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 learnedBusiness 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 folkWar stories – annual planning cycles FP&A-led transformation at an ecommerce marketplace business and getting buy-in from senior management through a data storyThe 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 NevadaWhy 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 answersSalesmanship in FP&AFP&A metrics: “Win per unit per day and hold”Lodging: occupancy, your ADR, your revenue per available roomOdds 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 operatorsMATCH+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 MGMSpreading 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 unitsThe FP&A dimension of Taylor Swift Eras Tour Using local macroeconomics to impact business decision-making – from the UK to Singapore and the USHow 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 CFOLinks 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-changingWhy 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&AHow FP&A at Google and Microsoft FP&A teams are set up Why “Walking  the Shop” remains core to his career in financeHow the biggest companies in the world manage real-time dataDespite the technological avalanche storytelling and persuasion is fundamental at the top tech companiesWhy 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 teamsUsing 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 passionsLearning the full aspects of finance, FP&A and business partneringBuilding to a commercial mindset as CFOActing as an investigative journalist for the business  Why finance needs to lead in defining metrics in a startupMoving 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 velocityVariables and determining drivers for the business One of the biggest finance challenges - developing talent and cyber attacks Lightning round: pickup basketball and lessons for financeBest 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 teamsHow Nathan discovered the power of telling stories as Chief Credit Officer at Native American Bank Overcoming the challenge of presenting to non- financially literate CEOsThe 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 battleswhy setting up self-service data as CFO came back to bite me Using a “metrics cascade” clarifying  data and metricsCritical 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 switchHow 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 investmentsMeasures 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 CFOHer 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 showTraining FP&A on AI Why getting started on AI in finance is a painful audit Why 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 TodayWhy 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 PaulPaul’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 CFO Secrets 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 CFOMoving 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 LinkedIn https://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 CFOWhen good finance talent leaves Doing fractional CFO services and when businesses need to bring in a CFOBeing 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 metricsMoving 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 FacebookThe move  from data science and product into financeWhen should companies start looking at FP&ABeing a Sequoia scout and what it entails and what she looks for in investment opportunitiesHow (now) Meta CFO Susan Li “an absolutely outstanding” mentor insisted on a  finance team with data science skills led by OrekhovaThe 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 careerThe 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 nightmareWhy budgeting is not just a math exerciseThe main metrics you need to know in CPGWhy mix management is crucial The 30-60-90 day plan to succeed in finance in CPGRunning both IT and finance as CFO and why this makes senseBuilding 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 OpsMoving career from FP&A to RevOpsHow to ensure we are defining and reporting metrics in the same wayThe importance of a “data dictionary”How AI will impact the operations functionFavorite Excel function or feature Our guests: Jeff Ignacio, Head of Go-to market Growth and operations at Regrow Ag Arvind 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 CardNegotiation and sandbagging with sales and how FP&A can deal with the challengesHow FP&A best practice saw Andrew deliver one SMB £10 million a year in revenue and from £8k in profit to £23 millionBeing Fired by Four times Bestselling New York Times author Tucker Max the day before Xmas EveSkill stacking – getting to be the top 25% in the world at four or five different related things – rather than trying to be the bestBeing 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 experiencesOur 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 restaurantsWhy FP&A is a superb career choiceFounding companies as finance leaders Teaching FP&A at University Why great FP&A must lead to actions and decisionsHow FP&A can become good business partners Reporting vs forecasting The importance of choosing a great finance leader to work for early in your careerGetting out your chair and talking to peopleThe last things we asked ChatGPT Follow Duke Heninger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dukeh/ Follow Jon Allen https://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 financeHow 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-changerFrom a good CFO to an amazing CFO with AIMy expectations as a CEO from my finance teamWhy ChatGPT is amazing at text but the challenges come with replicating this with accurate numbersMy favorite Excel functionSurprising 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, Belgium Now, 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 brandsHow we coped with the pandemic and the shift to economically challenged consumers trying private labels Moving from brand ambassadors to product ambassadorsHow FP&A is supporting ESGBusiness supporting finance managers – should you call them FP&A Managers orFinance Business Partners (and why it matters)The challenges of data in FP&A work FP&A as co-pilot in a rally carSecrets of bringing the numbers to life Cooking and seafood Why I would have loved to meet Atatürk, founder of the Turkish RepublicThe last thing I asked Google/Chat GPT about my finance work  Episode Notes Connect 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 disasterFrom financial accounting manager to CFO at EG&G Mentoring as a path to CFO and CEOFinancial Leadership in the 21st century inspired by the pandemic and post pandemic environment.The essentials of value creation for a finance teamReturn to the Principles of a “Top Gun” CFOWhat’s changed - and what hasn’t in 45 years of FP&AHow audit and transaction experience got me first promoted to CFOHealth 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 COVIDShow me the Money – managing the superbowl of FP&A at Fox Sports, Warner Bros and 2K and the power of ratings for financeHow blowouts affect financial performanceUncovering the differences between Accounting vs FP&A at Fox SportsWhy I chose the FP&A direction rather than a COO roleMost important metrics in sports businessesHeavy fixed costs and the challenges of live broadcastingHuge tech, streaming and viewership changes in media/sports and entertainment – and how to forecast the future of the game for finance prosMetrics in game playing: and finance discussions about whether to put new features in a gameLeading the Los Angeles chapter for women in sports and eventsFlying 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 CFOThe 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 officerHow I prioritized my finance hiresViews of FP&A as a CFO How knowing numbers better than anybody else projected me to CFOWhy 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 metricCAC 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