem seen from three angles. We diagnose upstream — data sourcing, ownership, and the decision the process was meant to serve — before proposing anything.
Senior attention, not leverage
Large firms staff pyramids. We deliberately do not. Engagements are led by the principal throughout, with specialist support brought in only where a mandate genuinely requires it — and named to you when it is.
Regulated environments are the default
Everything we design assumes a control framework, a model validation function and an examiner. That constraint is not an obstacle we work around; it is the environment we have spent twenty-five years operating in.
Measured outcomes or it did not happen
Cycle time, capacity released, breach count, model count, forecast variance. We agree the baseline before we start, because a transformation with no baseline is a reorganisation with a nicer name.
We will tell you when we are not the answer
The practice is deliberately narrow. If a mandate sits outside where we can credibly lead, we say so at the first conversation rather than at the first steering committee.
Stefan Safsten
Founder & Managing Principal. Twenty-five years in financial services finance — 6 years at Citi, close to 2 decades at Deloitte & Touche.
Stefan has spent his career on the same problem from two sides of the table: as an adviser rebuilding finance functions for banks at Deloitte & Touche, and then inside one of them, running Global FP&A transformation at Citi.
At Citi he led a multi-year overhaul of the FP&A organisation's design, processes and model estate, retiring more than 70% of redundant forecasting models while shifting team capacity toward analysis. He built and led global teams of ten to fifteen, directed cross-functional programs of twenty-five or more, and worked with Citi's AI Center of Excellence to take finance AI use cases from pilot to enterprise adoption. Earlier, as US Consumer CCAR lead, he ran multi-year stress-test forecasting, capital planning and resolution planning through formal review-and-challenge.
At Deloitte & Touche he spent close to two decades in financial services advisory, rising to Senior Manager, delivering finance operating model, regulatory reporting and systems transformation programs for global and regional banks — including a general ledger and reporting migration spanning 300+ users and 20+ countries, and direct engagement with US regulators on control adequacy and remediation.
He founded Agile Capital Advisory to do that work directly, for institutions that want the senior operator rather than the staffing model.
Career
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Apr 2023 – Apr 2026
Director, Corporate Finance — Global FP&A
Citi
Finance transformation, technology and model estate, AI enablement. Led org design, process and model overhaul; standardised data intake and metric definitions on the ERP/EPM platform; advised senior management on strategic initiatives including forecasting and analysis of the private equity portfolio.
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Oct 2019 – Mar 2023
Senior Vice President — US Consumer FP&A / CCAR Lead
Citi
Budgeting, forecasting, stress testing and capital planning for the US Consumer business. Led CCAR/DFAST and resolution planning execution and review-and-challenge; drove pricing and balance sheet optimisation; strengthened governance and control frameworks.
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2000 – Oct 2019
Senior Manager → Manager → Senior Consultant
Deloitte & Touche — Financial Services Advisory
Finance operating model, regulatory reporting and transformation programs for global and regional banks. Programs of up to fifty people across business, engineering and architecture; C-suite stakeholder management; regulatory capital, RWA and Basel assessments; SOX and internal audit programs.
Credentials
- MS, AccountingCUNY — expected 2027
- Agentic AI in FinanceHarvard Data Science Initiative, 2026
- BBA, ManagementPace University
- Project ManagementDeloitte & Touche · Computer Associates
Platforms & tooling we work in
Engage us
One conversation is usually enough to tell.
Enquiries go directly to the principal.
Contact