Hamilton Families CFO Rosa Martinez, “I think the most important skill is to be able to plan short term and long term.” | Photo: Hamilton Families
San Francisco Business Times • Jun. 7 2019
Since 1985, Hamilton Families has been committed to ending family homelessness in the Bay Area. The organization opened the first temporary shelter for homeless families in San Francisco and it pioneered the “Housing First” model, which provides permanent housing for those in need. Rosa Martinez has directed the organization’s finances since 1998, when she joined as their director of finance. She was named CFO in 2018.
Martinez says that Hamilton Families sets itself apart from other organizations targeting homelessness with its “continuum of care and support that starts with emergency shelter and continues to transitional housing and rapid rehousing for families experiencing homelessness.” She adds that they “received a national award from the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2007 for modeling the Housing First strategy in the Bay Area.”
Stable finances are critical for Hamilton Families, and Martinez has ensured that stability, while promoting sizeable growth, for 20 years. “When I first started [at] the organization, we had only one program, the emergency shelter, and our budget was a million dollars. We now have four programs and an ongoing rapid re-housing initiative, and our current budget is $22 million.”
Martinez attributes this success in part to the ways in which her efforts allow the company to expand its operations safely. “My role is to support the vision of the CEO, members of the board and the executive team,” a role she executes by “allowing for budgetary changes for innovation while at the same time assessing long term sustainability for those changes.”
In recent years, Martinez has expanded her responsibilities, utilizing “the integration of technology to streamline and improve accounting systems” and talking with other CFOs about the techniques they’re using to improve their craft. But there’s one skill, according to Martinez, that every CFO should have: “I think the most important skill is to be able to plan short term and long term,” she says, highlighting the need to “assess any potential risks.”
It’s a strategy that’s yielded significant success for Hamilton Families, which continues to grow and support families in the Bay Area. “I think just being part of this organization is amazing,” says Martinez.
Rosa Martinez
Hamilton Families
Title: Chief Financial Officer/Director of Finance
Tenure: 1998-present
Background: Emerson USA