FP&A Today

Anna Tiomina has faced multiple FP&A challenges in a 15-year finance career. This has included budget nightmares, all-nighters, and the  stark realization that “politics” is central to any FP&A or finance role.The former CFO of Sandoz, a huge pharmaceutical company,  describes her move to finance chief at Softeq, a smaller IT and consulting firm. Most recently she has pivoted to become a fractional CFO with a passion to help finance professionals bridge the gap between “curiosity and confident AI adoption”. In this honest and frank interview, Anna describes The challenges for anyone  in a full time finance role when you don’t have enough time to look at new things Structuring FP&A in a big company vs a smaller one Comparing and contrasting FP&A at a large and big companies Budget war stories When your key accounting person… is not an accountant  Ensuring a higher level of agility in budgeting Using AI in a safe way in FP&AConnect with Anna at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-tiomina/https://blend2balance.com/Subscribe to her insights at: https://balancedai-newsletter.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Saaya Nath is a partner of Jump Capital, a VC firm specializing in investments in software and infrastructure (their portfolio includes treasury software to products helping companies visualize and understand their cloud bills).  In this episode talks to Glenn about: How the CFO’s Office can automate workflows around finance  and  AI  The most common complaint talking to finance teams  Main focus of AI for finance teams we are seeing and rates of adoption Spend management, finOps, cloud cost management, and cash flow management opportunities How well are SMBs served by the proliferation of CFO Tech stack tools? Regulatory challenges in founder pitches  Ways to begin in a low risk way for AI in finance  Case study from Glenn on finance automation challenges in a manufacturing finance team How Jump Capital chooses the companies and early stages in an era of change vs FOMO and bubbles  Favorite Excel function  Follow Saaya Nath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saaya-nath-12ba82a3/overlay/about-this-profile/

Christian Franz Hansen is a seasoned management consultant and finance thought leader. He’s made it his mission to bridge the gap between strategic decision making and data analysis with a background that includes roles at EY and a finance consultant helping big-names including General Motors, Lego Group, and Maersk. He’s now a member of the Business Partnering Institute, where he’s revolutionizing how finance professionals approach their roles. In this episode: From Excel Wizard as a stepping stone to career growth (“ I still love the beauty of a well designed Excel model”) From EY to a change-oriented consulting company at Finance Business Partnering Institute Top ways to elevate the finance professional Partnering, communication, influencing stakeholders, problem solving and understanding the value drivers  Working with 500 business professionals at Maersk to turn the finance ship around from bean counters to business partners  Meeting Anders Liu Lindberg and starting the Business Partnering Institute  Outcomes vs Outputs in finance  Allocating finance hours to not drown in tasks  Resistance against our “soft skills” training and how to overcome it in your finance team Top down communication One piece of advice to make daily finance easier  PowerQuery in Excel  Connect with Christian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantzhansen/

Tobias Zwingmann is an ex-Senior Data Scientist-turned managing partner of RAPYD.AI - which is empowering companies from B2B SaaS startups  to leading financial institutions towards a unified AI strategy.  His data insights are shared in his books including “AI-Powered Business Intelligence” (O’Reilly 2022) and “Augmented Analytics” (Co-author, O‘Reilly 2024) as well as weekly newsletter “The Augmented Advantage” read by 4,500+ business leaders from brands like Amazon, Mercedes-Benz, Gucci, and Santander.  In this episode: My rise in data science Did the latest changes to Co-Pilot actually make it good? What finance can learn from other departments using AI Consolidating reports and augmenting processes using AI  Let’s talk forecasting and analytics and regression analysis  Leveraging Excel and Power BI to enhance their data analysis capabilities Getting to “data progressive” and “data active” in your organization  Augmented Analytics Explained  Clean (but not tidy) data in finance Two ways to make data tidy in ChatGPT Connect with Tobias Zwingmann on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobias-zwingmann

George Mount is an Excel MVP and author of Modern Data Analytics in Excel (he describes it as a guide to becoming a data analyst in Excel). His latest book, Advancing into Analytics: From Excel to Python and R could be subtitled “becoming a data scientist in Excel. As founder and CEO of Stringfest Analytics, he provides analytics education and upskilling including works with finance departments at the top ten banks. In this episode he answers how someone in FP&A – killing it in Excel – can go further in their career while using Excel as home base. In this episode:  Two books and the ROI you get as a finance professional from reading it  Using Excel as your home base for FP&A When to use Excel vs Python  citizen data scientists (or citizen data analysts) in Python  Using low code/no code tools Excel, copilot and Python as a new “trinity” for FP&A Getting your data house in order before getting to AI A surprising Excel favorite befitting an MVPConnect with George Mount on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gjmount/Further Reading George Mount: Modern Data Analytics in Excel: Using Power Query, Power Pivot, and More for Enhanced Data AnalyticsGeorge Mount: Advancing into Analytics: From Excel to Python and R

This year Bruno Oliveira got promoted to CFO, flying up the FP&A route at Swissport, the world’s leader in airport ground services and air cargo handling, active at 286 airports in 60 countries. In this must-listen episode: FP&A in the trenches from banks, to automotive, agriculture and aviation at Swissport How to cope without control on demand in aviation Financial planning three to six months ahead  Structure of FP&A at Swissport  Factoring in safety as the most important aviation metric, direct labor and fleet management costs  How our FP&A Team works together with our data analytics team  Cross functional relationships piloting Swissport success  Walking through the business budget planning at Swissport   Instead of  dreaming  of a new technology (such as AI) use the specific blade of a swiss army knife for your business   Why PowerQuery is mandatory for FP&A Getting to fifth place in Latin America in the Financial Modeling World Cup Follow and connect with Bruno  on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bosilva/

Forget “Founder Mode”. For those in FP&A your CFO expects Owner Mode. “In rugby, if you observe, a player often clings on to the ball, not letting it go out of his hands until the goal is scored. That’s how we need to handle things. Own it — cling onto it — achieve the goal,” says former IBM India CFO Ravikumar Ramanan, author of the brilliant book: The CFO Lens, how to Thrive in the Fast Changing World of FinanceHe tells Glenn Hopper: “The expectation of a finance partner is not to stop at the sign off and say, okay, I have now committed $10m in company money. You then need to get  involved in the execution of the strategy. I changed my role from just being the person who signed off and asked for periodic reports to actually going out into the field and starting to talk and feel like an owner.”In this masterclass episode Ravikumar reveals The Bigger business context we are living through that finance cannot ignore The failures when strategy projects are not being tracked by finance  How to feel really that the results are yours Storytelling and  influencing secrets from the finance seat  Good and bad costs  Balancing short term and long term in your finance role My biggest advice for people to succeed in a finance role at any stage of their career  My favorite Excel Function (even corporate legends get asked) Further reading Ravikumar Ramanan: The CFO Lens: How to Thrive in the Fast-Changing World of FinanceMade to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath:Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

“Not having the answer is no longer acceptable because you are 30 seconds from having the answer. You’ve just gotta ask.” – Don Tomoff  Don Tomoff, founder of Invenio Advisors, is a finance rockstar and a trailblazer in AI adoption for finance. As a CMA his life’s mission is to make work easier for literally everyone he encounters. The CMA and finance expert  has more than 30 years of experience spanning accounting, being a CFO, and consulting. Don Tomoff is not just an expert in his field including AI. He’s a passionate advocate for using technology to drive efficiency and innovation. In this episode, Don emphasizes how AI has transformed the speed at which financial professionals can access information and solve problems. “Right now, if you’re doing AI, you have a huge advantage against those that aren’t. But I think in the next year or so, you’re going to quickly shift to, it’s a liability for you if you aren’t doing it.” In this episode  Streamling finance tasks as an accountant and FP&A Why efficiency is only a part of the finance AI revolution  Biggest area ripe for AI FP&A Disruption? Democratization of data science  Retrieval augmented generation to analyze hundreds of documents (for instance filings) Get the Paid Plan  TwinzTalk Tips  Why what hat you can do in two minutes gets done  Distinctions between OpenAI and Claude Finance in five years Power Query  and UNIQUE Follow and connect with Don Tomoff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dontomoff/

Skip Katroll is Senior Director, Insights and Analytics at AmPhil. AmPhil helps big-name nonprofits raise more money and advance their missions. This episode is packed with practical and honest insights and takeaways you can apply to your day job. Skip gives the inside story on creating and selling a report at Amphil, "Unlocking the Secrets of Lost Sales Opportunities", and the approach that he followed. Skip also reveals how a background leading finance at top universities alongside math, economics (and a love of sci-fi) informs his FP&A. Prior to joining AmPhil, Skip was an associate vice provost at Liberty University responsible for the institution’s strategic planning and regulatory compliance.  In this episode:  My multidisciplinary journey (aka “confused youth”) - studying math, economics, educational leadership and religion  (and how it applies to my data insights)  FP&A business partnering at a University Finance team - navigating functions from the Dean of Arts to the Dean of Engineering  3 proven strategies for financial data and analysis getting management to informed decisions Countering “so what, and "why am I am here” approaches from business partners How to navigate ad hoc requestsWhen you don’t have enough access to data  The power of benchmarking  Leading vs lagging indicators  Unlocking the Secrets of Lost Sales Opportunities - a big impact report and the challenges, impact and approach My favorite Excel function Connect and and ask questions to Skip over on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skipkastroll/ Further Reading: Skip Kastroll: Bridging the Gap: Translating Finance Insights for Effective Decision-Making

Laura Bloom started as as a contracts manager for an air cargo company. In a dramatic switch she moved to accounting, then finance and FP&A at top companies including Dotmatics, Salesforce Comcast, and is now senior finance manager at Icertis, a SaaS platform for AI-powered contract intelligence. In 2023 she founded Impact FP&A specializing in Go-To-Market (GTM) finance strategy for companies. In this episode she reveals the importance of flexibility in her career and joining the dots in your story: “For example, with contracts management, you wouldn’t think that would translate into finance and accounting. However, as part of that role I was working with sales to build the sales bids for new business. I was also working very closely with accounting to give them revenue expectations for commercial contracts and OPEX expenses for our commercial properties.” In this episode: My passion for bringing order from chaos in finance Examples from my FP&A including calculating the obsolescence reserve for almost a billion dollars worth of inventory on a biannual basis Building a new model and updating assumptions (transforming the process from 6 months to 60 days and releasing $5m back to the balance sheet) The importance of data minimalism Monte Carlo analysis giving you a wider range of possible outcomes  Tableau as a data visualization tool and digging into commissions Importance of flexibility in a finance and FP&A   Most important FP&A Skill?  The ladder of abstraction The most vital go-to-market finance metrics  Connect with Laura on LinkedIn or email her at contact@impactfpna.com

Former CFO Daniel Paik, turned founder and CEO of CuroWork is at war on back office functions. He vows to “transform back-office departments from cost centers to profit centers” with FP&A in their sights. He says: “I call the back office the last frontier. We are the only ones not measuring ourselves. Therefore we get crap given to us every single day." Here are some of the ways that Daniel Paik, a former CFO, fixed the “back office” mentality in finance teams. Salespeople at one company said that the hardest part of their job is the 4 hours of entering Excel sheets related to forecasts. After looking at the situation, Paik decided to hire a financial  analyst (at $80,000) to take away the pain for salespeople previously diverted away from the selling - bringing in $4m in extra revenue Paik discovered and stopped a recurring report that hasn’t been read by the client in three years - giving back up to 5 hours a week to finance for strategic tasks By analyzing  how a finance professional was performing next to her job description Paik found “she was 140% utilized just on her recurring work” (compared to ad hoc work or project work). “By reallocating a lot of our time to project work we can become a value center or a profit center.” In this episode: ERP SOS! How an  8 month ERP implementation turned into two years  Moving from individual finance contributor to manager: tips and tricks  What Peter Drucker actually said about measurement (and why it matters)  The unmeasured country of Back Office functions Managing finance buckets into recurring work, ad hoc work and projects How to balance a million finance projects The right metrics to measure the finance team Average worker only productive up to 4 hours a day and how to get the most of that time What is a business for?” The real power of a project The power of AI in the back office  Connect with Daniel Paik on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielpaik/ CuroWork: https://www.curowork.com/

CFO and Partner, Tyler Caskey loves hunting down and automating manual processes, installing better systems, and redesigning how information is gathered. He adds: “On average I can cut 40% of the time cost out of most finance and payroll teams within 12 months. And with the 40% saved time they can significantly reduce error rates and start to show their true value.” In this episode Tyler talks to Glenn about some of his experiences working with teams from New Zealand, Australia, the US, UK and Europe. This episode covers: Getting dropped into audit in KPMG New Zealand before discovering a  “love for helping messy clients” Nonprofits and the finance of Movember getting up to 3000 transactions per day  How to sell the change of system stack  SAP vs Xero vs QuickBooks  Tech upgrades ahead of a liquidity event How I have seen PE destroy the culture of the business (and some good experiences) Sharing scars and war stories from PE  My finance horror at a restaurant business and why I walked out  CFOs and sniff testing the budget How we are using AI in finance and budgeting   My experience being a CFO in the wild recruitment business  How finance can prepare themselves to make informed tech decisions Involving junior team members on projects Basketball meditation and wellness   Connect and chat with Tyler on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylercaskey/

Continuing our “Masters of FP&A Data” series, we have the privilege of hosting Brandon Wilson, Founder and CEO of Steady Dynamic. Brandon works with clients from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies giving expertise to those who lack experience building digital solutions. He encourages big ideation, assuming technology can solve any problem, and works to prioritize and constrain scope relative to business objectives. “FP&A has to some degree implemented predictive analytics” he says. “Whether that’s custom or bespoke modeling or just using tools. The next generation is unlocking prescriptive analytics. That is not just presentation or data for the purpose of extracting insights, but insights that come with recommendations and, and the ability to run multiple scenarios. “Real time data acquisition and analytics is also empowering us to do things more on a daily, if not hourly basis, and see things way sooner, uh, from, from an analytics and forecasting perspective.” In the second week of data-nerding-out we have a treat: AI’s transformation of finance and financial modeling Predictive analytics to prescriptive analytics  Moving from cost center to “value add” in finance through the data How best to deliver and integrate your data to enhance financial functions Studying sentiment analysis in your CRM to investigate pipeline  Complex models in FP&A including clustering and Naive Bayes SQL vs no SQL and FP&A The Panama papers What the data environment looks like for FP&A in the next two years  Zero shot prompts and chain of thought prompting  Reverse engineering to get the best AI finance results  Connect with Brandon Wilson on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkwilson/

Nicholas Mann, founder and CEO Stratos Consulting, has got the best out of the data for hundreds of companies. He has helped data and analytics leaders go from siloed, heterogeneous data source to a  modeled data warehouse and analytics platforms. In this awesome analytics episode he shares some of his experiences: Getting companies on their data journey The importance of FP&A not just staying in their lane  Inner workings of how data is impacting the rest of the business  From deep finance domain expert to understanding the business FP&A Data Maturity Assessment  When Business Grows – how do FP&A teams grow with them? Data Stewards and how they work  Creating a finance and FP&A Center of Excellence  Why I favor the Snowflake ecosystem  What you should hire consultants for – and not hire them for when it comes to finance and data strategy People in data: change management challenges Using AI for variance analysis  About me: rare eye condition achromatopsia and how I have overcome the limitations  Notes fpatoday.scoreapp.com (answer 15 questions to discover where you are in your data data journey) https://stratosconsulting.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-mann-80855a1a/

Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez, a recognized and respected Board Member and Chief Financial Officer for large & mid-cap companies has been a finance leader in sectors including e-commerce, technology, gaming ad tech, and online hospitality. She says: “Each sector really presented its unique financial challenges and strategies.”  Learn invaluable lessons about FP&A from Maria who has served more than 20 years at blue chip companies: How I grew as a finance professional at Amazon and the launch of Amazon Prime and Amazon Europe was created Acquiring of Booking.com by Priceline  Azerion growth from 200m Euros to 500m Euros in only two years to IPO and Belin’s Brand Group ended up with a leveraged buyout  From law to finance and my finance career   Core KPIs and metrics across diverse businesses  Getting the “finance footprint” from a CEO before I join Flexibility and adaptability in fast-growth companies Customer obsession at Amazon vs the 80/20 principle at Booking.com My approach to financial modeling  Levering analysts with historical data at C&A Implementing BI tools and justifying the investment  Why AI in finance is a phenomenal opportunity and my role as Board Member for Women in AI Netherlands Kickboxing and karaoke  Connect with Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariadeldadoalonsosanchez/

Only our second ever returning guest, Christian Wattig, a veteran former leader of FP&A at P&G, Unilever, and Squarespace, reveals new skills he has learnt as he created the recently-launched 8 week Wharton Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Certificate Program, one of the most comprehensive FP&A training courses on the market. He describes highlights from his career, new strategy, and analysis, and how he sees the future of the profession. In this episode:  The common bond between FP&A educators such as Christian and former host Paul Barnhurst and Glenn FP&A at multinational consumer goods companies P&G and Unilever  Startup FP&A vs Big FP&A Creating FP&A Prep  to the  new Wharton (University of Pennsylvania FP&A) 8 week Online Course  Two great books I recommend The CFO Lens, Ravi Kumar, and Future Ready by Steve Morlidge and Steve Player  Two Fascinating FP&A Things I hadn’t come across in 14 years previously: Business Driver Tree Analysis + Differences-in-Differences Analysis  BI, financial analysis and data science vs FP&A Building an FP&A Team through four phases explained-data focus, story focus, and proactive value creation The importance of FP&A tools and choosing the right one  Key insights and trends for finance we will see this year  Practical uses of AI in FP&A 8-WEEK ONLINE COURSE Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Certificate Program https://wallstreetprep.wharton.upenn.edu/financial-planning-and-analysis-certificate/ Sign up to Christian’s weekly (free) newsletter with tips and practical FP&A advice: fpa prep.com/newsletter Connect with Christian on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-wattig/

When any finance business partner–a CFO or an FP&A professional–wants their counterpart across the table in marketing, sales or HR, to understand the essentials of numbers, they hand them the business classic, Financial Intelligence, A Manager's Guide to Knowing what the Numbers Really Mean. First published in 2006, the book has been named in the Top 100 Business Books of all time and remains a word of mouth sensation and continues to sell rapidly nearly two decades on. The classic was authored by former CFO, Joe Knight and Karen Berman. Until her untimely death 10 years ago, Karen, was also a force in engaging all employees in improving a company’s finances Based on the principles of the book, Joe Knight, Partner and Senior Consultant with the Business Literacy Institute,  trains execs at some of the biggest companies in the world including NBCUniversal, Electronic Arts, and McKesson on business partnering and the importance of getting a business to understand and embrace their numbers and works. He has also been a guest on Bob Brinker’s Money Talk show on KABC ratio and CNBC’s Morning Call program. In addition his engaging keynote addresses, include "The Love affair with EBITDA" and "The Secrets of Finance Revealed". As CFO of Setpoint Companies, he spearheaded the financial education of engineers in this automation and roller coaster company and tells us some of his adventures from this journey and secrets to finance business partnering at the highest level. In this episode  The origins of the writing one of the most famous business books   Why I hated my time in finance at Ford Motor Company and how it shaped my thinking and journey Busting the fallacy you shouldn’t share your numbers with your business Why actuals are not actual but just a guess (accountants close your ears).  How business partnering has changed  The metric of Financial literacy has stayed at 38% in companies for large companies nearly 20 years on Why it hurts operators if they don’t understand the numbers  Focusing on three to five numbers  My experience with GE and NBC  The art of using limited data in finance  Harry Potter roller coasters and what it taught me about the ridiculous focus on EBITDA  Having seven Kids Not being a “numbers” person but a accretive person with numbers  Business Literacy institute: https://www.business-literacy.com/ Contact: mail@business-literacy.com

In this episode Glenn Hopper talks to the researcher responsible for the groundbreaking study which found that AI is better at conducting financial analysis than humans. Alex Kim, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, provides a full overview of his findings, methodology and the impact on FP&A, CFOs and finance from the attention-grabbing study “Financial Statement Analysis with Large Language Models”. The analysis, which made headlines across the world, found AI produces a 60% rate of accuracy in predictive financial performance. Human experts’ accuracy tends to fall between 53% and 57%. In this episode Alex Kim reveals the implications for finance professionals:  Alex’s finance background – from a Master’s degree in Business Administration to a Accounting and a dual Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Administration- to his doctoral and PHD career How he self taught himself coding and AI Practically how do finance pros take the insights from this paper and use them in their day to day? Why the model didn’t do so well with loss-making or startup companies  Improving on the performance models using a startup company data How can you combine AI and Human Intelligence  What humans can do better than AI in financial forecasting  Future research projects into information processing for investors  How to keep up to date on the latest ground breaking research in AI and Finance My military experience stationed with US soldiers in South Korea My favorite Excel feature ( and why one thing about Excel still cannot be rivaled). Read the full paper here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4835311 Check out the analyzer for yourself here: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-9P3sIn487-financial-statement-analyzer Follow Alex Kim on Linkedin Ph.D. Student at the University of Chicago: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexgunwookim

We received a flood of FP&A and CFO questions from our audience (and FP&A Reddit). These and more are put to this this week’s finance headhunter special guests: Nick Gribbon,Senior Partner, Financial Officers Practice at Essenta, and Laura Streather, Consultant, Private Equity at Essenta, who run the finance headhunting section at the global executive search firm. Hear all the behind the scenes anecdotes and secrets to getting your next big FP&A or CFO job. Connect with Nick Gribbon, Senior Partner, Financial Officers Practice at Essentahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gribbon-37349b1/Connect with Laura Streather, Consultant, Private Equity at Essentahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-streather-451966137/ Shortage of Exit Private Equity CFOs and what you will need to fill the role   How to go from Director FP&A of a large public company to CFO of a PE-backed company The importance of demonstrating “behavioral competencies of leadership” to pass the first screening  Getting exposure to the right industry – how important is it? Getting to understand where you are going to have most impact in your next role How important is the CPA? What is the best way to get on headhunters’ radars?  What the headhunter interview looks like and is designed to accomplish for you and the recruitment firm? The importance of referrals and how to play them to your advantage  How slow is the CFO job market? Is being the CFO at a private equity-backed company right for you?What can candidates add to CVs to stand out? Salary bands and how to negotiate the most money Salary inflation and how that impacts senior role Will moving as CFO from a $100m to $1bn company automatically get you a higher salary?

Geetha Ramachandran is an FP&A change agent. She helped transform FP&A operations at GE Healthcare and Cummins (“When I walked into the FP&A at GE Healthcare, and I saw the close was eight days, my approach to things is usually I don’t take things just on face value or just because someone has been doing something a particular way).” Geetha has since swapped supersized companies for startups, most recently leading FP&A at fast-growing businesses including SimpleTire. In  her current role as Head of FP&A at New Jersey decor company, Triangle Home Fashions, she continues to propel FP&A as a “co-captain” in the business. In this episode Geetha reveals: Her career journey from PwC auditor to equity research to GE Healthcare  The CPA in India and why the pass rate is only 10% Key FP&A achievements including shrinking number of days of closing from 8 days and spending  more time on value added activities  How to better establish KPIs for departments aligned with business goals  Presenting  KPIs for improving warehouse efficiency at Triangle Home Fashions (pick and pack time, average utilization, inventory turnover, SKUS meeting minimal sales threshold) The challenges at multinational manufacturer, Cummins, integrating four companies and restructuring the finance team at a time of low morale  Doing FP&A at company as fast as Simple Tire vs more mature business  Her approach at Triangle Home with inventory levels purchased during COVID Lessons from two decades in business partnering  Follow Geetha Ramachandran https://www.linkedin.com/in/geetharamachandran201/

A compelling FP&A story is essential. In this second (and final) session from FP&ACon 2024, Glenn hosts Soufyan Hamid, FP&A leader for 16 years who runs the Financial Storytelling Program, and Matthew Herbert, Chewy Director of Finance.  First poll: How confident are you in your ability to craft a compelling FP&A Story:? The move  from numbers to storytelling Soufyan on why the finance director was always frustrated by my business presentations (when I was even invited to meetings) By contrast Matthew was forced to get to grips with storytelling early in investment banking (but faced a different challenge as an FP&A business partner at Walmart) The gap between perception and reality in our storytelling  When information becomes insights  The connection between business partnering and storytelling  What (selfishly) do FP&A pros get by developing storytelling skills? Remember you are not giving a TED Talk  The 5 Points that FP&A Pros Most Struggle with in their Storytelling Actionable tips in your presentation  Follow and connect with Soufyan Hamid: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soufyanhamid/ Follow and connect with Matthew Herbert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-herbert-6a56637/ Matthew’s training course at https://biztrix.us/ Soufyan (The Finance Circle) training www.thefinancecircle.com

In this special episode (part of Datarails’ FP&A Con 2024) Glenn hosts an all-star panel to debate AI and FP&A: Hype vs reality.   Join Nicolas Boucher, Christian Martinez, and Gabriela Gutierrez, alongside CFO Glenn Hopper, host of FP&A Today, and an AI thought leader and author. Delve into real-world applications, separating fact from fiction, and gain valuable practical insights into the present and future of AI in financial planning and analysis.    The Guests: Nicolas Boucher, Keynote speaker on AI for Finance & FP&A Christian Martinez, Finance Analytics Manager, Kraft Heinz Gabriela Gutierrez, Financial Planning & Analysis Specialist   In this episode:  How many FP&A pros are using AI in their work - how do you compare vs the results of our poll  The main misconceptions + and what not to do in the  finance and AI era The significance of ChatGPT 4o The biggest barriers to AI adoptions  Practical uses of AI to use today , including forecasting and practical ways to save time  FP&A AI use cases that have shocked the panel  Which FP&A processes could most use AI help? How to get started practically AI capabilities in existing tools  such as PowerBI Why 2024 is about Python as the tool to learn to break the barrier of AI Automation in finance’s relationship with other departments Creating your own chatbot services The importance of data maturity (before AI maturity) How you will start to see AI inbuilt to all your finance techstackDownload financial data (balance sheets, savings) from a company on  Yahoo Finance and plug into Chat GPT 4o (Prompt: Act as a management consultant and analyze this data with an FP&A lens” (and getting volume analysis, volatility analysis, moving averages..)  FP&ACon 2024 (on demand) https://www.datarails.com/events/fpa-con-2024/ Join the AI Finance Club: https://ai-finance.club/  “Financial Statement Analysis with Large Language Models,”

FP&A professionals are the original business intelligence (BI) experts, says Len Mcfall, senior consultant, finance at Windstream Holdings, a $1billion US telecoms company. “FP&A itself is synonymous with business intelligence,” he says. “And honestly, weren’t, weren’t we the first business intelligence? We’ve always been working with data. We’ve always been trying to simplify and present data in a  meaningful way to people who might not,otherwise be literate.” In this frank and honest interview McFall, whose background is heavily influenced by BI, gives insights from a 20 year career including HCT Investments, Sitel, Crossroads Treatment Center and a minefield of data at Windstream.   “I’m not a bullet point guy. I’m a paragraph guy” says Len– warning he’s not one for short, snappy answers, but a storyteller who loves to dive deep,  as he reveals: Why 40% of my job is touching base with people to curate all the data we use across the organization Putting sales on blast:  how often do you catch a forecast from a sales organization that’s even 50%, right? Coming into a company to save them after they were delivering finance reporting 30 days after close (from 30 days to day 8) the role of data analysis and bi  in finance and in the decision making process. How business runs on “hunches” and why it is FP&A to prove that hunch  Why if you cannot communicate to the business you are useless  The vast amount of data we have access to in telecoms and how we separate the signal from the noise  How finance rubs against IT and why it’s not pretty  Why AI in finance is like a “very smart but green intern” and prompt engineers are ridiculous Killing for food in winters during his childhood Connect with Len on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/len-mcfall-6274857b/

CFO Seth Zimmerman faced a triple blow of tests in his decades-long  real estate career. Firstly, he witnessed the Lehman collapse first-hand from within a real estate division of the famed bank (“We just got a call from our New York office, a guy in New York. He’s like, well, it’s done. We’re bankrupt.”). Secondly, being forced to blow the whistle when his CEO boss pocketed $1m into his bank account–the day after a $10m raise (the startup is now defunct). Finally, being the finance person when a developer absconded with $12m. “One of the things that I’ve learned is that when it comes to money, you never know what somebody’s going to do”. In this episode, Seth Zimmerman, CFO at Invest with Roots, explains the core metrics in finance real estate and why things are never cookie cutter (“Every deal is, is different and you have to look at them individually”) Zimmerman talks: Life as CFO at Invest with Roots, one of the hottest companies in Atlanta,the only real estate portfolio that creates wealth for renters. The role of finance at a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) – a security that trades like a stock on the major exchanges and reports to the SEC.  Blowing the whistle in finance  when a former CFO pocketed $1m Creating $700,000 for residents at Invest with Roots Becoming CFO and bringing in budgeting and FP&A processes Love of modeling and how I am using  modeling skills to get into the multifamily space How to find great finance staff +the accountant recruitment challenge  Favorite Excel function  My motorbike crash  Follow Seth on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethazimmerman/

As a lifelong gamer, David Fortin successfully landed  his dream job managing FP&A at Ubisoft – the $2.79 billion gaming company responsible for Assassin’s Creed, Driver, and Far Cry, For Honor. The former PwC auditor then decided to take on an even more daunting leap. He ran FP&A at  Saas Startup Polka “building the plane while we were flying” – cue  his boss leaving, learning how to fundraise, facing disinterested investors, budgets rejected by the board,  the CTO crying, before managing an eventual successful exit (in 2023 the company was acquired by Swedish enterprise software giant IFS). Now he is a full-time YouTuber teaching Excel and Microsoft Copilot – still using finance and analytics to build his business. In this episode David talks: PwC CPA audit coming up that way to FP&A Quebec, loving video games and landing a role at Ubisoft Moving from a big company to a startup and a steep finance learning curve Building the plane while flying in FP&A Learning the sales pitch of funding round facing questions and disinterterested investors CTOs crying when the budget is rejected by the board Due diligence and exit – lessons Becoming a YouTuber making Excel fun again and grasping Microsoft Copilot  How CoPilot and AI will transform FP&A Scenario analysis in Copilot  20,000 hours of gaming and my favorite Excel function Follow David on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-fortin-cpa-816b20b5/ Follow David’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@piggybankaccountant

From being the First kid in her family to finish high school, Swati Bagri began as a role as auditor at Deloitte (“I did what any 17-year-old smart kid would do. I just followed my friends”). At Deloitte she discovered a “love of finance” realizing it’s “what I want to do for the rest of my life”. Swati cemented her FP&A career at some of the world’s biggest brands: Nestlé, Mars, Amazon, and Kraft Heinz. At these giants she absorbed and built a playbook to get from “good” to “great” FP&A. Behing the success of FP&A at these teams, she explains is 3 things: strategic planning and forecasting, technology and risk management. In this episode Swati talks about: Finance transformation as a significant part of her role (the slippery term of “finance transformation” defined as the “effective use of technology to free up people’s time”) How predictive analytics was used at Nestlé from rainfall data, and the wider playbook of building financial models with consumers in mind  Hyperinflationary markets like Turkey and Egypt and FP&A and the lessons learned Business partnering roles at Amazon and Nestlé and what I have learned about successful relationship building towards common objectives  Co-founding The Strategy Story (including learning about Marriage insurance for wedding days) Start by Explaining the P&L and coaching non-finance folk War stories – annual planning cycles  FP&A-led transformation at an ecommerce marketplace business and getting buy-in from senior management through a data story The power of podcasts to keep your at the top of your finance game  Sky Jumping and my favorite Excel function Connect with Swati Bagri on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/swatibagri/ Book a mentoring session with Swati at https://topmate.io/swatibagri

We host our first ever FP&A guest from the US casino and gambling sector with the head of FP&A at Genting Americas, a world leader in casinos and lodging with luxurious loactions in Las Vegas, Bimini, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom. Bill Singh is VP FP&A of Genting Americas, part of the world’s largest Destination Resort operator operating as Resorts World . Genting boasting five public companies capitalized at $45 billion and employing more than 50,000 people worldwide. This episode  reveals their inside FP&A game including metrics such as “win per unit per day” tacking the “hold”. Bill is strategic leader with more than a decade leading FP&A and providing insights on skills and budgeting management, to insider advice about gaming. In this episode: Getting an unexpected offer of an FP&A role at a casino in Nevada Why FP&A at the “nexus of data and decision-making” is an “ultimate” career path  Critical skills you must develop in FP&A  Giving “X+1” in your FP&A answers Salesmanship in FP&A FP&A metrics: “Win per unit per day and hold” Lodging: occupancy, your ADR, your revenue per available room Odds and statistics from tables, games and FP&A modeling  Insider advice about gaming (including “Don’t play a game right by the door”) The power of leading budget for the operating side and the capital budget for all divisions +lessons from 10 years of budgeting   The impact of AI in getting answers faster for operators MATCH+TEMPO – My favorite Excel function and lessons from drumming   Follow and connect with Bill Singh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billsinghprofile/

What’s the connection between FP&A and Taylor Swift? To answer we are joined by Michael Stotland, Vice President of FP&A at AEG Presents. AEG Presents is one of the largest live music companies in the world, and most famously the concert promoter behind the $1 billion dollar revenue Eras Tour by Taylor Swift: the highest grossing tour of all time.For good measure, Stotland’s FP&A team also supports the tours of Paul McCartney, Katy Perry Elton John, and the Rolling Stones, and 25 music festivals, including the iconic Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, along with Stagecoach, the New Orleans Jazz Fest, hangout Fest, electric Forest, and Firefly. In this blockbuster episode, we want to teach you how FP&A feels (apologies to Swifties):Michael Stotland VP of FP&A at AEG reveals in conversation with host Glenn Hopper: How growing up in Los Angeles the entertainment industry the entertainment industry was a natural choice, and starting my career at MGM Spreading my wings at 20th Century Fox  Building up the FP&A function at MarVista (a TV and movie production company showcasing nearly 2,500 hours of content) and the story behind a facing a “fantastic year” during COVID FP&A leadership at AEG  helping live entertainment “ return from the abyss”  “Seeing the financials bounce” back as pent up demand was realized  Pulling external data into daily FP&A work  Heatmaps on beer costs and price of living as part of FP&A planning  Managing 3 areas of FP&A at AEG:  General, systems and business strategy units The FP&A dimension of Taylor Swift Eras Tour  Using local macroeconomics to impact business decision-making – from the UK to Singapore and the US How Television revenues and licensing of big movies saves movie studios  FP&A swiftness when Kanye West bowed out at the last minute at Coachella  Using AI to look at past events and ticket sales and performance on a contribution margin basis  Looking to optimize how we do FP&A and ambitions to become CFO Links between FP&A and my triathlon career  Connect with Michael Stotland Vice President, Financial Planning & Analysis at AEG Presents: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikestotland/ Further Reading: Rolling Stone: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Is the Highest-Grossing of All Time and First-Ever to Hit $1 Billion Investopedia: Swiftonomics: The Economic Influence of Taylor Swift Datarails Blog: How FP&A makes Huge Hollywood Hits

Antonio Reza is the Head of Finance for Google Cloud Consulting in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). In this episode he reveals the FP&A life and lessons he has learned over the past 14 years working in finance and strategy at Google, Microsoft, and GE. He brings experiences across 10 different countries leading teams across the globe spanning different industries (he also speaks four languages). In this episode he reveals: How Getting into GE’s finance and FP&A training was life-changing Why so many tech people like himself are inspired to get into finance  Country specific differences in finance that he has learnt over his career  Google in the midst of AI revolution and how we used AI at Microsoft for our commercial forecasting  How AI in finance is still about automation – with insights the next frontier for FP&A How FP&A at Google and Microsoft FP&A teams are set up  Why “Walking  the Shop” remains core to his career in finance How the biggest companies in the world manage real-time data Despite the technological avalanche storytelling and persuasion is fundamental at the top tech companies Why FP&A needs to focus on snapshots vs “real-time” dashboards  FP&A Need to Ask Why x5 Times: The Secret of great storytelling  Why I am focused on grasping and applying the economic picture in my work  My biggest challenges in moving from individual contributor to manager early in my career  How a  “failure” led to my team and I staying in the office for 56 hours trying to close an audit – and the people skills I learnt along the way  Why Despite working at Google, Excel still bosses Google Sheets for finance teams Using your 20s to hustle and have a successful career  Follow Antonio at X (Formerly Twitter) 48k Followers https://twitter.com/theantonioreza LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/theantonioreza/ Subscribe to Antoniio’s Newsletter Money & Robots https://www.theantonioreza.com/ Further Reading WSJ: Google Finance Head: Anything That Can Be Automated, We Strive to Automate The Pyramid Principle:Logic in Writing and Thinking by Barbara Minto Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It; Chris Voss The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma; Michael Bhaskar and Mustafa Suleyman

Greg Lopez has served as the CFO and VP of operations at companies including Futurism, a digital media company, Wirecutter (acquired by the New York Times) and Gawker Media (acquired by Univision). Now Greg is a consultant at high-growth companies working with clients ranging from a “family owned business doing $20 million”,  “SaaS businesses doing $10 million a year” to private equity-backed business doing $500 million a year.” In this episode he provides his formula for success in FP&A and finance: How a career in finance suited my character traits and passions Learning the full aspects of finance, FP&A and business partnering Building to a commercial mindset as CFO Acting as an investigative journalist for the business   Why finance needs to lead in defining metrics in a startup Moving from a bigger company to a startup - what you need to know  Increasing the feedback loop in finance teams  Expectations of CFO in a startup  Favorite KPIs - from contribution margin and profit to Sales cycle velocity Variables and determining drivers for the business  One of the biggest finance challenges - developing talent and cyber attacks  Lightning round: pickup basketball and lessons for finance Best Excel feature: introducing Scenario planning and modeling using Watch Window  Contact Greg @glopeztweets on X glopez@eventusag.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-lopez-4b248b88/ Show Notes: Recommended reading: How A Hulk Hogan Lawsuit Launched A Career in M&A | Greg Lopez https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-a-hulk-hogan-lawsuit-launched-a-career-in-m-a-greg-lopez/id1642784919?i=1000606411968 Financial Intelligence, Revised Edition: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean: Berman, Karen, Knight, Joe, Case, John: 9781422144114: Amazon.com: Books Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company's Critical Functions and Teams (Techstars): Blumberg, Matt, Birkeland, Peter M., Dorsey, Scott: 9781119772576: Amazon.com: Books The Ten-Day MBA 4th Ed.: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering the Skills Taught In America's Top Business Schools: Silbiger, Steven A: 9780062199577: Amazon.com: Books Amazon.com: Financial Planning & Analysis and Performance Managem

Getting FP&A teams to harness their data to reach their goals is the holy grail. Nathan Bell, Managing Partner, VAi Consulting, is among the most in-demand experts. Bell has unique experience– having started in computer science, before leading finance teams at Native American Bank, Digital Media Trends and Gartner– where he advised hundreds of FP&A teams facing chaotic data situations). In this masterclass, he shares a practical framework looking at the expectations, fear and hype surrounding data, analytics and AI for FP&A teams. In this episode: From a computer degree to leading finance teams How Nathan discovered the power of telling stories as Chief Credit Officer at Native American Bank  Overcoming the challenge of presenting to non- financially literate CEOs The challenge when finance is “last in line”  When companies don’t have good data and what FP&A teams can do  “Federated data governance” and avoiding turf battles why setting up self-service data as CFO came back to bite me  Using a “metrics cascade” clarifying  data and metrics Critical thinking as the new superpower for finance teams in the AI age  Key to setting  up pilot AI programs  Dinner time when your wife is also a CFO Key quotes: Remember PPDAC. Problem Plan, Data, Conclusion. Your Plan, what Data you need to capture against that plan, analysis, and Conclusion.“If you can master that in that order, I think from a skillset, you’re, you’re ready” – Nathan Bell. Critical Thinking as the new Superpower for FP&A “Critical thinking is gonna be more powerful than ever. I don’t think there’ll ever be a situation where we’re going to let AI make the decision without going through a human to look at the data. We need to ask what do we do? What’s the action? What’s the decision?” Connect with Nathan Bell on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-bell-1038662/https://vai-consulting.com/

Tory Bauman, Vice President, FP&A at Zayo Group joins new host Glenn Hopper. In this fascinating episode they go deep on FP&A metrics and processes at one of the most exciting companies in telecoms. Tory leads an  FP&A team underpinning business decisions at Zayo whose network stretches over 16.8 million fiber miles and spans 141,000 route miles. With telecoms long at the forefront of technology, Tory explains her cutting edge philosophy around FP&A realizing “ leadership’s strategy and their goals” “closing gaps” and making necessary “pivots”. In this episode Tory reveals: Her move from accountant to finance and why she made the switch How FP&A at Zayo is set up and the main metrics tracked including the importance of being good stewards of billions of dollars in capital investments Measures for forecasting churn  Alignment as crucial to business partnering  Early warning signs and predictive analytics  FP&A and cost per event on telecoms network  Using external data and macro side on the pricing decisions  How Zayo is profiting by providing connectivity and bandwidth in the AI revolution  How I am trying to develop my experience in capital markets and mentorship  Why I am not shy about letting people know I want to be a CFO Her golf career and the impact it has made on her finance goals  Connect with Tory on LinkedIn

It’s the end of an era. This is Paul Barnhurst’s last episode as FP&A Today host. And in this episode he introduces new FP&A Today host: Glenn Hopper.  Glenn Hopper is a Chief Financial Officer with two decades of experience leading finance operations for private equity-backed companies. Glenn  is an author and journalist, US Navy Veteran, #1 AI Finance leader, and a passionate advocate for FP&A.  In this episode: Glenn’s whirlwind career since he last appeared on the show Training FP&A on AI  Why getting started on AI in finance is a painful auditWhy the first stages of AI implementation in finance have nothing to do with AI  Launching the definitive LinkedIn course for generative AI and finance  Why it is vital for finance professionals to understand the base of AI  Glenn’s favorite episode of FP&A Today Why I decided to become the new host of FP&A Today  Why there’s no need to hide my Southern accent on the show  Turning the tables on Paul Paul’s final message  Follow Glenn Hopper at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbhopperiii/ Follow Paul Barnhurst at https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy/

Rosemary Linden more than earned her stripes in FP&A over twenty years.  Her roles included VP FP&A at Alliant Insurance Services. Director of Global FP&A at WD-40 Company and at Solera. But after two decades in corporate finance she moved to being a fractional CFO serving small businesses (typical annual revenue of around $10million) managing an assortment of responsibilities.  This episode is for anyone in finance who may be looking to escape the corporate grind and set up as a Fractional CFO.But Linden warns it is not for everyone.“One of the first things I’d say to think about is, do you really want to be a fractional CFO? Because that’s different from being a full-time CFO at one particular company and comes with its own challenges.” In this episode: Moving from corporate finance after 20 years to dealing with “astute” small business owners as a fractional CFO in San Diego  Why FP&A is an ideal training ground to become a CFOSecrets for telling a good story  Getting to what you want the people in a room to “walk away knowing”Cash flows at small companies, opportunities and challenges  Dealing with seasonal variances at small businesses  Advice for starting your own business as a fractional CFO Moving to a more analytical mindset  Difference between, strategic planning and financial planning (Case Study San Diego Civic Youth Ballet) My most dangerous deep sea dive, being team Excel and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Follow Rosemary Linden on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/rosemarylinden/

Most CFOs don’t build  models where 1% of their company’s net sales (not profits) are given away instantly “right from the top” to help alleviate poverty. But then Cotopaxi is not like most companies. In this episode Cotopaxi CFO, Gary Bowen, explains the pivotal role played by finance and FP&A in “doing capitalism better” while also seeking to become a billion-dollar brand - alongside other outdoor names such as Patagonia, North Face and Columbia. This includes an ambitious new strategy explained by Bowen to move beyond digital sales and into retail–and FP&A’s central role in making this happen. In this episode Gary Bown CFO of Cotopaxi reveals: Starting as operations in customer service and lessons for finance  How I began as a CFO When good finance talent leaves  Doing fractional CFO services and when businesses need to bring in a CFO Being a "Let’s Go" CFO (vs Department of No) 1% of Net Sales (not profits) given away, and working that into the model  Cotopaxi digital retail metrics explained vs retail metrics Moving to opening up retail stores and a four wall profitability model  How to balance investors with giving back principles  Getting Cotopaxi to a billion dollar company  Flipping the script from private label to branding at Ogio (and learning the power of branding) Flying airplanes, Iron Man competition, and George Washington Follow Gary Bowen on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-bowen-769a7/

Kat Orekhova is Co-Founder & CEO of Vareto, a planning and analytics platform for enterprise teams. In her own words Kat has an “unusual backstory” leaving the world of math academia to build Facebook’s first-ever data science team within FP&A. At the social media giant she was Responsible for financial reporting, forecasting, and planning activities for Facebook’s core business. This was followed by stints as Head of Product at IronClad, a $3billion legaltech company, Sequoia Capital Scout, General Partner at Darkmode Ventures and co-founder & CEO of Vareto.In this episode Kat reveals: The challenges of long range planning as Facebook scaled massively and trying to predict growth across countries from the US to India with more than 100 people contributing to the planing process)  Being at the beginning of data Science at Facebook The move  from data science and product into finance When should companies start looking at FP&A Being a Sequoia scout and what it entails and what she looks for in investment opportunities How (now) Meta CFO Susan Li “an absolutely outstanding” mentor insisted on a  finance team with data science skills led by Orekhova The right blend between data science and FP&A who are “Living in Different Tools” Her take on the amount of data science that FP&A teams need to boost their career The impact of AI in finance Follow Kat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katorekhova/

Tolga Hocanin, CFO & Vice President, Finance & IT at Lindt & Sprüngli (Canada) gives a masterclass in CPG FP&A from his experience at PepsiCo and chocolatier, Lindt.In this episode: Lessons from 20 years of budgeting and how my first budget was a nightmare Why budgeting is not just a math exercise The main metrics you need to know in CPG Why mix management is crucialThe 30-60-90 day plan to succeed in finance in CPG Running both IT and finance as CFO and why this makes sense Building a strong culture in a finance team  Starting with why in finance  A $1.5M reporting error and how I responded to it  Building cross-functional relationships with business partners Follow and connect with Tolga Hocanin on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tolga-hocanin-cpa-cma-2958008/

Talking about the connectedness of FP&A and Rev Ops working together are all-star revenue leaders: Jeff Ignacio, Head of Go-to market Growth and operations at Regrow Ag, Arvind Chahal VP, finance and ops at autotrader Canada, and Drew Noel, VP Revenue, SCS Cloud.First, what is rev Ops? “Rev Ops is the discipline of aligning go-to market strategy and execution through four key pillars: process enablement, advisory and systems excellence” (Webster dictionary definition submitted by Paul Igancio). In this episode: How revenue operations and finance operations need to be working together effectively? The challenges and worst stories when rev ops and Finance fail to click. The worst “bad behavior” in a go-to-market org  Data and cultural issues with finance and Rev Ops Moving career from FP&A to RevOps How to ensure we are defining and reporting metrics in the same way The importance of a “data dictionary” How AI will impact the operations function Favorite Excel function or feature Our guests:Jeff Ignacio, Head of Go-to market Growth and operations at Regrow AgArvind Chahal VP, finance and ops at autotrader Canada Drew Noel, VP Revenue, SCS Cloud

Andrew Lynch,  Head of FP&A at UK card discount scheme for public service employees, Blue LIght Card, is known to his nearly 11,000 Twitter followers as The SMB Finance Guy.The FP&A leader also runs the highly popular Net Income newsletter regularly posts small business opportunities, scaling companies, systems, strategy, “with a few shitposts thrown in for good measure” (His writing has also been picked up by Business Insider). In this episode Andrew reveals: The power of mentors in transforming his finance career from a “struggle to find someone who would take me” to high-profile roles at Anabas, Capital One, and Blue LIght Card. Starting a new budget from scratch and building an FP&A team at Blue Light Card Negotiation and sandbagging with sales and how FP&A can deal with the challenges How FP&A best practice saw Andrew deliver one SMB £10 million a year in revenue and from £8k in profit to £23 million Being Fired by Four times Bestselling New York Times author Tucker Max the day before Xmas Eve Skill stacking – getting to be the top 25% in the world at four or five different related things – rather than trying to be the best Being one of the few FP&A leaders on the comedy circuit Subscribe to Net Income at https://www.netincome.co/ Follow Andrew at https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewglynch/

Jon Allen and Duke Heninger, of  Utah-based Amplēo, have brought their finance game to fast-growing companies which are between $5m and $50m in revenue. They are “fractional CFOs” – that is experienced finance professionals advising these companies on a part-time basis. For instance, one business they work with, Korean barbeque restaurant Cupbop, appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank and got $1million from Mark Cuban in 2022. Other companies they advised include Burt Brothers (a tire and services company). Collectively Amplēo helped more than 3000 companies.But they always find the same story when they look at financials at such companies.  “It’s always the data”, says Duke Heninger, Financial Partner at Amplēo. “It’s getting things put in a way so that people can understand what they’ve even spent. Most of my clients are on a very simplified accounting system. They aren’t classifying anything in separate departments. So it’s breaking it out, trying to understand who owns what, where should it go, and ultimately everybody just sandbags just so that they don’t trip a budget”. In this episode of FP&A we meet Jon Allen Managing Partner, Finance, and Duke Heninger, finance partner at Amplēo.They provide a masterclass on the value of FP&A at fast-growing companies, revealing: Our worst budget experiences Our journey through finance to CFO  What we wish we had known earlier in our career  Restaurants in COVID Times – how we used FP&A to help businesses  The powerful value of FP&A in restaurants Why FP&A is a superb career choice Founding companies as finance leaders  Teaching FP&A at University  Why great FP&A must lead to actions and decisions How FP&A can become good business partners  Reporting vs forecasting  The importance of choosing a great finance leader to work for early in your career Getting out your chair and talking to people The last things we asked ChatGPTFollow Duke Heninger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dukeh/Follow Jon Allenhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jonnyallen/ Amplēo provides business professionals, such as CFOs, CMOs and CHROs, to companies on a fractional basis in order to help them achieve their full potential. https://ampleo.com/

There are two different directions for AI in finance, says Didi Gurfinkel, Co-Founder and CEO of Datarails.You can use AI to extend your hands. Or, your brain.  He says: ”Using AI to extend your hands involves automating processes, making everything faster, reducing headcount shortening time to deliver, which is amazing. But it’s not a life changer. In this situation maybe you can reduce the gap between 10 employees to five employees but this will not be what will save your business or ultimately make it successful. “The more interesting part is to look at AI as an extension to your brain. Here, I think this is a life changer. Letting the CFO or the FP&A manager have a tool that can be like an extension to the FP&A brain. If you take your analysis or approach to analyze your business, the AI can run it at scale with all your historical data, internal data and external data.” In this episode Didi Gurfinkel talks about setting up Datarails, the FP&A the AI-powered Financial Planning and Analysis platform for Excel users and the multiple challenges and learnings along the way. He reveals: Starting his career at Cisco the biggest IT company in the world (“I imagined that everything will be automated end of month – I was wrong”) Setting up Datarails in 2015 and the challenges of getting traction for an initial concept of “connecting organizational spreadsheets into one centralized database” Four years of trying (and How he finally found product market fit)  Understanding the power of Excel as core to finance allowed us to focus on finance How FP&A use cases are the classic consolidation challenge because every FP&A process starts from collecting data from multiple sources in different structures, different shapes, and  different systems.  Our capability to transform semi-structured data into structured data landed a very strong competitive edge, Our “SaaS wake up call” – how we learnt to grow at the same pace with 50% less expenses   AI is either an extension of your head vs AI as an extension of your brain and why the latter is the real game-changer From a good CFO to an amazing CFO with AI My expectations as a CEO from my finance team Why ChatGPT is amazing at text but the challenges come with replicating this with accurate numbers My favorite Excel function Surprising fact you wouldn’t know about me  Didi was previously a GM at Cisco. He has extensive senior management experience with a focus on growth and innovation. Didi oversees business, strategy and operations. He holds a B.Sc in economics and computer science, and an MBA in business management. Follow Didi Gurfinkel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/didigurfinkel/

Tunc Tezel has managed FP&A at companies including Ontex, Pladis, British American Tobacco, Procter & Gamble, and Gillette. He has lived and worked in 11 different countries including the UK, Iran, Sub-saharan Africa, Turkey, Latvia, BelgiumNow, Tezel is VP of global FP&A at Ontex, a publicly listed leader in private label manufacturing baby care, feminine care and adult care products for stores including Walmart, Aldi, Lidl,Tesco and Carrefour.In this episode provides his takeaways from a career at the cutting edge of FP&A: What do you do with your company’s budget when overnight interest rates hit 3000%. And the Turkish lira was devalued by 60% overnight  How FP&A powers private label manufacturing vs working at big brands How we coped with the pandemic and the shift to economically challenged consumers trying private labels  Moving from brand ambassadors to product ambassadors How FP&A is supporting ESG Business supporting finance managers – should you call them FP&A Managers or Finance Business Partners (and why it matters) The challenges of data in FP&A work  FP&A as co-pilot in a rally car Secrets of bringing the numbers to life Cooking and seafood  Why I would have loved to meet Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic The last thing I asked Google/Chat GPT about my finance work Episode NotesConnect with Tunc Tezel on LinkedIn.Tunc Tezel: Banking CIO Outlook: FP&A Vs Finance Business

Jack Alexander was our second ever guest on FP&A Today and it remains one of our most downloaded episodes. Here he returns to exclusively launch his new book (published January 2024): Financial Management: Partner in Driving Performance and Value (Wiley Finance) His new book is a  post-pandemic and typically practical take on performance management, planning, forecasting, business valuation, mergers, acquisitions, and capital investment. He says: “I wrote (my original book) Financial Planning & Analysis and Performance Management. Then the pandemic occurred, the Great accelerator, the great disruptor. And I was getting a different set of phone calls and requests. “Most people hadn't really been through some of these experiences before. Scenario analysis and planning, business transformations and restructuring liquidity management and scenario planning through various liquidity scenarios. There was a need for FP&A and finance to look outside the organization at major external forces and events that are happening around the world as the greatest threats and opportunities emerged from outside such as hyperinflation and  geopolitical events.” In this episode Jack talks: Why my first budget was a disaster From financial accounting manager to CFO at EG&GMentoring as a path to CFO and CEO Financial Leadership in the 21st century inspired by the pandemic and post pandemic environment. The essentials of value creation for a finance team Return to the Principles of a “Top Gun” CFO What’s changed - and what hasn’t in 45 years of FP&A How audit and transaction experience got me first promoted to CFO Health and finance Follow Jack Alexander at https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-jack-alexande

Cayla Pingel has led FP&A in sports, gaming and entertainment at companies including Warner Bros, Fox Sports and most recently, 2K Games, a global video game company. At Fox Sports she financially quarterbacked the full P&L for the biggest sporting events including the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the NFL Baseball World Cup.The senior Director, Finance at 2K describes her approach to business partnering as more like a “sports agent” (“like Jerry Maguire but more calm” says Pingel). Pingel says “I tell my business partners to think of me as your agent. I’m going to go out and negotiate this for you from a financial perspective. Tell me what you need and let me help sell this so that we can make the case and do it.” In this episode: Being at Fox Sports when live sports came screeching to a halt during COVID Show me the Money – managing the superbowl of FP&A at Fox Sports, Warner Bros and 2K and the power of ratings for finance How blowouts affect financial performance Uncovering the differences between Accounting vs FP&A at Fox Sports Why I chose the FP&A direction rather than a COO role Most important metrics in sports businesses Heavy fixed costs and the challenges of live broadcasting Huge tech, streaming and viewership changes in media/sports and entertainment – and how to forecast the future of the game for finance pros Metrics in game playing: and finance discussions about whether to put new features in a game Leading the Los Angeles chapter for women in sports and events Flying out to Prague six weeks into a new job at Warner Bros to fix a mess and the strategic resolution  March Madness ‘Budget Season’ Challenge at Fox Sports – and why the  loser has to do the waterfall charts Follow and contact Cayla Pingel on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/cayla-pingel-410a1a73/

“I last came on FP&A Today before I started my new CFO gig, and I was pretty nervous. I was talking a lot in theory of what I thought it would be, and now I can tell you a little bit more of the reality. So it's been quite the ride.” Returning guest CJ Gustafson–master of the hugely popular Mostly Metrics newsletter–delivers in his custom funny and frank style the lessons from his first year as CFO and the practical lessons for anyone in finance (and particularly FP&A). His worst budget experience - working six months on an operating plan  thrown away within a week during COVID (and the surprising conclusion) Getting stamps on my finance passport getting me to CFO The biggest lessons on being a CFO-as removing blockers and letting an organization go faster. CFO as chief psychologist, chief contract signer, and chief risk officer How I prioritized my finance hires Views of FP&A as a CFO  How knowing numbers better than anybody else projected me to CFO Why BI was put under the CFO function (“it’s like putting data insights on steroids and you combine FP&A and BI”) Why ARR per employee is my favorite SaaS metric CAC payback period as the golden SaaS metric  How I (painfully) learned about the power of the “meeting before the meeting”  Creating a category for yourself as CFO Sign up for the Mostly Metrics Newsletter from CJ Gustafson: https://www.mostlymetrics.com/ Check out Run the Numbers hosted by CJ: a weekly podcast about financial metrics and business models, designed for ambitious people operating tech startups https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/run-the-numbers-startup-finance-strategy-and-operations/id1704418764 Follow CJ or get in touch with him on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Or Twitter https://twitter.com/cjgustafson222

Taylor Otstot is VP of Finance at Dashlane, and former Senior Director of Finance at GoDaddy. He joined GoDaddy a year before their IPO and was there for eight years as the domain registrar and web hosting company scaled from $1.5 billion to $4 billion revenue. “By the time I left I was supporting about a billion and a half of that revenue and I was running a team of about 14", Taylor says. "So not only was I part of a business that was going through a lot of growth, but personally had to go through a lot of growth.” In this episode Taylor reveals the psychological skills and strategy he uses to win in his career. Insights from this episode: Printing Excel files (aka the worst budget he has ever experienced) Why every conversation in finance is really a conversation about tradeoffs. Letting go of what “made you great” when managing an FP&A Team Psychology learnings that have transformed my finance career and how you can apply them to your career Eight Lessons Learned the Hard Way, Reflection from Eight Years at GoDaddy. How a hard experience showed him that in finance “ titles unlock doors, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be invited in” Why I am a big fan of decision frameworks and breaking out of your “normal default positions” Burritos vs tacos and finance decision-making (with lessons for business reviews and business partnerships) Why the “safe choice” isn’t normally the right choice in finance  Secrets to building a high performing team  The big Sales comp revelation Noteshttps://taylorotstot.com/ Follow Taylor on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorotstot/ Creativity Inc, Ed Catmull Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Reflections from 8 Years at GoDaddy

We have an all-star panel getting into the Christmas and New Year spirit. Howard Tunnicliffe, Head of FP&A, The Economist, and Brett Hampson, Director of Finance, AllState, joinin host Paul Barnhurst, The FP&A Guy in this special edition of FP&A Today. They tackle the 12 most burning questions asked on reddit.com/r/FPandA in 2023. Mid-way we give you the end of year results of the top 5 Favorite FP&A Function for FP&A Pros, based on our 80 episodes! Let us know your thoughts on your thoughts on these questions, what you want a panel to answer for 2024 (and of course any Excel Function shamefully omitted from our top 5).  Special guests: Howard Tunnicliffe, Head of FP&A, The Economist https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardtunnicliffe/ Brett Hampson, Director of Finance, AllState https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-hampson/ 12 Questions Answered on this special Holiday episode: How difficult is it for someone to switch industries in FP&A?  Do you need a CPA to get an FP&A job? How easy is it for someone or hard to break into FP&A that has a non-traditional background? Any advice on how you run/lead the annual budgeting process?  How do you get your first VP of FP&A role?  How do you develop KPIs from scratch?  How do you decide on when you should upgrade to an FP&A tool? BONUS!!! The results of Favorite Excel Function (from 80 episodes) What advice would you give about management reporting in a turnaround situation?  Can you explain how the headcount process works for budgeting? How have you typically seen it work?  If someone knows nothing about FP&A, any advice you’d offer on how to teach it or learn it? Where do you start? Is FP&A certification actually worth it?  How do you de-stress, especially during budget season? Join Brett Hampson's new weekly email newslettter, Forecasting Performance at https://forecasting-performance-2.ck.page/62f28563e1

Jeff Epstein is an operating partner at Bessemer Venture Partners leading its CFO Council where he helps CEOs and CFOs at their 200- portfolio company share best practices. Epstein, one of the most famous names in finance, is former executive vice president and chief financial officer of Oracle, with a market value of over $200 billion. Prior to joining Oracle, Jeff served as CFO at public and private companies, including DoubleClick (acquired by Google), King World Productions (acquired by CBS), and Nielsen’s Media Measurement and Information Group. Earlier in his career, he was an investment banker at The First Boston Corporation.  In this episode: From Wall Street to first-time CFO  Running finance at Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and Oprah-TV hitmaker King World The skills needed to be a top CFO The 3 routes to CFO: Auditors, Wall Street or FP&AWhat Andy Gove OKR setting can teach us about budget setting  What is the right percentage of time to hit budget goals? Balancing between Elon Musk (Papa Bear) and Charlie Munger (Mama Bear) in setting targets  Giving people the opportunity to overachieve  Best case/worst case/base case at Oracle strategy  The delicate balancing act of Wall Street guidance  Using a stagger chart  Why FP&A is so critical; how  the biggest strategic decisions involve FP&A adviceRevisiting the  processes as Oracle bought Sun Microsystems Merger integration strategy worked on our sales compensation Truck drivers and sales commission – a must-listen to story How in 1983 at the Washington Post I learned from Warren Buffet and ended up scrambling to buy 4 shares of Berkshire Hathaway. Guess much it’s worth now? Show notes  Forecasting 101 and how to build a Stagger chart Jeff Epstein: How CFOs build a Goldilocks “just-right” budget Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon Winston Churchill: My Early Life  Andy Grove: High Output Management

Ed Hyer, as VP FP&A at Verizon, built one of the most ambitious centers of excellence (COEs) undertaken in finance.  Put simply, a center of excellence centralizes similar types of work into a single entity. While relatively common for payroll functions or “back-end transactional work”, FP&A presented an altogether bigger challenge for the COE concept.  The creation of Verizon’s Center of Excellence at the  $134 billion revenue 118,000 employee company counts as one of the most audacious challenges undertaken in FP&A–ultimately comprising 175 professionals, took more than a year to complete and fanning through 24 different waves  transformation to take effect. Though the impetus from the beginning was on proving the concept could work, Verizon's FP&A COE has now transformed the business in impactful and unexpected ways. “I remember one case, where someone showed there were 16 different processes here. He said he could  get it down to two, and I've just saved myself six hours on workday one. It didn't require any new tools or technology. In this must-listen to episode Hyer reveals the secret of Verizon’s FP&A transformation:In this episode: How my passion for FP&A was lit compared to other finance work Leading FP&A for some of the biggest US companies including Hertz and Verizon The “why” of creating an FP&A CoE - and it is not just about cost saving The lessons of building a Center of Excellence How COE-building places finance teams at the vanguard of automation The  oh-crap moment when building the COE Heretical answer on his favorite Excel function‼ Ed Hyer/LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ed-hyer/ Paul Barnhurst LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy/Datarails LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/datarails

“One of the myths I'd love to dispel is that nonprofits are not strategic. People think we aren’t forward thinking or just scrapping for change and trying to get things done. I've had the honor of working with organizations where we really focus on our mission in a nonprofit context in a very strategic way.” You don’t want to miss this masterclass with Amy Omand. Omand is Fractional CFO, at 7 Seat Consulting, working with not for profits getting from early to mid-stage growth. In this episode she reveals her journey from managing FP&A at Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream (bought by Nestle) to former CFO of New Schools Venture Fund and setting up her business focused on not-for-profits. In this episode:  Dreyer's ice cream Budgeting Experience - the problems that can melt financial analysis with a new ice cream line launch Passion for K12 education and the finance factor in education The differences-and similarities- between nonprofit and "for profit" FP&A  Why cash is (still) king at nonprofits  Restrictions placed on how money is spent by nonprofits Taking Revolution Foods, a Healthy School Lunch Company, through their first B Corporation certification Why Metallica works best for budget and modeling The comfort in numbers NotesThe Social Responsibility of Business: Kelly McElhaney. https://executive.berkeley.edu/kellie-mcelhaney Follow Amy Omand on LinkedIn

Christian Martinez, Finance Analytics Manager at Kraft Heinz  is an in-demand Conference Speaker and specialist who teaches a top-rated course, with (previous guest) Nicolas Boucher. In this episode discover the secrets about game changing uses of AI and Python for your FP&A career. “We’re in the same era as when Excel was first invented,” says Martinez “There were people still using calculators and pens while others shifted to Excel and dramatically improved performance.” In this episode:  Why Python and Excel together at long last as a “game changer” for FP&A “Explainable” AI in FP&A  How AI is improving overall budgets and forecasting  Can non-data science people jump right in with AI? Getting comfortable being uncomfortable  His path to a “boutique” course teaching practical application of AI in FP&A  Why the best way to fully learn something is to teach it  The most awesome uses of AI in FP&A How Gen AI is going to change FP&A in 2024 Waterfall charts in Excel  Follow Christian Martinez (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianmartinezthefinancialfox/ Links FREE COURSE – PYTHON FOR FP&A AND FINANCE. Curated by Christian Martinez Advanced ChatGPT for Finance course by Christian Martinez and Nicolas Boucher

Product led growth is a business strategy and philosophy that puts the product at the center and the key driver for customer acquisition, activation, adoption, and retention.  Parth Kulkarni, Head of FP&A, Adobe Express, recounts his chance to reimagine FP&A using product-led growth. He explains the process leading the FP&A team powering Adobe Express – a major new AI-driven product at the software giant (Adobe is competing with companies such as Canva and Microsoft Designer). Kulkarni says: “We optimized different parts of the customer journey  by adopting product led growth. From an FP&A perspective it was a fantastic opportunity for me and my team to reimagine the way that we approached financial planning and, and supported the business.” Describing the approach of FP&A underpinned by product-led growth, he says: “We tend to forecast based on historicals. But here we took a much more bottoms up approach in our modeling, starting with building forecasts and projections around every single critical upstream metric – whether it’s acquisitions, how customers are really engaging with the product, or what kind of conversion rates are we seeing in the product, or what kind of retention we are seeing. I got the opportunity to actually understand the customer journey, translate that into a financial model, and then build my financial planning around that. Kulkarni, with training and a background in engineering,  recounts his path to FP&A and why a background in data analytics is a perfect route to a top job. In this episode: Kulkarni’s path from Data analytics to FP&A as Senior Manager of FP&A at eBay – business partnering with the Merchandising / Shipping & Logistics Business and Product Teams. Followed by his career at Adobe. Moving from analytics to FP&A and why it is a perfect route Four proven pillars to become a successful FP&A professional  The tested formula to get a seat at the table in finance  My framework for analyzing data to get the juiciest insights – SCQA framework explained My aha moment in FP&A automating ecommerce/holiday space reports  Tabla playing and love of Indian classical music Steve Jobs and what we can learn about his relentless desire to understand the consumer The SCQA framework explained by Parth Follow Parth Kulkarni on LinkedIn Catch the full episode on YouTube

This follows one of our most popular ever episodes (episode 19: Budgeting all your questions answered). In this sequel episode, new and returning  guests answer all your new burning budget and forecasting questions and challenges. Joining us in the budget and forecasting war-room are:  Alejandra Boggione, FP&A Manager and Senior Business Controller, FASTA Follow ⏩https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandraboggione/ Andrew Childress, FP&A Solutions Consultant Datarails (ex finance at Accupac, One Inc and Flint Group) Follow ⏩https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewrchildress/ Annette deYoung, Senior FP&A Solutions Consultant, Datarails (ex finance at JL Clark, Berner Food & Beverage, Fairbanks Morse Engine) Follow ⏩ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahdeyoung/ Some of the questions tackled in this LinkedIn Live episode of FP&A Today (November 2023): What’s budgeting and forecasting good for? How do you approach budgeting in consulting firms? Which type of budget process works best (top down or bottom up?) How can FP&A be the bridge between the two? How does the budget work in a startup? What is the linkage between forecasting and the model? How can finance best prepare for the budget ahead of time to avoid crazy late nights? Revisiting the previous year’s budget – (what can be cut)? How can you ensure alignment between the financial plan and operational plan? Static annual budget versus a rolling forecast? How do budgets help with inflation challenges? How do you kickstart scenario planning? How often should you reforecast? FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails the AI-powered Financial Planning and Analysis platform for Excel users.

From Camp Taji in Iraq, to Will Wheaton’s narration of Ready Player One, this is the story of Frank Aburto who helped build Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) at Audible.  Frank Aburto, senior Director of Finance, leads strategic finance and FP&A at Audible the audio storytelling subsidiary of Amazon. In his role, Aburto supports more than 150 partners across marketing and product where the FP&A function has been central to Audible's success in reaching millions of listeners around the world and becoming the largest player in the audiobook market (sales of audiobooks hit $1.8 billion in the US alone in 2022).  In this episode: How the military veteran applied his strategic skills learnt in Iraq, Hawai, and South Korea to finance and business  Building FP&A at Audible through the "lens of the customer" The one trait he looks for in a finance hire Why understanding customers matters more than P&L metrics The power of investment banking as a route to FP&A and finance leadership Using SQL to get ahead in your career Recommendations for your next Audible book  How to get a finance job at Audible or Amazon FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. www.datarails.com  Follow and connect with Frank Aburto: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fcaburto/ Watch the Full YouTube episode: https://youtu.be/9w-MfrBN6K0

Airbase, a spend management company currently processes over $5 billion of annual payments on behalf of finance teams. It is a pain point Vallurupalli is all too aware of. "Moving to Airbase solved a challenge I had personally experienced at previous companies were there were 65 or 70 physical [credit]cards in a 300 person company and spend was not controlled. There was no way to forecast when someone was thinking of using a physical card, which was for anything at that time". CFO Aneal Vallurupalli joins Paul, on Datarails' podcast FP&A Today, to talk about what CFOs increasingly require from the best in FP&A, his experiences of financial planning and analysis at previous companies, stretching from investment banking to series A companies and public companies. In this episode: • The importance of understanding the context and priorities when coming into a new company or role. There's always a rationale for why things were done a certain way before.• Building credibility and relationships across the organization by understanding pain points, providing value , and conveying industry expertise.• Moving from growth at all costs in SaaS to revenue growth• Why he has no single favorite financial metric to analyze a business. The most important metric is often "not financial" and varies by company.• How AI will displace some repetitive, manual tasks but not logic-based and contextual decision making which is core to finance roles.• Why having a hunger for knowledge as the most crucial way to win in your FP&A career - with most technical skills being "table stakes"   FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.Read the full transcript: https://www.datarails.com/how-to-never-be-left-out-of-the-conversation-again-in-fpa-with-airbase-cfo-aneal-vallurupalli/Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/J0keFw4WPjM

How is Microsoft using AI to reach up to 99% accuracy in some forecasts? In this episode of FP&A Today, Daniel Sousa-Lennox, a data scientist at Microsoft with deep experience of financial analysis, reveals all. The Microsoft’s finance team – about 5000 people – saw its first foray into machine learning in forecasting. The team developed FINN (or Microsoft Finance Time Series Forecasting Framework) says Sousa-Lennox who sits within the finance organization, providing software engineering and data science expertise. Using machine learning and creating AI finance tools (such as FINN which has been open-sourced) Sousa-Lennox says the Microsoft finance team has replaced burdensome forecasting and Excel heavy lifting.  "The tool has helped, for instance, this one team in terms of accuracy to get the revenue that they were trying to forecast for an Azure product (the cloud computing platform run by Microsoft) to 99% accuracy".  But Sousa-Lennox adds that it is important to remember that AI is not "magic" and "wont lead to 99% in every single forecast" and the quality of data is paramount. Nevertheless the results are transforming financial forecasting at the $2trillion company. FINN alone provides access to 25+ models supporting Microsoft’s daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly forecasts, transforming the approach of FP&A. Sousa-Lennox says: “It takes on average for a forecast used run using our tool, it takes about an hour to an hour and a half, which is significantly less than a week [previously]. It is also an hour and a half where you don’t have to be actively doing anything.” In this episode Daniel Sousa-Lennox shares: Similarities and differences between FP&A in US and Panama (and banking vs Microsoft) Getting  an internship to full-time career at Microsoft How he trained in Data science and technology How to evangelize finance teams into adopting AI How Microsoft is transforming its forecasting and FP&A Despite its success why AI is not a “magic bullet” for finance The two most powerful lessons in presenting AI to finance teams The biggest advice for anyone starting in FP&A Last thing finance thing I Googled ChatGPT’d My favorite Excel function   Links Follow Daniel Sousa-Lennox: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsousalennox/ FINN (Open-sourced by Microsoft): https://microsoft.github.io/finnts/

Worldwide spend on cloud infrastructure hit a staggering $169 billion in 2022 with Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) combined, accounting for 62 percent of the cloud market share. In its first quarter of this year revenue from AWS totaled $21.35 billion, representing almost 17% of Amazon’s overall revenue. What lessons can we learn from within AWS about effective cloud financial management? How can FP&A teams better understand this complex line item? We are joined by Jeff Duresky, Senior FinOps Commercial Architect, Amazon AWS. He is a finance leader who supports the cloud leader’s largest and most strategic customers – and has also held strategic FP&A roles at companies including Capital One. “As a finance professional the more you understand cloud, the better the insights you’ll be able to drive” – Jeff Duresky In this episode Jeff’s worst budget experience (aka professional service accrual releases). The link between cloud financial management and FP&A trading fixed expenses in cloud  Smart decisions related to cloud expenditures and management  Common cost language – how to get it right  Secrets to cloud forecasting  Promoting the best finance and engineering team conversations around the cloud  Finding reductions in costs for cloud users Core metrics to assess and unit costs (cost per gigabyte, cost per instance) First steps to begin forecasting cloud costs My biggest finance strategic moment  The last finance thing I googled The importance of taking notes in a career in FP&A Notes How to establish and drive a forecasting culture  How to talk about cloud with a non-cloud audience (business partnering) The Key to AWS Optimization Follow and connect with Jeff Duresky on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffduresky/ FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails, Datarails is the AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform.  Keep your own Excel financial models and spreadsheets and benefit from AI for data consolidation, reporting and planning.

The market for pet brands is enormous. Two-thirds of American households own a pet and collectively spent $136.8 billion on them in 2022. In this market, Chewy is winning the hearts of owners. The pet-food, health, and supplies company is famous for providing portraits, gifts, free food, and handwritten notes that delight pet owners. In this episode, Matthew Herbert, Chewy Director of Finance, reveals the FP&A undercoat that keeps this Fortune 500 favorite purring.   Herbert says customer service at the company is in “my opinion the strongest moat within the organization…it has its own finance arm, and it has the backing and support of technology and other resources to make it successful because we really believe that we’re here to provide a delightful experience for our customers. Pets are part of the family, and we want our customers to know that we view them that way.” In this episode: How Chewy does FP&A What KPIs does FP&A manage at Chewy and how its set up Using data to help tell the story at Chewy How Matt overcame adversity, such as being laid off and team conflicts faced Leading FP&A at the fortune 500 high growth eCommerce company (i.e. Chewy) Secrets to effective business partnering Insights from 15 years of Investment Banking, Programming, Retail, Consumer Products, and eCommerce experience The impact of being a self-taught programmer on a career in finance Why finance remains the best role for strategic impact supporting C-Suite Executives His brand-new training courses (https://biztrix.us/) based on best-in-class Excel, PowerPoint, Word, SQL and VBA experience Links Follow Matthew Herbert on LinkedIn Matthew’s training course at https://biztrix.us/

What happened when two highly-skilled Excel leaders took on the "best of the best" in the sport? Paul Barnhurst reveals the inside story when he pitted his FP&A-based Excel wits in the The Financial Modeling World Cup (FMWC). Taking the ultimate test alongside him is fellow-first timer “Excel Ninja” Ajay Patel, who teaches thousands of subscribers advanced Excel. Giving his opnion on the two Excel jousters is Andrew Grigolyunovich, FMWC Founder and CEO of AG Capital. The trio talk Excel-at-speed, improving skills, and the functions they can't live without. Getting to know Andrew Grigolyunovich: From being a CFO at 21 to founding the Financial Modeling World Cup Ajay Patel (aka the Excel Ninja) a fifth degree black belt in Tang Soo Do talks his favorite Excel functions and his FMWC ultimate test Optimization planning and Analysis vs FP&A The inside story of Paul and Ajay’s grueling FMWC experience Secrets to creating classic Excel use cases  Advice for getting started in competitive Excel  Best advice to improve your Excel skills  Guests: Andrew Grigolyunovich, Financial Modeling World Cup: Founder & CEO of AG Capitalhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewgrig/ Ajay Patel, The Excel Ninja, Founder of the Excel Dojohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/theexceldojo/   FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails,the AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform. Keep your own Excel financial models and spreadsheets and benefit from AI for data consolidation, reporting and planning.

"I have been at the inception points of three companies-Intuit, Netflix and Mozilla Firefox. And now I’m just trying to give back as many lessons as possible” Jim Cook  Jim Cook shares his front row experience as first finance hire at streaming giant Netflix. He reveals the finance business partnering lessons learned from supporting fellow co-founders Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings building the company from obscurity to one of the biggest brands in the world. How did finance at Netflix contribute to the  design of  the first red envelopes? What are his lessons that can transform your FP&A? In this episode: Coping with unrealistic budgets experience at fast-growing startups What it’s like as Finance Hire #1 at Netflix Rebirthing the browser market at Mozilla Firefox Lessons from M&A and IPO at Intuit   Lessons to deliver blockbuster FP&A  The FP&A as CEO  The power of a “listening tour and finance partnership” Using your voice in FP&A  What storytelling really means for a finance professional Two strategic finance moments that changed the game for Intuit and Mozilla Links from the Show Netflixed by Gina Keating (Amazon) That Will Never Work, Mark Randolph (Amazon) Netflix versus the World. (Full Documentary, YouTube) Five lessons I learned from Netflix – Jim Cook Contact Jim Cook on LinkedIn Email jimCook@benchboard.com

Drew Murphy nearly became a meteorologist. But he opted for a different type of forecasting, warning of impending storms as an FP&A professional. A fast-paced finance career saw him land a part role at Procter & Gamble (while studying)-his senior year saw him work 30 hours a week as a plant accountant. Following six years of FP&A at Procter & Gamble (including analysis for Gillette and Braun), he took roles at Vistaprint, Mimecraft (where he was central to their IPO) and a CFO gig. Drew then launched community FP&HEY with his co-founder Yarty Kim. The mission of FP&A Hey is to “help time starved FP&A professionals get their free time back, their personal freedom back” offering resources and mentoring for FP&A professionals. Core to his career approach is a clear mantra: “Find best practices, find people that make you better, work on things you enjoy.” In this episode he discusses the implications of this approach to upgrading your career and work life balance in a busy finance role. In this episode: Drew’s worst budgeting experience in his career  Shaving forecasting with Gillette and Braun how to impress sales executives with quarterly sales performance analysis  Best practice for a monthly profit forecast and team management process Why you need to be at a place with “people you respect and admire”  The importance of relationships in finance How the IPO process felt like a “wedding”  His strategic finance moment delivering (at Mimecast) growth of 40%, EBITDA expansion over time as a percentage of revenue Why FP&A pros must learn accounting and a business model  Links from the Show FP&A Hey. Because they don’t teach FP&A in school. Grow your skills, networks, and careers, all while having fun. How to impress sales executives with quarterly sales performance analysis: https://www.fpandhey.com/how-to-impress-executives-with-quarterly-sales-performance-analysis/ Contact Drew at Drew@fpandhey.com

This special edition of FP&A Today saw 1,524 finance pros sign up for this LinkedIn Live session. In this episode Paul and a special panel answer all your burning questions on how Finance teams are practically using AI to advance their careers (and bring instant productivity to their businesses). Joining Paul is Adam Shilton, Founder, Tech for Finance and a world expert on “Helping finance pros turn systems into superpowers with AI”. In addition he is joined by Sloane Kolt, Head of Datarails Labs, which recently launched FP&A Genius, an AI powered solution transforming FP&A. Some of your big audience questions answered: What was the last thing you used Generative AI for?  Ethical questions in AI and Finance (eg. Do we own the model that AI built?) What are the most common use cases for AI in FP&A, and accounting post ChatGPT? What are the differences between AI in big vs small companies?  How should finance leadership use AI and adapt it in their team ethos and processes? Privacy, security, AI and Finance - what are the risks? What are the secrets of effective Prompting in finance? Clarifying tasks with your AI Chat  Lessons from building a new finance AI tool  Favorite non ChatGPT AI tools you have seen Best advice for getting started with AI in finance Rapid fire questions: favorite Excel function and person I would most like to meet.  FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails,the AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform. Keep your own Excel financial models and spreadsheets and benefit from AI for data consolidation, reporting and planning. YouTube video of the episode Blog post and full transcript Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

Rick Warren, Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operating Officer, Innovation Care Partners, brings lessons from more than 25 years in Healthcare Finance. This includes roles as senior finance and FP&A roles at Ascension (one of the one of the largest private healthcare systems in the United States), Banner Health, one of the largest nonprofit health care systems in the country, and CVS Health, one of the US’s largest retail pharmacy store chains. This is a must-listen for anyone who is interested in finance procedures in healthcare and the most important metrics in healthcare for anyone in finance.   This episode covers:  How finance can help transform healthcare equity –  the challenge of getting lower socioeconomic group fair  healthcare coverage Rick Moving from a political science degree to finance and ultimately CFO The importance of Relevance over precision in FP&A The nightmare budget which crashed before it was saved Lessons from Boy Scout leadership positions  Margins for hospitals still struggling post-covid  The fundamental healthcare financial metrics including reducing hospital expenses, admissions per thousand, ER visits vs primary health care physician, SNF nursing home days spent, revenue and expense per member per month  The secrets to effective business partnerships in FP&A Favorite Excel Function FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails,the AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform.  Keep your own Excel financial models and spreadsheets and benefit from AI for data consolidation, reporting and planning.

Aarish Shah is Founder of EmergeONE a Fractional CFO firm for venture backed UK tech startups and scaleups (from Seed to Series B). He has spent close to two decades operating as a CEO or CFO, and now specializes in helping startups understand and act powerfully on their numbers.  In this episode, Aarish shares his insights on financial planning and analysis (FP&A) in startups and the fundamental lessons he has learned in his career.  His “worst budget ever” when one of his factories burnt down in Papua New Guinea Who he would most like to meet His Nothing Ventured podcast and key lessons talking to players in the venture ecosystem Why he likes the constant “challenges” of Series B startups over other stage companies The difference between "building" the playbook and "running" the playbook in startups How to consider your finance tech stack scales pre-seed to Exit  How FP&A should consider their tech stack Why you need to spending your money at pre-seed  Investing in early stage businesses in the UK How do we go about creating a budget and forecast for a startup? Key metrics I use to analyze startups  How startups can cope with the drying up of cheap capital How to get your CFO to say yes  Favorite Excel function How AI understanding is the one skill every FP&A practitioner needs  Episode links: Nothing Ventured Podcast EmergeOne Fractional CFOs hello@emergeone.co.uk (to contact Aarish) FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails,the AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform.  Keep your own Excel financial models and spreadsheets and benefit from AI for data consolidation, reporting and planning. Follow Aarish on LinkedIn YouTube video of the episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

Ashok Manthena has supported FP&A teams at some of the biggest and most well-known companies on the planet including Google, GAP, and Ingersoll Rand. This included a period at Google which was striking because of “the amount of resources available for finance” particularly when it comes to killing manual finance processes. He says there is an in-built DNA to “automate manual processes”. He says: “This bubbles up naturally when they find there is an, there is a manual process and everyone comes together and thinks about how to automate that process.” In a second career stage Ashok has been a leader in AI finance carrying out practical research, giving keynote speeches and providing practical advice on transforming businesses through the use of AI. Rapid fire questions: Why I want to meet Gandhi – to doing Doing sensitivity analysis in ChatGPT  Why we should all be embarrassed by the  stat that 70% of FP&A is spent on getting the data (vs only 30% on insights)  The power of meetups meetups and the return of face to face meetings for finance learning  What my career FP&A career at Google taught me  The near future of automation and AI including running daily reports to the CFO  Why data priority needs to be the #1 priority alongiside faster surfacing of data issues to leadership How I became a leading AI finance speaker and writer and started a tech startup Two ways AI is going to revolutionize FP&A Departments forever  How ChatGPT will be a new interface for finance – practical examples  The playbook for smaller finance teams and businesses to  thrive in the AI age Advice to get started with AI in FP&A The role of data science in the future of FP&A FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails,the AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform.  Keep your own Excel financial models and spreadsheets and benefit from AI for data consolidation, reporting and planning. Follow Ashok on LinkedIn YouTube video of the episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

“The male prison population in the United States is about 15% psychopaths. So if, if you’re a warden and you work all day with prisoners, and then at the end of the day you go to some award ceremony honoring local CEOs, you’re probably interacting with a similar number of psychopaths at each event." Jack McCullough – President of CFO Leadership Council and 26-time CFO. Jack MCcullough’s background gives him an unprecedented perspective on financial leadership. Having started hist career at Big Four audit firm KPMG, he subsequently served as a CFO for 26 different companies, often in a part-time or interim role, working with about 35 CEOs. In his words “several geniuses, a handful of lunatics, and two or three who were both. But I learned from each person and became a more effective leader.” In this episode Jack McCullough reveals: How to work with Psychopath CEOs  Mental health and finance and overcoming difficult leaders  The importance of personal brand-building for CFOs and FP&A analysts How Jack invented the phrase “CF-No” in 1984 Why FP&A professionals and CFOs need to build their brand today The things that CFOs most want from their FP&A leaders His most strategic finance moment – or how COVID transformed his  business Mentoring in finance and the power of being mentored by Gen Z talent  Why he headlines his finance conferences with Guns n’ Roses and AC DC  Who would he most like to meet   His most manual processes ever The surprising two traits that CFOs must achieve today to have any chance of success  How to become a CFO Episode Links Books by Jack McCullough: The Psychopathic CEO: An Executive Survival Guide: Jack McCullough Secrets of Rockstar CFOs: Jack McCullough The CFO Leadership Council Watch on YouTube Follow Jack McCullough on Linkedin Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

Robin Kiziak is Financial Controller and Finance Business Partner  at VF Corporation (home of outdoor brands Vans, North Face and Timberland). Previously he has been a finance business partner at Hotel Chocolat and UK home improvement leader, Wickes. He also runs the website, There’s Nothing Funny About Finance which aims to move finance away from stereotypes (think Dr No or Beancounters). In this episode Robin reveals how he has used humor to disarm tension in meetings and become a finance business partner  trusted by his colleagues  In this episode:  Robin’s Favorite Finance Joke How to be a finance business partner (“with a part of the business that don’t want you  there”). The negative stereotypes of finance and how to overcome them The power of soft (or human) skills  The distribution metrics behind Vans and Timberland’s finance successes  Costs vs service as the “holy grail” in retail  How to start off in a new finance role – which financials to look at first  The biggest financial surprise  you found Snagging an unsung hero award Biggest advice to an aspiring FP&A professional  FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails,the AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform.  Keep your own Excel financial models and spreadsheets and benefit from AI for data consolidation, reporting and planning. Links – There’s Nothing Funny About Finance Follow Robin Kiziak on LinkedIn  YouTube video of the episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

Tom Hood is one of the most influential leaders in accounting. The Executive Vice President, Business Growth and Engagement, at American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA has been named the Second Most Influential Person in Accounting since 2011 by Accounting Today Magazine (only pipped to the post by AICPA CEO Barry Melancon). In giving him their award the publication cited his “legendary energy, imagination and ability to foresee the future, and focusing them specifically on management accountants, helping them reimagine “the Future of Finance.” On Linkedin  Tom has 780,000 followers and the platform recruited the accounting leader as one of their Top Voices. His passion for technological innovation in accounting has been evident since the early days of VisiCalc to Excel and ChatGPT. This combines with his rigorous enforcement against bad actors in the profession, and optimism about the future.  In this episode Tom Hood describes one of the biggest shifts in accounting as “The Great Join between accounting and FP&A”. Hood says: “We need accounting to make sure the numbers are right and to maintain our stewardship and trust. But we also need the financial viewpoint, which we saw big time in the pandemic. This is needed to reimagine what’s next in the profession.” Hood also reveals his passion reflecting accounting’s role as one of the most fundamental tenets of business- and wider society“Accounting is a language of business. It is a language that many people‒dare I say most people‒don’t truly understand. You become the value interpreter of everything about a business.” In this episode discover:  Tom’s career trajectory from to CFO at  to Maryland Association of CPAs to EVP  at the (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)  The merger between the AICPA and CIMA (UK-based) and the global power base this provides the accounting profession The Great Join between FP&A and Accounting  His  passion for accounting tech as continuing to revolutionize business – from the dawn of VisiCalc to ChatGPT today  His role in stamping out unethical accounting practices  The changing up the CPA Exam and what it means for you How AI has already changed the game for accountants and how companies are transforming accounting   How he got into accounting as a way of getting into the FBI and why that didn’t work out  YouTube video of the episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

Jake Luerkens and Connor Frischmeyer are co founders and partners at Auxo Partners, a finance advisory firm that helps startups make better decisions and grow strategically.    They have been in "the sidecar" as companies scaled from $2m to $50m, providing internal finance, FP&A, capital markets advisory and SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) support.   In this episode:    When should startups think about bringing  in fractional FP&A services The rise and fall of SPACs (including a rap about SPACs) Why investors are focused on a clear path to solid business models  How FP&A can help companies *not* blow their fundraising  The most typical problems companies face in raising money  Why Excel is the most flexible tool for finance Biggest Excel nightmares How to get started in FP&A   YouTube video of the episode Transcript of the episode    Connect with Jake Luerkens and Connor Frishchmeyer on LinkedIn   Connect with Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn    Follow Datarails on LinkedIn   Links from the episode   Auxo Partners   Spac Dream By Cassius Cuvée featuring Mags Lionne

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get ready to modelll! Broadcast on ESPN, watched by tens of thousands of people around the world, and featured across CNN,BBC, ITV, and The Atlantic, the Financial Modeling World Cup (FMWC) is the hottest esport on the planet. If you ever wanted to apply for the Excel Modeling World Cup against top stars, feature on ESPN, or wonder if you have what it takes, this is the must-listen to episode of the year.  Chief Operating Officer of the FMWC, Maksims Sičs reveals the inside story of how the “Excel World Cup” was started and the success story ever since. Maksims Sičs is himself an expert in Corporate Finance advising customers on financial planning and analysis at companies including AG Capital, and PNB Banka. In this episode Maksims reveals: How the Financial Modeling World cup started The success of the sport in creating a global Excel community How a little help from Microsoft helped FMWC get broadcast on ESPN  The glory: the prize fund for winning and being an Excel world champion stands at $30,000 jackpot and a trip to Las Vegas  The pain: how one competitor tried to do the final stage in VBA and his Excel crashed five minutes before the final How to enter the tournament for only  $20 ticket  How good do you need to be to enter the competition?  How a competitor called the Excel Wizard Bo Rydobon managed to complete cases in 2 minutes through dynamic arrays  Helping SME business with finance  in his (second) day job  Why FP&A provides “light in the darkness” for a business  Enter the Financial Modeling World Cup YouTube video of the episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

When FP&A Meets Treasury with Mike Richards “Spend 10 minutes a week on yourself. Nobody else is going to take charge of your career except for you. If you sit back, you are going to lose.” Mike Richards, CEO & Founder of The Treasury Recruitment Company, has helped professionals in the US, UK and Europe find dream treasury roles at companies such as Chanel, IKEA and Porsche for two decades.   Mike also hosts the popular podcast, The Treasury Career Corner Podcast which has seen  250 treasury guests and more than 120,000 downloads In this episode:  Modern treasury defined The best paths to collaboration between Treasury and FP&A  (aka grab a coffee ☕) Association of Finance Professionals' certifications for treasury and FP&A The guide to understanding treasury operations for aspiring CFOs.  Financial risk management, capital structure, cash management, banking, relationships, and decision-making for treasury  How to get a job in a job market that sucks Horrible finance job descriptions   Links  Upcoming speeches and conferences featuring Mike Richards - https://treasuryrecruitment.com/treasury-roadshow/ Including New York Cash Exchange, then EuroFinance – Barcelona & then AFP, San Diego Listeners can connect with Mike here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrtreasury/ Head to Treasury Corner podcast here - https://treasuryrecruitment.com/podcast/   YouTube video of the episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails (www.datarails.com) is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.

“You can throw me in any water. Stormy, cold, or hot and I’ll start swimming.”  And swimming is exactly what Jenny Fuss did.  Jenny Fuss, CFO of Boart Longyear, talks about the challenges of international experience, the importance of having a diverse set of skills in an FP&A team and  how to achieve storytelling and influencing in FP&A. Originally from a small town in Germany, Fuss wanted experience of working and living abroad. When the opportunity to move to become a CFO of a joint venture in China presented itself she took it before relocating again to continue her global career in Houston Texas, and expertise as a finance leader walking the shop floor in manufacturing companies.  This episode covers:  Jenny’s advice for an international-based career  The power of FP&A to provide game changing analysis when you have new customer, need to find a new way to contract or enter new markets What CFOs expect from a new breed of FP&A teams The challenge of doing less F and P (and more analysis) when facing high pressure cycles such as month end closes and budget planning Why she favors a three-year forecast from FP&A The #1 priority for a CFO in their first 90 days in a new role  Owning up to a million dollar mistake   Jenny’s favorite thing about Excel Her top  advice for someone starting out in FP&A Follow Jenny Fuss on LinkedIn YouTube video of the episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.

Wassia Kamon built FP&A from the ground up at Intralot, a state lottery vendor behind the US Powerball lottery (as an insider she couldn’t play the lottery for nine years). And Wassia knows something about winning against the odds. She arrived in the US aged 17. As she points out “only 3% of people getting a CPA are black”. Wassia says: “Growing up in the Ivory Coast I was not a minority. Coming to the US I had to learn what it was to be a minority.” She started posting regularly on LinkedIn after “seeing that there’s nobody that looks like me that’s talking about finance. “I never had a black boss, I never reported to somebody that was black. So the fact that I’m in this role means that other people saw me for what I could bring to the table and hired me.” Her rapid rise has seen her become a finance executive with roles as VP of Finance at Boehringer Ingelheim From there, she moved on to more FP&A-focused roles at Boehringer Ingelheim, a global pharmaceutical company, as finance business partner for different business units, to VP of Finance at Low Income Investment Fund (the company manages $2billion of investments). She was recently recognized as an up the 40 under 40 honoree by CPA Practive Advisor. In this episode learn: Her approach to learning *on the go* in switching from accounting to FP&A  The value of “starting where you are”  How to make sure finance speaks the same language as the rest of the business Putting ongoing meetings ahead of an annual meeting when it comes to budget and other big ticket items Secrets to managing a team and getting the most out of colleagues Book recommendations to boost your FP&A career How being “overly confident” led to her biggest FP&A career blunder  Her favorite Excel function that changed her life forever  What’s better, chocolate or Cheetos? YouTube video of this episode  Full episode transcript Follow Wassia Kamon on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com For AFP FP&A Continuing Education credit please complete the course via the Earmark Ap, must pass the quiz with 80% accuracy and send the completed certificate to pbarnhust@thefpandaguy.com for issuance of 1 hour of credit toward your AFP FP&A Certification.

Today's guest is…Paul Barnhurst. Usually sitting in the presenter’s chair, this special edition sees Paul Barnhurst, aka The FP&A Guy (and host of FP&A Today), reveal the highs and lows from his storied career in FP&A at American Express, Solera, and DigiCert. Guest host  is Annette deYoung, FP&A Solutions Consultant at Datarails, herself an FP&A veteran at companies including manufacturer, JL Clarke.   Highlights? Discover a rookie error that saw Paul deliver bonuses to the worst performers (yes, you read that right), rather than the best. How he met Jimmy Carter. The inside story of FP&A forecasting for American Express’s (then) money-spinning Travelers Cheques business, and how his biggest FP&A tech accomplishment is still in place at a previous company.   Get to know your host as Paul reveals: The winding road to FP&A from his beginnings in government procurement contracts His big break at American Express despite “not really knowing what  FP&A was” With a love of numbers, why he was drawn to FP&A as his passion  Accounting vs FP&A and the best techniques he has used to manage the relationships His key learnings to becoming a truly excellent FP&A business partner The fears and journey in leaving big corporations to become a top FP&A consultant  Why finance tend to be such laggards when it comes to tech adoption What’s it actually like using Google Sheets? YouTube video of this episode  Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.   Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.   Get in touch at www.datarails.com   For AFP FP&A Continuing Education credit please complete the course via the Earmark Ap, must pass the quiz with 80% accuracy and send the completed certificate to pbarnhust@thefpandaguy.com for issuance of 1 hour of credit toward your AFP FP&A Certification.

Danielle Stein Fairhust  literally wrote the book on Excel and Financial Modeling. Well two books, actually. Using Excel for Business and Financial Modelling and Financial Modeling in Excel for Dummies.    Here, the Excel MVP from Australia provides her secrets to financial modeling.   Her road to financial modeling after traveling for seven years, and leaving investment banking Why Excel is so crucial for businesses  Budgeting and forecasting vs financial modeling  How she was commissioned to write her famous books Difference between creating a LinkedIn course vs writing a book Encouraging and raising the profile of women in financial modeling  Secrets to training and behind the scenes of the Financial Modeling World Cup  How to Become an Excel MVP The biggest issue people face with financial modeling The Financial Modeling Institute work and how to ace the test  Favorite Excel Function? Biggest advice for someone starting in FP&A today?   Links Danielle Stein Fairhurst: Using Excel for Business and Financial Modeling  Danielle Stein Fairhurst: Financial Modeling in Excel For Dummies Danielle’s LinkedIn course (new), Excel: Financial Functions in Depth.    Follow Danielle Stein Fairhurst on LinkedIn  YouTube video of the episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.   Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.   Get in touch at www.datarails.com   For AFP FP&A Continuing Education credit please complete the course via the Earmark Ap, must pass the quiz with 80% accuracy and send the completed certificate to pbarnhust@thefpandaguy.com for issuance of 1 hour of credit toward your AFP FP&A Certification.

Bjarte Bogsnes has worked with companies, from IKEA, H&M,Pernod Ricard, Volvo and Equinor (Scandinavia’s largest company). His approach, “Beyond Budgeting” involves wholesale rethinking about budget approaches. In today’s episode, Bogsnes rails against the “misery” and “borderline unethical behavior” in traditional budgeting within companies, as he talks about the seachange happening in businesses. He talks to Paul Barnhurst as he publishes his new book, This Is Beyond Budgeting: A Guide to More Adaptive and Human Organizations (2023).   The episode covers   Definition of beyond budgeting as an antidote to “serious problems with traditional management” How traditional budgeting gets “trust” and “predictability” wrong  Your answer to “Why are you budgeting?” shows the problems inherent in existing process How budget process are “borderline unethical” Equinor (Scandinavia’s case study) change  Making organizations more adaptive and human in the process of transformation Don’t start with rolling forecasting  How a Vinyl collection of 3,5000 is a unique musical passion  How Beyond Budget “will happen” in the next decade    Links    Bognes Advisory bogsnesadvisory.com   FT (case study of Ikea): CEOs forced to ditch decades of forecasting habits   Bjarte Bogsnes: This Is Beyond Budgeting: A Guide to More Adaptive and Human Organizations     Follow Bjarte Bogsnes on LinkedIn   YouTube video of the episode   Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn    Follow Datarails on LinkedIn   FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.   Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.

In this special FP&A Today episode, Paul is  joined by three Excel experts whom Microsoft has recognized as Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs). Learn why it is important to up your Excel game and how you can do it. Below check out offers (saving $$$) from our MVPs exclusively for listeners of FP&A Today. Get all your questions about Excel answered by the expert panel: George Mount, Founder Stringfest AnalyticsCelia Alves, CEO, Solve and Excel ConsultingMark Proctor, Excel Off The Grid In this special episode: Our MVPs on when Excel first emerged as a difference-maker in their lives George Mount on the failure of finance to adapt to technology The challenge of finance teams descending to the lowest common Excel skill set The untapped power of PowerQuery and where to start The power of prepping your data properly Python vs Excel Automating Excel reports using Python How to deal with tricky Excel issues Will Excel go extinct with the rise of AI The thing that you absolutely could not live without in Excel Connect with George Mount Connect with Celia Alves Connect with Mark Proctor Special Offers Exclusively for FP&A Today listeners 1) George Mount Subscribe to George’s newsletter to get access to his data analytics resource library and many other goodies https://stringfestanalytics.com/subscribe/ 2) Mark Proctor https://exceloffthegrid.com/fpa is an exclusive offer for our training academy to the listeners of FP&A Today - 30-day full access trial for $1, followed by a $100 annual discount. This is valid until 31 May. Excel Off the Grid  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ExcelOffTheGrid LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markstephenproctor/ 3) Celia Alves Celia offers an online course about automation of Excel Reporting procedures. Check out the special FP&A Today discount here https://snapreportschamp.com/course DISCOUNT CODE for 20% OFF: FPA20 (valid up to June 4, 2023). Subscribe to Celia’s newsletter https://snapreportschamp.com/subscribenewsletter Celia Alves - Solve & Excel - on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/CeliaAlvesSolveExcel YouTube video of today's episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com

Syed Nadeem is a top finance leader in Saudi Arabia. But the director of Budgeting at listed telecom company, Zain KSA, says he considers his previous failures as pivotal to his position today.  He says: “When I was young [and experiencing failure] I felt so disappointed I thought my world was going to end. Sometimes  you don't get a promotion and you see other peers getting a promotion. I struggled after getting my CMA (Certified Management Accountant). Sometimes you are not getting good increments, or you are about to hire someone and they reject you. But what I learned is this failure actually makes you strong for the future role.” Today, he shares his full breadth of experience-both good and bad and explains why he provides (free) mentorships to businesses on a daily basis and to his 15,000 followers on LinkedIn.   In this wide ranging interview Syed explains: Uncovering the power of FP&A in companies providing a “helicopter view of companies”. The role and limitations of certifications in FP&A How “selling”  is the core to getting a good job in finance  The power of technology in FP&A and “unlearning and relearning every day”     The secrets to effective communication with senior leadership How bad experiences make strong finance business leaders  The secret to talking to Investors in a Language they Understand    Links  Get a free one-to-one career session with Syed at https://calendly.com/syednadeem/connect   Read the full transcript and blog Follow Syed Nadeem on LinkedIn YouTube video Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn   FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.   Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.   Get in touch at www.datarails.com

Maura Feddersen, behavioral research manager at Swiss Re, is an economist who previously worked in the economics team of two of the Big Four Accountancy firms: PwC and KPMG.   She got switched on to behavioral economics as “I always felt there was something a bit missing in economics. [Economics] assumes that people act quite rationally…and that was just not the case. Behavioral economics brings together the economics, as well as insights from psychology, to try to assess how humans really make decisions”.   This  fascinating episode with Maura, uncovers the lessons that FP&A teams can learn from behavioral economics to improve forecasting and the power of “knowing what knowing what you don’t know.”   This episode includes      New research revealing that investors predictions are only slightly more accurate than a chimp How new forecasting methods improved accuracy at Swiss Re by 5% The cognitive biases we need to be aware of that undermine accuracy (such as the dangers of groupthink) Meryl Streep’s Oscar nominations and your forecast confidence levels tested  How to try and manage cognitive bias The true economic impact of uncertainty in the global economy and in your business  The opportunities and limits of AI forecasting  Using RIO (Rational Impartial Observers) The biggest failure in her career Favorite Excel function Her biggest advice for someone starting out to get really good at forecasting    Further reading    Actuaries magazine: So You Think You Can Underwrite [Maura Fedderson]    Insurers, take heed of these 3 common forecasting fallacies [by Maura Feddersen]    Recommended books   Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction Paperback - Philip Tetlock, Dan GardnerNassim Taleb, The Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable    Annie Duke, How to decide   Adam Grant, Think Again, The Power of Knowing what you Don’t Know    Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment   Read the full transcript and blog Follow Maura Fedderson on LinkedIn YouTube video Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn   Follow Datarails on LinkedIn   FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.   Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.   Get in touch at www.datarails.com   For AFP FP&A Continuing Education credit please complete the course via the Earmark Ap, must pass the quiz with 80% accuracy and send the completed certificate to pbarnhust@thefpandaguy.com for issuance of 1 hour of credit toward your AFP FP&A Certification.

Are you starting to think about your budget for the next year? Stop right now, argues Mikus Krams. As a former senior director of strategy and finance at Chili Piper, he described budgets as a shackle — you’ll be held prisoner to the assumptions you make for the next year. In this episode, Mikus Krums, the B2B Saas finance leader turned co-founder of Trace Space, says budgets are unlikely to be relevant for small agile companies. He tells Paul Barnhurst: “Let's say you're doing some activity and it's yielded you some results. If halfway through the activity you figured that it's not working, why would you still keep pushing it? But if you have a budget, that's exactly what you are doing…it just felt silly to be living that way.” In this episode Mikus describes  Bottoms up planning as the most impactful strategy for agile  B2B SaaS companies The reason that budgets are bad for business ROI mindset as core to his finance thinking  Managing incentive structure through a Rev Ops approach How on target earnings are sometimes more mirage than reality  Managers as “powderkegs” and “snipers”  The path to moving to a continuous forecasting methodology His biggest failure in his FP&A career Banking as a powerful route to FP&A career success The importance of lunch with business leaders and individual contributors in a business  Read the full transcript and blog Follow Mikus Krams on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com For AFP FP&A Continuing Education credit please complete the course via the Earmark Ap, must pass the quiz with 80% accuracy and send the completed certificate to pbarnhust@thefpandaguy.com for issuance of 1 hour of credit toward your AFP FP&A Certification.

“I would like to see FP&A drive the planning process for go- to-market just because I think they will have a better natural understanding of what it means to actually build a plan.” Scott Stouffer, a former engineer, is a serial entrepreneur and founder. Currently he is CEO and Founder at scaleMatters, the world’s first Go-to-Market Optimization Platform. Previously, he executed the sale of Salsa Labs, a non profit CRM to PE firm Accel-KKR at a period of $12MM annual revenue and 70 employees. In this wide-ranging interview he reveals the real impact he believes CEOs, such as himself, are looking for in choosing CFOs and building a finance team. He also argues for  a bigger role for FP&A – including leadership of a company’s go-to-market strategy incorporating how an organization can engage with customers to convince them to buy their product or service.  This interview covers Scott’s roadmap for growth leading fast-scaling companies Why many CFOs are “glorified controllers” (and why that is a problem) How FP&A can prevent sales and marketing teams “from winging it” by bringing the “analytical brain power” to the  The power of a good plan in a fast-scaling business Should Rev Ops and Data be owned by the CFO How FP&A should be the first port of call in building a companies Go-to-Market strategy  How finance teams can work better with sales teams and better modeling sales capacity Why in 60% of cases companies have too many sales people by failing to do proper modeling Why you need to hone self-confidence as a skillset Read the full transcript and blog Follow Scott Stouffer on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com For AFP FP&A Continuing Education credit please complete the course via the Earmark Ap, must pass the quiz with 80% accuracy and send the completed certificate to pbarnhust@thefpandaguy.com for issuance of 1 hour of credit toward your AFP FP&A Certification.

The second-biggest bank collapse in U.S. history created a storm for CFOs and their finance teams during a panic-induced 48 hours in March. It only ended as regulators took control of Santa Clara, Calif.-based SVB and a dramatic intervention by financial regulators. In this special edition of FP&A Today, meet those in finance and FP&A who saw the events at Silicon Valley Bank first hand. Understand how the banking crisis played out and how ongoing ripples continue to impact everyone in FP&A and how your finance teams can cope with the ongoing aftermath. The panel: Josh Aharonoff (aka Your CFO Guy), CEO and Founder, Mighty Digits had many clients banking with SVB and had to make quick decisions as news broke. He shares Finance & Accounting Best Practices & Advice everyday to his nearly 85,000 LinkedIn followers Follow Josh on LinkedIn   CJ Gustafson is a CFO at a series B startup, PartsTech. He has been in the startup space within the  private equity sector and has helped to scale venture backed companies for the last 10 years. He also authors Mostly Metrics, an irreverent and analytical spin on metrics which has crossed more than 10k subscribers. Follow CJ Gustafson on LinkedIn Casey Woo is a seven-time high Tech CFO- turned investor. He has held finance and CFO roles at Silicon Valley companies including at WeWork and property tech companies before founding an “operators community” turned investment fund FOG ventures. Follow Casey Woo on LinkedIn   What is covered in this episode: Casey Woo explains being at the “heart of the storm” in Silicon Valley with a close personal relationship with SVB The reasons that VCs put pressure to withdraw money from SVB in a classic “prisoner’s dilemma” How the fallout from SVB continues to impact companies and particularly finance professionals  The challenges for CFOs, particularly in tech, seeking to fundraise after SVB’s crash  What are the differences between fractional banking and Ponzi schemes The initial $250,000 ceiling on federal deposit insurance explained How could KPMG have given SVB a clean bill of health with so many stored-up challenges?  Why is the impact of raising rates so dramatically different than in the 1970s when no banks failed? Strategic advice for Treasury and FP&A pros going forward post-SVB  The importance for CFOs and FP&A leaders to understand “second order effects” beyond cash entering and leaving the building.  How the SVB saga has emphasized the value of an FP&A function that can show everything that's happened, is happening, and is going to happen “and being in control of that story” - allowing you to take action quickly. FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.   Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog

“I am definitely starting to see more people with an FP&A background becoming fractional CFOs.”   Michael King, founder of The CFO Accelerator, coaches hundreds of  fractional CFOs and accountants in building “6 and 7-figure advisory firms”.   King arrives on the bustling fractional CFO scene at a time when demand for part-time finance chiefs working for several companies is  higher than ever. In King’s words in the next decade a small business having a fractional CFO will be just as common as bringing in a bookkeeper as hiring fractional CFOs becomes the “cost of doing business” at small and medium-sized enterprises. And according to King, those with an FP&A background have a significant advantage.   “FP&A really gets people ready for those CFO technical skills. So when I think about FP&A, I'm thinking about things like forecast projections, budgets and models, and data management, alongside communications across functional divisions within a business. And that's a huge part of what a fractional CFO has to understand”.   Covered in this episode King’s path from being a navy nuclear engineer to a fractional CFO leader The essential skills you need to be a fractional CFO When should an SMB choose a fractional CFO  Why budgeting and forecasting are “everything”  The key to using the fractional CFO position to connect the strategic goals of a business Why people in finance must learn to love sales When to move away from a fractional CFO and appoint a full time finance chief  Why cash flow is always “the first” and most important metric for any fractional CFO service Why you only need a small number of clients to “make a killing” as a fractional CFO How the Fractional CFO space will explode in the next decade “regardless of the economic picture” Fractional CFOs need to be “operating as far away from the decimal as possible” to be successful The process of adopting kids as the thing few people know about Michael     Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog   Follow Michael King on LinkedIn  Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails, the FP&A platform for Excel users. Episode links  The CFO Accelerator podcast with Michael King The CFO Report (Youtube channel) The The 5-Minute Fractional CFO Newsletter

“I must admit, when I was doing accounting, I never liked my FP&A colleagues. In fact, as a matter of at times, I hated them. I thought they didn’t understand accounting. They always push to reduce the number of days it takes to close the books when they have very little clue what's going on.” Abdul Khaliq, Group Financial Controller, at Abu Dhabi National Hotels   In our 50th episode of FP&A Today, we bring together an all-star guest list who have had experience working as both accountants and in FP&A. Drawing on their experience they  look at the frequent clashes between FP&A and their accounting colleagues (be warned no one pulls any punches!). Plus, the secrets to a more harmonious relationship between FP&A and accounting. Get ready for The Dual of Accruals, the Toe-to-Toe on Cash Flow….with all of your questions answered about the day-to-day realities of FP&A vs Accounting. The panel:   Lyndi Porter is accounting controller at Solera, a  global leader in vehicle lifecycle management. She  has more than 16 years accounting experience and has managed FP&A teams   Follow Lyndi on LinkedIn   Abdul Khaliq, Group Financial Controller, at Abu Dhabi National Hotels. 20+ years of progressive experience in accounting for Real Estate Development and Hospitality industries.   Follow Abdul on LinkedIn   Josh Aharonoff (aka Your CFO Guy), CEO and Founder, Mighty Digits. He shares Finance & Accounting Best Practices & Advice everyday to his nearly 85,000 LinkedIn followers   Follow Josh on LinkedIn   Terrell Turner: Co-founder and fractional CFO at TLTurner Group (NY Times featured CFO | 40 Under 40 CPA). He also provide bookkeeping services to law firms to make accounting and finance less complicated.   What is covered in this episode: The crucial differences between accounting and FP&A? The 4 main reasons FP&A practitioners and their accounting colleagues clash. The business fallout when FP&A and accounting fail to co-exist  Best practices that have worked in your career to bridge the gaps. Potential impact of AI in the FP&A-accounting relationship The crucial role of a Tech stack The importance of the chart of accounts in this relationship Getting the 10Qs and 10Ks out and the impact on FP&A requests The fastest way to get from accounting and FP&A and the qualifications  Favorite Excel functions for accounting and FP&A pros   Read the full transcript and blog Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn     FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.   Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.   Get in touch at www.datarails.com

“It’s like a fuse being blown. You can push as much power as you want through the device, but if the fuse is gone, it isn't going to work. That's exactly how I felt.” Alison Allsopp is Head of FP&A at NHS Supply Chain, a crucial cog in the UK’s National Health Service. Prior to this, Alison was promoted nine times in her previous role at credit card company, Capital One. Despite (or maybe because of) this rapid rise up the finance ranks, Alison faced prolonged self-doubt and feelings of “imposter syndrome”. One day she reached breaking point. “As much as it was a real low point in my life, it was a huge turning point.” In this episode Alison reveals how she managed these challenges in her career and lessons for those facing a similar situation. Other highlights: Spearheading FP&A in the supply chain of the NHS just as COVID-19 hit throwing the NHS into crisis The importance of building trusting relationships and being open and transparent The secrets to getting nine promotions within a company Differences between big business FP&A and  public sector FP&A The untold role of FP&A’s strategic role at the NHS during the pandemic The biggest opportunities and challenges for FP&A professionals today The interesting fact that many do not know about Alison Her favorite Excel function The power of a good Waterfall Her biggest advice for someone starting out in FP&A Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Alison Allsopp on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

Egor Lyasko is Head of FP&A, Northern Europe at The Kraft Heinz Company, encompassing some of the world’s most loved brands including Heinz ketchup, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Lunchables. After gaining a master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Oxford, Egor started at Kraft Heinz as a trainee rising rapidly in six years to Head of FP&A, Northern Europe. What we covered in this episode: His rapid career rise at Kraft Heinz attracted by the ketchup maker’s “culture of ownership.” The principles of finance transformation and the core lessons learnt How Kraft Heinz manages its annual budget cycle (and what he would do differently next time) The role of integrated business planning at the world’s fifth-largest food and beverage conglomerate The importance of being a “mini CFO’ in a sales finance partnership role FP&A as Guardians of the P&L Why he doesn’t have an ambition to become a CFO His perfect retirement dream His favorite Excel function   Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Egor Lyasko on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

Many CFOs preach about keeping up with technological change. But CFO Glenn Hopper went a step further. As ChatGPT talk reached fever pitch he was ready with a proof of concept for an FP&A version of Chat GPT. For good measure he also provided 30 pages of documentation about the process (“Application of ChatGPT to Build an FP&A Tool”) - to acclaim among FP&A professionals. Hopper, a serial startup CFO, and U.S. Navy veteran who earned a master’s degree at Harvard says: “I wanted to see if someone with just a base understanding of the underlying technology could use artificial intelligence to first off build a tool that would help automate some of the FP&A processes and secondly, get to a way where you could use that tool to interact with your company's financial data.” The Chat GPT project was a perfect technical project for Hopper, playing to his technological mindset and  skills foreshadowing technological transformation for finance professionals as explored in his book Deep Finance In the Information Age: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Finance-Corporate-Information-Age/dp/1637351240. The study also draws on his career and love of FP&A. In this episode Glenn Hopper discusses His unusual transition to CFO, moving from journalism in the Navy to product manager.    How a passion for writing helps to formulate projects and challenges in finance His experience with financial transformation in finance companies and the lessons he learned from the experience – as set out in his book Deep Finance How having a mathematical and analytical mindset is crucial for anyone in FP&A How his biggest corporate failure (missing a $1.5million invoice in budget preparation) was essentially his “origin story” to becoming a transformative CFO How he wrote a feature film – a low budget horror movie, The Hanged Man which streamed on Netflix His favorite Excel function Links from the show Deep Finance In the Information Age: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Finance-Corporate-Information-Age/dp/1637351240 “Application of ChatGPT to Build an FP&A Tool” - https://github.com/ghopper3/ChatGPT-Project/blob/main/ChatGPT%20for%20FPA.pdf The Hanged Man (2007) Written by Glenn Hopper https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1185596/   Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Glenn Hopper on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

Nicolas Boucher has a simple message to anyone who wants to move from audit to FP&A. The  Head of Finance and Controlling at Thales says: “You can do it. I am an example of that.” He says many skills are transferable from audit to FP&A. “Looking at financial statements from different companies in different situations and different industries” is one. Another is understanding “the figures compared to the past or compared to trends to give assurance to the figures. This is actually what you are doing as FP&A when you are analyzing the actuals against the budget or against last year.” After seven years in audit at PwC which took him around the world and saw him get “battlefield promotions” Nicolas didn’t want to remain in audit forever and wanted “something more operationally close to the business.” In this week’s podcast he explains how he made the move from audit to FP&A and the skills he has learnt in his 15 years as a finance leader. Whether it is his past as a DJ (“When you have control of the microphone from 500 people, you need to know what you have to say and to have the confidence to do it”) or board reports and his daily content as a global finance thought leader with 127,000 followers on LinkedIn he explains the importance of stopping people from being “ bored” or losing attention. He also reveals the inside scoop on a new course “giving everything that I learned the last 15 years” - that he wishes he had been given when starting out.  In this episode Nicolas reveals: How to shape your audit skills to to get a role in FP&A His key learnings in a finance career that has taken him all over the world including France, the US, and Singapore, and across audit, controlling and FP&A roles. The secrets to hitting 126,000 followers on LinkedIn as one of the leading FP&A (and general finance) influencers His lessons from a large-scale finance transformation at Thales The importance of communicating “bad surprises” early  His early DJ Career and the lessons for a career in finance His new course, Become a High Performing Finance Professional His favorite Excel function Links from the show https://nicolasboucher.online/ Become a High Performing Finance Professional course with links to his content online    Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Nicolas Boucher on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

What does Carmen Turner love about FP&A? “Being able to provide businesses the insights they need to make great business decisions.”   The Director of Financial Planning and Analysis at Carmen Consulting Group who has managed the FP&A business partnerships at top companies such as McGraw Hill, says: “I work to help the businesses manage their budgets to target and understand their financial story.” But she started her career not in finance (or through a traditional route). She began her career as an electrician. But programming robots and wiring facilities saw her gain skills which have been used daily in her 14-year finance career - not least troubleshooting, problem solving, collaboration, communication and the ability to educate others on complex (financial) wiring.  In this week’s podcast Carmen provides insights into how FP&A teams can give business the appropriate insights to deliver great decision-making.  This episode covers: Carmen’s definition of FP&A as a primary educator in the business How doing an MBA switched her on to FP&A as a passion How she built the first FP&A certification more than a decade ago and how it helped her understand how processes differ across industries and companies Putting her finance-first thinking to the test when starting her FP&A consulting business Her four step approach to mastering sales-FP&A business partnerships How to effectively build a sales compensation strategy that works Why she advocates for rolling forecasts  The importance of adopting a risk and opportunities approach in budget and forecasting  The importance of a buffer in place when it comes to budget deadlines  Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Carmen Turner  on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn   FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com

Asif Masani has an inner belief that has guided his entire career. “Whatever I learn something, I don't feel good if I don't share it”.     This ethos has taken Asif on a journey to become an FP&A leader and author. He has just published his first book about FP&A, hit nearly 60,000 followers on LinkedIn and his daily advice has almost single handedly opened the eyes of Indian finance people to FP&A as a career. Unsurprisingly, his education-first focus has led him to lead FP&A (APAC and India) at e-learning company Coursera (which facilitates 7000 courses, and which set up its FP&A team three years ago).    For such a stalwart of FP&A only nine years ago Asif  admits “I had never heard about FP&A before” until he landed on a role as financial analyst at Citi. He has since had FP&A roles at companies including Pfizer, and Great Learning.   In this episode Asif talks to Paul Barnhurst about his career journey:    From audit at EY to FP&A How a struggle to find a job led him to become a top FP&A influencer The top advice for finance people to build their own online brand How he embarked on writing his new book, All About FP&A, a 220 page guide for those entering the profession How FP&A operates at e-learning provider Coursera a 4k employee company offering 7000 courses The importance of special projects driving value in FP&A at Coursera Core metrics which he tracks closely  The evolution of FP&A in India  The outsourcing of finance functions to Indian companies The biggest trend in FP&A in 2023   Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog https://www.datarails.com/fpa-today-episode-44-asif-masani-all-about-fpa/ Follow Asif Masani on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com

The VC behind buzzy startups Calm, GoFundMe, Udemy and Gong is bullish on FP&A.  Ryan Abdullah an Investor at Norwest Venture Partners tells FP&A Today says there are four reasons why VCs rely on FP&A, particularly during a downturn. Firstly there is a huge increase in appetite for forecasts. Secondly  FP&A must take account of labor shifts in startups (not least caused by large layoffs). Thirdly, ( investors who are all about growth) see FP&A as an ally and “profit center” to help businesses “grow and do better”. Fourthly FP&A is delivering an agenda with other departments to define budgets “rather than just entering numbers in a spreadsheet.” In this episode Paul talks to Ryan Abdullah covering:   How VCS look at the role of FP&A and the benefit to their portfolio companies Which financial insights and KPIs matter most to investors The role FP&A plays in big fundraising? What do VCs see as FP&A magic  The importance of realistic and accurate models for VCs The importance of robust software for handling and cleaning financial data The challenges and opportunities for SaaS KPIs His biggest success and biggest failure Ryan’s photography hobby and how it helps him to think about investing  Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Ryan Abdullah on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com

Kevin Appleby, COO of Grow CFO, asks potential CFO applicants a simple question.   Okay, I  know you want to become a CFO.   But what sort of CFO do you want to become?   In fact, he explains, there are three types of CFO.   You need to know which one you will be.   The “Financier”. Specialists in startups, they excel at tackling fundraising rounds, and M&A. They often move from company to company. The “Transformational CFO”. This CFO wants big improvements in processes and in the way that the internals of the company work together. This CFO often heads several departments including finance, procurement, HR, and IT. The “Strategist” – the clear right-hand man or woman of the CEO, constantly analyzing the strategic direction of the company.   Somebody from an FP&A background fits into any of those roles depending on what they want and their strengths, argues Appleby.   But getting to know your strengths as CFO or in FP&A is crucial to achieve the most from your career. He says: “If you're strong in something and you take time to develop it, you can become fantastically good. If you weak in something, you can spend a lot of time to become mediocre.”   This is just one of the insights that Kevin Appleby has gained as he mentors top CFOs in the UK and the US as part of the fast-growing mentorship service Grow CFO. In this episode of FP&A he maps his career from audit (“I never really wanted to be an auditor”) and FP&A (“back then FP&A as a term didn't really exist”) at one-time great manufacturing company, Imperial Chemicals Chemical Industries (ICI) and as a management consultant at PwC turned mentor and consultant with Grow CFO.   This episode is essential for anyone seeking to move from finance or FP&A to the top finance position. Kevin Appleby explains to Paul.   How GrowCFO was founded and how it is identify skills launching CFOs you into the next phase of their career The core competencies of highly successful CFOs The importance of budgeting and zero-based budgeting and the increasing power of FP&A for CFOs Why the value of your business is a multiplier of the bottom line (not the top line) Why every business (not just manufacturing) must engage with activity analysis His biggest FP&A Failure His best advice for FP&A professionals   Links from the show   Grow CFO - https://www.growcfo.net/   Grow CFO Competency Framework https://www.growcfo.net/growcfo-competency-framework/   Career routes to the CFO https://www.growcfo.net/research/career-routes-to-cfo-2022-report/   Watch the full show on YouTube   Read the full transcript and blog   Follow Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn   Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn   Follow Datarails on LinkedIn   FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.   Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.   Get in touch at www.datarails.com

First the good news. FP&A hiring is not slowing down. In fact, FP&A is considered even more crucial in challenging business circumstance,  according to FP&A recruiters and hiring managers brought together in this special edition of FP&A Today. Michael Jouris, finance recruiter, Addison Group says: “I have seen a lot of acquisitions by private equity backed companies in the recent months and they want to be more sophisticated with their reporting and in these times, FP&A is more important than ever.” Sophie Bunce, Director of FP&A at fast-growing SaaS company Paddle who, has just hired more FP&A professionals in her finance team, adds: “In any economic environment, good FP&A is necessary. But In  a rough economic environment, FP&A is even more important.” Joining Paul Barnhurst for this special episode: Sophie Bunce Director of FP&A at Paddle Angela Kulzer, Director of Sales and Recruiting, RiverLink Staffing Michael Jouris, Addison Group Executive Search Consultant, Finance & Accounting. This episode is essential listening for anyone looking to a future role in FP&A, or seeking to hire for an FP&A role in the future. Highlights from this episode on lessons to secure your next role include: Perspectives on the current market for FP&A job seekers Remote working in 2023 within the CFO’s Office How to separate the “what” and the “how” in updating your finance experience and talking about your career  How to powerfully show the outcomes previously achieved in your roles (based on what employers actually want to hear) LinkedIn vs Resumes How best to apply for a new role in FP&A while in an economic downturn The importance of your network Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Connect with our guests on LinkedIn: Sophie Bunce Director of FP&A at Paddle. Angela Kulzer, Director of Sales and Recruiting, RiverLink Staffing Michael Jouris, Addison Group Executive Search Consultant, Finance & Accounting Connect with Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Connect with Datarails on LinkedIn   FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.   Get in touch at www.datarails.com

Aviv Canaani, VP Marketing, Datarails, and Christian Wattig, Head of Training at Datarails and founder of FP&A Prep,  join Paul Barnhurst for a conversation about marketing vs finance in a business.  In the world of business it sometimes feels like finance and marketing are talking a different language. Christian Wattig has been the FP&A leader at some of the highest profile marketing teams on the planet at P&G and Unilever where campaigns for brands such as Dove, Skippy and Hellman’s saw marketing spend hundreds of millions of dollars.  In this episode he talks about some of the biggest challenges, misconceptions, and opportunities between FP&A and marketing and actionable insights when partnering with creatives in a business.  Joining Paul and Christian is Aviv Canaani, VP Marketing, Datarails.  Giving the marketing take on the finance-advertising relationship, Canaani has led multi-million dollar marketing campaigns at companies including IBM. Since then he has led marketing at hyper growth startups, Workiz and Datarails. In this frank discussion Canaani talks about the conflicts with marketing: “We are not always sure that the finance people have our best interests at heart.” Also in this episode How can FP&A teams work with marketing on long-term marketing investment  How to build trust between finance and marketing The best way to make a finance case for marketing investment  How to best market to an FP&A audience How FP&A can help measure direct response marketing Making yourself aware of the wildly different incentives for finance teams vs marketing teams  Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Connect with Christian Wattig on LinkedIn Connect with Aviv Canaani on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn Links from the episode FP&A Prep https://www.fpaprep.com/ FP&A Prep is a one-stop shop for content, training, and mentoring on Financial Planning & Analysis topics. The #1 FP&A Community (Slack) Join here  https://www.datarails.com/the-global-community-for-fpa-leaders/ A global community and resource hub for modern FP&A leaders like you

A slightly different episode this week, featuring not a finance chief, but a CEO talking about the power and impact of FP&A on business strategy. Jeanette Dorazio, CEO of Leadpages, joins Paul to discuss the daily impact FP&A is having for her company, a leading SaaS no-code website and landing page builder. In this episode Jeanette Dorazio discusses with Paul: How FP&A teams can actually get that coveted seat at the table by “seeing the patterns” in a business How FP&A works with her in monitoring key metrics for growth  The CEOs playbook for FP&A during a downturn  The best and worst FP&A work she has seen in her career  Why FP&A should be a “very close first” for hiring into the finance team after the CFO Why the visibility of FP&A needs to improve  The power of Excel in shaping her journey through product management to CEO Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Jeanette Dorazio on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn   FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.   Get in touch at www.datarails.com

Casey Woo is a serial high Tech CFO turned investor. The Harvard educated financier “escaped” a life as an Investment Banking Analyst, at Morgan Stanley to take a big pay cut and join a 10-person startup (“If you wanna do tech, you gotta go to the Bay Area”). Since then, he has held finance at CFO roles including at WeWork and property tech company Landing before founding an “operators community” turned investment fund FOG ventures.  In this episode Casey talks to Paul Barnhurst about his journey:  How finance was seen as a “second class” citizen when he entered Silicon Valley and how he had to “learn a new language” How he built up the Operators Guild “a club of number twos” ( finance, ops, HR, talent, legal, IT) into an exec community of 700 leaders who now run the FOG VC What good FP&A looks like at an early stage company When early stage companies are making $200,000 $300,000 total is when FP&A can be a powerful addition Why FP&A leaders need to focus on business first rather than finance first  The CFO’s future as the Office of Business Intelligence that will separate the The Ancien Régime CFOs with those who can adapt If CFOs are not “pounding their fists on the table” asking to own data they will not survive Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Casey Woo on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com

This episode is all about financial modeling from one of the world’s experts. Ian Schnoor is   Executive Director at the Financial Modeling Institute (FMI) & President and Founder at The Marquee Group. In this episode he provides frank assessment of why most financial models fail and how you can take instant actions to instantly transform your financial modeling. This is absolutely essential listening for anyone considering taking the Financial Modeling Institute’s world-respected accreditation program. The program is recognized by companies like Goldman Sachs, Moody’s KPM and Morgan Stanley as the most rigorous validation of financial modeling skills and ranges from foundational, to advanced, to Chartered Financial Modeler and Master Financial Modeler.  In this episode: From investment banking to creating the world’s only accredited financial modeling training The skills you will need to pass the robust accreditation by the Financial Modeling Institute Why employees are increasingly requiring proof of financial modeling skills The multi-disciplinary skills required to excel in modeling including design, data flow, communication and storytelling How the integrated 3 statement model is the table stakes for being considered a good financial modeler How you can get your financial model humming smoothly - you should not have to pop your car hood to show the engine The power of a committee approach to modeling and design in a company Nixing our favorite function question: There should be no favorites in Excel, but pick the tools that will help you to get the job done you have in front of you Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Ian Schoor on LinkedIn Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com

In this special jam-packed episode Paul Barnhurst looks back on 2022 (and with special guests) reveals the biggest predictions for FP&A in 2023.   This episode looks back at one year of FP&A Today and how our dedicated audience helped us reach more than  40,000 downloads in our first 35 episodes across 100 countries.   In between we hear Paul’s favorite FP&A guest insights from the first 35 episodes interspersed with new hot takes on everything you need to know in FP&A for 2023 from FP&A leaders, Soufyan Hamid, Hector Rubalcava, and Mario Vasquez.   In this episode: The winner of the yearly question of FP&A Favorite Excel function revealed 🥇 The best Excel jokes you need to know  The favorite Excel functions of Jordan Goldmeier, Lance Rubin, Kathy Svetina, Francesca Valli, Jon Laudi, Chris Reilly and Paul Barnhurst  The #1 advice to make your FP&A journey better in 2023  from Jack Alexander, Zoe Cooke, Stéphanie Herbots, Chris Reilly, Carl Seidman, and Paul Barnhurst Predictions for FP&A in 2023 from Soufyan Hamid, Hector Rubalcava, and Mario Vasquez  How to move from accounting to FP&A with Cameron Janke The revolution with Gen Z FP&A with interns at Credit Suisse and American Express entering the finance workforce for the first time   Watch the full show on YouTube Read the full transcript and blog Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com

Glenn Snyder, builds high performing FP&A teams from scratch.  Now VP of FP&A at Mobileum, a telecom analytics leader, Glenn continues to enhance a reputation for transforming FP&A into an engine for Silicon Valley growth earned over nearly two decades.  Previously he has built finance partnership teams At Charles Schwab, followed by  revamping annual budgeting, forecasting and financial reporting at $4B global Real Estate company Digital Realty, restructuring  a15-person FP&A team at Global Growth Holdings,  and leveling up the FP&A and Data Analytics teams at online design marketplace Zazzle before his latest FP&A adventure at Mobileum . In this episode Glenn reveals the secrets to building high performance FP&A teams. Glenn discusses: His reason for sticking with FP&A over 18 years (not least the ability to strategically interact with every aspect of a company) The power of quarterly forecasts to secure alignment in a business and transform a business direction Why building a new FP&A team will see you work 80 hours a week and considerable “mental awareness” The power of creating a three-year FP&A Strategy in your first 90 Days which sees 95% of goals hit The power of eliminating manual work in FP&A How to powerfully speak up in FP&A (even as an introvert) How to differentiate a leader’s role in FP&A vs those you manage  The secrets to hiring  someone for an FP&A role and how to find the things that can be taught vs those that can’t  Why FP&A and data analytics need to work better together  The real way to approach build a successful finance business partnership that lasts His most valuable lessons after achieving several finance software implementations  The failure that forced Glenn to work on his soft skills and transformed his career His secret life as a lifelong baseball fan and published  author    Watch the full show on YouTube. Read the full transcript and blog Follow Glenn Snyder on LinkedIn  Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Follow Datarails on LinkedIn FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Get in touch at www.datarails.com