FP&A Today

Mike Dion works at a Fortune 100 company. He has previously worked as a finance leader at Verizon-as well as startups and as a mentor to enterprise giants to scrappy startups—unlocking tens of millions of dollars in value across industries like Entertainment and Telecom. He does this through Mike’s F9 Finance: a no nonsense website and newsletter (with 20k subscribers) passing on the skills that have accelerated his career, providing a guide to new tools (based on his experience automating 100,000 hours of labour) and secrets to promotion. He tells Glenn Hopper: “Three things, increasing revenue, decreasing expenses, and making your leaders look good. Those are the three things that move your career, not the reports, not the forecast tools to get to that.” In this episode Passion in media and entertainment putting in our first consolidated planning system At Verizon starting a center of Excellence (after facing a situation where 40 VPs wanted 30 decks based on Excel files Lack of approachable finance content: introducing Mike’s F9 Finanance Secrets to dynamic modeling and scenario planning 3 Ways teams are getting overwhelmed with forecasts Better prompting and my relationship with AI A completely new answer for Fave Excel Function F9 Finance: https://www.f9finance.com/ F9 Finance YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@f9finance

FP&A Today goes on the road!. Our host city is Boston and the historic Harvard Club with an audience of Boston CFOs and FP&A leaders. Our first live recording sees an all-star panel of Jack McCullough, CFO Leadership Council, Michael Bayer, CFO of Wasabi Technologies, Cathy Yang, CFO Trexon. By way of background, Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, talked of “remarkably high” levels of economic uncertainty. “I don’t know anyone who has a lot of confidence in their forecast,” he said. FactSet, a financial-data firm, found that over half of the companies in America’s S&P 500 index cited tariffs in their earnings calls—more than in any other time over the past decade. In this episode we probe how finance executives can navigate today’s complex geopolitical and technological landscape including: The ROI of a CFO AI Strategy How to navigate as a financial leader with tariffs and trade tensions Trexon’s Experience navigating tariffs affecting 12 business units and 16 sites Tech and AI’s role in enhancing supply chain visibility Pricing increases for customers due to tariffs and navigating that from the CFO’s Office Back to work or not for finance teams? The future of accounting

Shannon Nash is a chief financial officer, board director, investor, attorney, filmmaker, and CPA. She sits on the boards of Net Scout systems, Lazy Dog restaurants, and Sofi Bank, and most recently was CFO at Wing, the Alphabet-owned drone delivery company, and one of the hottest companies in the US. Here, she reveals the secrets FP&A professionals need to know about presenting to the Board and how to turn numbers into a narrative to advance to CFO and beyond Explaining the power of the Board to shape a company’s strategy The finance of film-making and my experience making a major new documentary The power of FP&A in securing $150 million in funding at Reputation.com Presenting to boards -what drives us crazy How improv training unexpectedly revolutionized her executive communication style Connect with Shannon on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonknash Watch On Board documentary: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/onboardthefilm

CEO and Principal Analyst at Amalgam Insights, Hyoun Park helps CIOs & CFOs create the ROI and strategic business cases for better AI and IT FinOps. He is also host of the weekly podcast, This Week in Enterprise Tech. In this episode Hyoun discusses some of the quick AI wins for finance departments. My journey Starting as a CRM administrator to analyst Cloud spend getting out of control (unexpected cloud bills for $20m!) AI use cases: invoices, contracts, billing and spending contracts (dealing with 1000 software contracts) and reconciliations Agentic AI and uses in Finance Zero based budgeting and Forecasting in the AI age ROI for AI investment People who will lose their jobs in AI in finance vs those who will survive My futurist prediction Connect with Hyoun on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hyounpark/ Host of weekly podcast, This week in Enterprise Tech: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2319034 http://www.amalgaminsights.com/

With nearly 300k subscribers on YouTube, Bill Hanna’s weekly videos on The Financial Controller Channels provide his audience with lessons over a 15-year career in Auditing & Corporate Accounting. He provides inspiration and practices in accounting and finance through his videos and courses “Designed To Save You Years of Learning” (as one reviewer wrote “I have learnt more with you than 3 years studying accounting and finance”). In this episode: How I stumbled into accounting Lessons in accounting leadership The power of mentoring teams about mistakes I make FP&A vs controller The accounting crisis affecting the CFO’s Office My accidental influencer journey Bringing practical explanation of concepts through one company followed across the course The accounting concepts needed to get to CFO Having a wife who is also an accountant Being a Mac user using Excel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-hanna-cpa-7653a851/ YouTube channel (Financial Controller) https://www.youtube.com/@TheFinancialController Courses: https://controller-academy.com/

Today’s guest is perhaps the leading CFO name in data and analytics, the ex-CFO of Tableau and DataRobot. Now as Founder & CEO at Caliper, Fletcher draws on over a decade of executive experience at the intersection of finance and analytics. At Caliper, his mission is transform cloud cost and usage data into actionable insights In this episode Fletcher discusses The relationship between analytics and the CFO Subscription, net dollar retention, customer retention, and annual recurring revenue as key metrics Getting from CFO to CEO and the learning curve How we rely on AI and predictive ML and seasonal patterns to find anomalies Getting to base analytics and starting in AI Challenges and waste with cloud and holding engineers accountable The opportunity to save 30% on cloud spend Moving from Excel to Google Sheets Connect with Damon LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damon-fletcher-bb8a6614/ https://calipersoftware.ai

Walmart, Kraft Heinz, Blue Rock Therapeutics, and the Four Seasons hotels are just some of companies that regularly invite Ron Monteiro to coach their finance teams in storytelling. But Ron’s success followed decades of fear in presenting and public speaking in FP&A settings. Starting in accounting at Hitachi (“Ron Monteiro: “it was actually the only job I could get”) the CPA and CMA was inspired by a manager who gave him direction and mentorship doing FP&A as Kraft, as well as work over a decade in daily overcoming his debilitating fears. Now he delivers a playbook to teams across the world where finance is “expected to be at the table, not just tactically, but strategically.”Ron is also the author of a new book: Love Mondays which draws on his experience and interviews with finance leaders. In this episode Fear of public speaking I’ve carried through my life Kraft Foods and a leap of faith from my manager 15 years at Kraft with 7 jobs and five promotions including FP&A manager, analyst and director Transforming Kraft FP&A into strategic value: Kraft Singles and “Getting Our Shit Together” meetings Brendan Flynn’s leadership of finance at Kraft developing future finance leaders The downward trend of FP&A post 3G Capital’s buyout CPG and the essential metrics Learning what you can do to grow – listening tour as business partnering and putting your hand up Love Mondays! A Proven Process to Bring Joy Back Into Your Work Week and Life Paperback by Ron Monteiro https://www.amazon.ca/Love-Mondays-Proven-Process-Bring/dp/B0DPMTVYY3

“Consolidation. A lot of people don’t know exactly what it is. They think that it’s just an aggregation of numbers. Like you just add numbers, but it’s more technical than that. Most of the time when we are talking about consolidation, it’s international big groups that have subsidiaries around the world. Consolidation is the process of converting those financial statements normally built locally, because they have to be compliant with the local requirements and be compliant with the GAAP of the group.” Charaf Bourhalla has been Head of Consolidation at Nestle Skin Health, Vimian Group and Edify Investment Partner. He holds several key certifications, including the FMVA from CFI, ACCA with a focus on IFRS, and the PMP from PMI. His posts on LinkedIn reach millions of people explaining complex topics simply such as IFRS 10 – Consolidated Financial Statements, AS 16 – Property, Plant and Equipment and AS 1 – Presentation of Financial Statements. In this episode: From years of struggle, to Kimberly Clarke as a reporting analyst to entering a pharma company as business controller 13-year tenure as a consultant developing a deep understanding of IFRS, USGAAP, French GAAP, and IPSAS, 3 Jobs as Head of Consolidation including Nestle Skin Health with 70 subsidiaries around the world Simplifying complexities of financial consolidation and non financial KPIs Secrets to working with FP&A for consolidation and forecasting and building a mid-term plan Continual training for teams in subsidiaries Technology and complexity changing the consolidation game How Charaf called in when a company found itself consolidating more than 70 legal entities using Excel Not to pick consultants with partnerships with only one provider Connect with Charaf on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charaf-bourhalla-04760a1b/

Grab a beer and listen to this special episode. We are joined by Pavels Cvetkovs FP&A director at Carlsberg Group who reveals the formula of FP&A at the famous brand. Carlsberg was founded in 1847, has 140 brands, and 30,000 employees – and FP&A is core to their success, says Cvetkovs. In this episode: How my career in the Big Four (and audit) served as “finance military school” Moving from business controller to FP&A The essence of Carlsberg – innovation in brewing and sustainability Distinct shareholder structure at Carlsberg run by Carlsberg foundation What’s so special about the beer and beverage industry and our FP&A practices Power of inventory management, sales seasonality, and supply chain and cost planning in brewing Forecasting and planning and achieving highest levels of collaboration FP&A set up and management of 10-20 KPIs at Carlsberg Business partnering as a mindset at Carlsberg Visiting sites in operations at Carlsberg Biggest challenges overcome in budget season Refining my financial modeling skills Follow and connect with Pavels on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavels-cvetkovs-471b231a

Alex Edmans is a professor of Finance, non-executive director, author, and TED speaker. He is regularly interviewed and writes for WSJ, Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox, ITV, NPR, Reuters, Sky News, and Sky Sports. He was previously a tenured professor at Wharton and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. In this episode we talk to Alex about his new book “May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases – And What We Can Do About. He is also a co-author of the classic text book, “Principles of Corporate Finance” and top business book (his first book) Grow the Pie, How Great Companies Deliver both purpose and Profit. His Ted Talk on what to trust in a post truth world has alone been viewed nearly 2m time. So many thought-provoking takeaways for anyone in FP&A! Leaving Morgan Stanley to become a professor of finance Why I give Ted Talks rather than just publishing research How CFOs and FP&A leaders can think about purpose Is ESG a tick-box exercise for finance? How FP&A and finance leaders can check their biases How you can control your addiction to bias Silicon Valley Bank and why financial models were affected by bias Follow Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aedmans/ Links to Alex’s new book: May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases―And What We Can Do about TED: What to trust in a “post-truth” world

Over the last 12 years, Jason Hershman led financial planning & analysis at successful, hyper-growth companies in the sports arena. But his career started as a ballboy at the Philadelphia Eagles. It was a job he spent months pursuing at 14 years old. This experience taught Jason a key lesson. He says: “things that seem out of touch, out of reach are not, it just takes a little hustle, a little effort.” This attitude has stayed with him as he has led multiple finance teams and embarked on everything from redesigning the chart of accounts, owning the month-end close, building financial models from scratch, raising millions in equity, renegotiated debt, to IPOs. Finance highlights included leading the $400 million sale of Appetize, a B2B SaaS business in the sports industry (Appetize is the software provider for all of the MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL stadiums as well as theme parks such as Six Flags, Disney, and SeaWorld). After this, Jason launched his own fractional CFO business, Point FP&A, providing FP&A to some of the most exciting companies in the sports industry. He has the luxury of turning down clients who are not in the sports world. In this episode: The Philadelphia Eagles as a ballboy for 5 years – things that are out of touch are not Learning accounting and FP&A on the job in my first online retail startup in New York – which eventually became public Getting hired at sports startup Appetize (B2B SaaS)- combining my passions for sports and finance + getting to exits The power of rebuilding a financial model as central to my career Going to market as a sports FP&A fractional CFO at Point The ideal balance and differences between accountancy and FP&A Secrets to rebuilding the financial model Being honest on my journey with AI and FP&A Connect with Jason on LinkedIn Check out Point at www.pointfpa.com

Evgenia Elezova, Head of Regional Finance, Lindström joins us to talk about FP&A and finance transformation at the 175-year old textile giant. Helsinki-based Lindström is one of Europe’s leading textile service companies employing over 5000 people in Europe and in Asia with turnover of 496€ million in 2022. Elezova herself has transformed the finance function during 14 years, during which time she’s driven M&A initiatives, to leading finance projects. Highlights include a two year development program for business controllers at Lindström, designed to move finance from back office roles to strategic co-pilots for management. In this episode: Being responsible for M&A Due diligence and integration Experience in successful M&A Business Partnering at Lindstrom Focusing on future scenarios HowControl assists strategy at Lindstrom Our two-year long finance training Lindstrom Finance Business Development Program Moving from back office in finance to having impact on business Lindstrom’s approach to budgeting/target setting Core KPIs in a global textile company Seeing change in controller work Coaching finance leaders Connect with Evgenia at https://www.linkedin.com/in/evgenia-elezova-513ba12/

Jarad Backlund is VP of FP&A at JFrog, a DevOps platform streamlining software development and delivery. In this episode Jarad provides frank insights and lessons from over 18 years of experience in FP&A spanning Apple, Google, and Facebook (as well as at bootstrapped startups). From overseeing multi-billion dollar capital projects to leading finance at cutting edge startups, he reveals his secrets to building top quality FP&A teams, bringing strategic insights and creating a builder mentality. In this episode: My journey from failing as an architectural major to FANG FP&A Canned reports vs the ability to create new processes and systems Facing an “impossible” project at Facebook/Meta The skill needed to win an interview for FP&A at a FANG company From Bootstrapped FP&A to billion dollar companies Raising the cap on Apple Care Products helping it become a $2billion+ business Clean data and analytics LLMs contextual awareness and FP&A Skills and education in the age of AI Becoming a builder in finance How VLookUp almost cost me a job Connect with Jarad Backlund: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaradbacklund/

I speak with Anna Talerico, the CEO of CFI, a powerhouse provider of training and productivity tools for finance and banking professionals (serving 2m finance professionals, offering 5,000 on-demand lessons and 200 courses) including the famous – including the famous Certified Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA®) accreditation. She is also CEO of Macabacus, a top enterprise productivity add-in on for finance teams. In this episode: why anyone can be a world class financial analyst leveraging technology to democratize education at CFI. Giving finance leaders “Desk Ready Skills” from financial modelling to AI cryptocurrency and risk management (and what’s hot right now) CFI acquiring Macabacus and the opportunities and challenges of being a dual CEO over 2 companie How Excel remains the backbone of finance Are you losing sleep over the AI revolution in finance? Basics of coding in finance Best courses to stay relevant in finance and ride the wave of AI

“I transitioned into FP&A when I realized that it wasn’t just about crunching the numbers, it was more about telling a story and trying to influence the future. Working with Fortune 100 companies has given me the fantastic platform to leave transformative projects in finance, procurement, and supply chain. I saw firsthand how FP&A acts as the strategic backbone of any type of organization” – Enrique Rodriguez, Finance Director, Walgreens Boots Alliance Enrique Rodriguez is a multilingual finance director and business leader. With more than 15 years of experience in Fortune 100 companies, he has worked collaboratively with global functions directing FP&A, accounting and treasury teams. He’s headed finance departments overseeing $7 billion in annual spend and managing operational budgets of up to $750 million in billion dollar business units and is a passionate believer in Zero Based Budgeting revealing how he implemented this – despite challenges. My background in Guatemala When I realized it is not just about crunching the numbers FP&A as the backbone of the institution Main financial metrics bio biopharmaceutical companies, medical devices, and healthcare companies How FP&A departments are set up at the companies you worked for – and the philosophy and the outputs expected from FP&A producing outputs like dynamic scenario planning and specific KPI dashboards guiding decisions at the highest level. Zero based budgeting – the why and how of our experience Biggest challenges I have seen in budgeting in my career – managing budgets during a turnaround How finance business partnering has changed in my career The problem solving aspect of FP&A The opportunities and challenges of fast-growing technology Saving $8million on inventory write-off in a country on a health product Financial Executives International (Chicago) The power of a great mentor and books: Hit Refresh Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and Shoe Dog (Joe Knight) supporting a procurement organization in, in an early level of maturity – my toughest challenge Index Match – more flexible and scalable for complex analysis Connect with Enrique Rodriguez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enrique-a-rodriguez/

Lindsey Martens, VP Finance at fintech company, Valera (Formerly PSCU/Co-op Solutions) talks about her transition from accounting to finance- and how she manages a remote FP&A team that has business partnering and storytelling at its heart. “Business partnering is my favorite thing about FP&A” Martens says, “I love being the translator. I think of myself as taking all this data, accounting data, and then all these other sources that come into it, and I’m packaging it up in a way that is very digestible by the rest of the organization, especially the leaders who are making decisions.” In this episode: Making the pivot to FP&A – why and how Starting off in coding and the link to FP&A My career at Valera (ex Co-Op solutions)- a fintech leader with clients that are credit unions Opps and Challenges of managing a remote FP&A Team Small talk at the beginning of meetings (not so small) Using rolling forecasts at Valera Challenging budget experiences Why business partnering is my favorite part of FP&A My biggest FP&A success: rooting out the source of at “rise” in profits Storytelling in finance My biggest mentors and what they taught me about management My biggest mistake and how it still leaves me shaking Favorite Excel Function Connect with Lindsey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseymartens/

In more than 12 years at PepsiCo Tariq Munir, has held roles including FP&A Manager, Head of Integrated Business Planning, Head of Finance Supply Chain, and more recently APAC Finance Transformation Lead (based in Australia) delivering Financial Planning process simplification. This included founding the first-ever APAC Finance Digital Academy to build a digital mindset and culture. Tariq is sought out as an international keynote speaker and is a regular columnist for CFO Magazine ANZ, sharing insights on digital trends, strategies for digital resilience. In this episode: • Running digital transformation at large companies • The opportunities and challenges in your data • Core problems faced by finance teams including transactions • The big headache AI is causing for finance teams • M&A and AI Transformation • retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and plugging into external data source for your organization • Framework and governance for digital transformation

Laurynas Zabulis, CFO at Nord Security, is playing a starring role at one of Lithuania’s most famous success stories. Cybersecurity unicorn, Nord Security, went from being bootstrapped to a $3billion valuation in 12 years. Laurynas became CFO after a stint at Surfshark (which merged with NordVPN in 2022). His achievements at NordSecurity include leading the first funding round for $100m – technically a “seed” round he says (unusually the bootstrapped enjoyed revenues of over $100m when it approached investors). Laurynas is also building a purpose-driven finance team of 90 talented people across the department to deliver a “forward looking finance function” that propels growth at the leading startup. Laurynas has set out a powerful mission for FP&A whose vision to “earn respect from stakeholders at the company”, “have a seat at the decision-making table”, and use data and detailed knowledge of growth drivers to “make strategic decisions that drive our business”. In this episode: Moving back to my home country of Lithuania, from London. after success in investment banking (and not listening to those who tried to talk him out of it) Battling the “negative connotations” of VPNs when talking to investors and and building conviction around the management and culture of the company Bringing finance to strategic decision-making at the company including a CFO tech stack focused on “availability of data and of analytics in a more timely fashion” Investing in building finance relations with stakeholders in the company (from engineers to product development) Building a finance team of 90 people based on data, tech, and stakeholder engagement FP&A analysis powering painful decisions to sunset certain products Our FP&A team structure at Nord Security and the results we expect Benefit of working with founders and the culture this provides The Lithuanian tech ecosystem and finance opportunities Connect with Laurynas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurynas-zabulis-0206333/

Nate Kaemingk is Chief Forecaster for BetterForecasting.com, where he has built a financial forecasting AI for mid-market finance teams. Previously he has been a Fractional CFO for two Montana based companies. Nate started his career as a mechanical engineer using inferential statistics to model chemical reactions in Diesel engines! Later, during his MBA, he applied an inferential statistics background to forecasting and scenario analysis. Nate has had the opportunity to apply these methods in roles with multiple Fortune 500 companies, including Cummins, and subsequently as CFO and Chief Forecaster at Better Forecasting. Episode links: www.BetterForecasting.com Connect with Nate (LinkedIn) https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathankaemingk/ On this episode: Probabilistic Forecasting, small (not big data) and inferential statistics Rolling Forecasts vs Annual Budgets explained Importance of not skipping out on the fact you need to update your plan Why are we resistant to changing the budget? The advantages of a rolling forecast Using Leading Market Indicators DSO (Day Sales Outstanding) as a powerful forecasting example How long range forecasting reveals structural issues in a business Building a driver-based model – and why it’s hard Renting an RV and touring the country for 3 years Favorite Excel function

In this episode we are joined by Brent Dykes, the bestselling author of Effective Data Storytelling (Wiley, 2020), founder of Analytics Hero, and Forbes contributor. He has helped thousands of finance leaders at companies including Microsoft, IKEA, Nike, Sony, and Pfizer, enhance their data storytelling, visualization, and interpretation skills. “I strive to ensure analytics is always aligned with business priorities and maximizing business value.“ In this episode Brent Dykes says: “One of the things that I saw quickly was that a lot of people struggled to communicate their findings and, and their insights, uh, around data. And I would go to conferences and I’d see people present data, and I’d be horrified by what I’d see. It’s just overwhelming,data dumps. And that really flagged for me in my mind that there’s a real opportunity here to do better.” Early college days choosing between marketing vs accounting as my focus The aspects of humans that AI and machines can’t replicate Business consultant at Adobe for 12 years and Domo Effective Data Storytelling The evolution of data Evolving perspective of finance and analytics Value AI vs Humans Lessons from coaching and mentoring companies on their story Challenges of data storytelling in large and small companies The biggest challenges in data storytelling What do you do when your story is contradictory to what their bosses want to hear Recommendations for tools and systems to up your data maturity Why Excel’s a great starting point https://www.effectivedatastorytelling.com/contact https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentdykes Effective Data Storytelling (Wiley, 2020)

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&A Connect 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 MVP Connect 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 Analytics George 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 Finance He 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 Finance Made 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 requests When 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 [email protected]

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: [email protected]

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 Essenta https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gribbon-37349b1/ Connect with Laura Streather, Consultant, Private Equity at Essenta https://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 techstack Download 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 [email protected] 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