JAMES CRANE
ENTREPRENEURIAL AND GLOBAL TAX PRACTICE

James is a businessman first — and a rare-breed CPA whose combined expertise in accounting, tax, finance, management, and entrepreneurship now drives an all-in effort to advance artificial intelligence inside the accounting profession and across the industries his clients serve. At Charles River CFO, James leads the AI Native, Entrepreneurial, and Global Tax Practice.  

 

For clients, James serves as a fractional CFO. He leads a tax practice focused on four entrepreneurial client profiles he knows firsthand: tech founders, real estate developers, active traders, and Americans living abroad. He brings more than 30 years of tax and CFO judgment to guide decisions about when AI is the right solution versus structure, people, or process — and has saved clients more than $50 million in R&D tax credits.
 

James began his career at Ernst & Young in external audit, founded his own practice in 2001, and joined Charles River CFO in 2014. He holds a B.S. in Accountancy from Bentley University and is a licensed CPA in Massachusetts.​