Career advice - MsC Moved from Accounting role to fractional CFO services - looking to cover my bases to work up to a full-time CFO position

Thank you for putting the time to read my post but to keep it short, I'm looking to work my way up to a CFO position at either a series B start-up or publicly listed company - my track record so far is as follows

Education:

Master's degree in Accounting / Auditing and Controls

Work Experience:

- Worked for a privately held car company and worked my way up to accounting manager (basic bookkeeping).

- Accepted an offer to become a fractional CFO services firm in San Diego - Learned on the job - I currently make 90k with prospects to go to 120k with portfolio growth (incentive based on more time dedicated to more clients)

The CFO services world tends to be a bit high level and I've been able to help SMBs (mostly under 10m/year in revenue) company CEO's learn more about their business to make more informed decisions.. though I feel like I need to be doing more to cover my bases in order to move to a more challenging position (full time CFO at either a later stage start-up or a publicly listed company).

Currently I'm 28 years old - looking to continue education and thinking about either going the MBA or CPA route.

• CPA > This route seems to be more cost effective and goes deep into accounting / reporting in a standardized way - 
• MBA - As CPA doesn't go into the concorde strategic case study level that MBAs offer - but my job is basically case study after case study, just on a smaller scope (no M&A, Fundraising, IPO.. etc).

What would you recommend I do to help first solidify my knowledge about accounting and reporting standards and also position myself for a strategic level position down the road, CPA then big4 then company? I'm lost.

My current CEO advises not to take the CPA because "it doesn't help run the business" - of course, that remains true when you're dealing with very small companies.. but it isn't true as you scale up to bigger entities/groups. - And he also advises against an MBA because my job is the "MBA" which is also only partly true due to the fact that I get to see cases for smaller companies but no exposure to IPOs, due diligence, like standardized missions sort of things.. (he holds an MBA from an ivy league school - which sounds weird..)

Your input and perspective is highly appreciated.