How to Communicate Complex Financial Data Like a Pro with Soufyan Hamid
In this episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst dives into the future of Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) with guest Soufyan Hamid. The discussion focuses on the evolving role of FP&A, from its traditional technical functions to a more business-focused and communicative role. Soufyan shares his journey and insights into improving presentation skills, communication, and becoming a valued business partner in the finance world.
Soufyan Hamid has over 17 years of corporate experience in finance, starting in auditing and consulting with PwC before becoming a finance business partner. Today, he leads The Finance Circle, where he trains finance professionals on improving their storytelling and presentation skills, a key aspect often missing in FP&A. Soufyan is known for his Financial Storytelling Program and his popular LinkedIn presence, where he shares tips with over 75,000 followers.
Expect to Learn
Why it's not just about numbers but adding strategic value to the business.
How effective storytelling can turn data into impactful business insights.
Soufyan’s transition from corporate finance to entrepreneurship.
How to prepare messages that resonate and drive action.
Overcoming the habit of over-detailing and shifting focus to clear communication.
Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:
“Great FP&A today is about balancing technical skills with business partnering to add real value beyond the numbers.” - Soufyan Hamid
“In finance, it’s not just about the analysis, it’s about what you do with it and how you communicate it to others.” - Soufyan Hamid
“Storytelling in finance is essential because it helps non-financial people understand the business impact behind the numbers.” - Soufyan Hamid
“You need to focus on what’s important to your audience, not just what you think is important in the data.” - Soufyan Hamid
This episode underscores the power of clear, concise communication in transforming financial analysis into business value. Soufyan provides practical tips and frameworks, such as the "what, so what, now what" method, and shares actionable insights for FP&A professionals looking to make a greater impact.
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In Today’s Episode
[01:38] – Introduction to the episode
[04:04] – What makes great FP&A today
[05:30] – Key lessons from auditing
[08:10] – A passion for finance business partnering
[12:08] – Soufyan’s transition to entrepreneurship
[18:59] – Discovering the power of storytelling
[27:24] – The four-step framework for presentations
[40:56] – Standard FP&A questions and insights
[46:36] – Personal insights: hobbies and favorite book
[52:18] – Closing and how to connect
Full Show Transcript
[00:01:40] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Hello everyone! Welcome to FP&A Tomorrow where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy, and I will be talking you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. Each week, we welcome industry leaders, practitioners and experts who share their thoughts and insights, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. This week, I'm thrilled to be joined by Soufyan Hamid. Soufyan. Welcome to the show.
[00:02:17] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Hello, Paul. Thank you for having me.
[00:02:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Really excited to have you. I know it's been a while since we've got to chat on a podcast, so let me give a little bit. Go ahead. What's it been? How long has it been?
[00:02:28] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: I'm fine, I'm fine. Thanks. It's been like almost two years. And you were one of my first hosts. And today I'm glad to make the circle again and be a guest again for you.
[00:02:40] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You're making me feel old. It means I've been doing this show a long time. If it's been two years.
[00:02:45] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah, we're not so old. We are so young.
[00:02:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yes, I like that better. Thinking about young. So let me just go ahead and share a little bit of our background for Soufyan, and then we'll jump into the questions we have. So Soufyan has 17 years of corporate experience, and as he likes to say, he's living proof that you can become a specialist in a topic you used to be bad at with research, practice and hard work. He's based in Brussels. He worked much of his career first half in Big four firms, worked with PwC and others as a consultant and the other half as a finance business partner. Before deciding it was time to go out on his own, specializing in improving the presentation skills of finance and FP&A professionals worldwide with his trainings. He founded The Finance Circle, his global consulting firm that provides corporate training around finance for finance and non-finance professionals. His training fills the void in the finance training realm. Often, this is a missed area for many FP&A professionals, and as training enables them to excel through his proprietary method called the Financial Storytelling Program. He also has 75,000 followers on LinkedIn, and he's one of the top storytelling voices on LinkedIn, so we're thrilled to have him on the show. We're going to start with the question we give every guest what is great FP&A. What does great FP&A look like according to Soufyan.
[00:04:12] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Well, if I have to think about Great FP&A, it's not the same answer as it would have been five years ago. Great FP&A for me, today is trying to find a balance between your skills in modeling, your skills at providing the insights that are behind your analysis, and on the other hand, about partnering with your business partner. Because today we really need to add value to the FP&A world. It cannot be only the analysis work and the forecasting work. It has to be used somewhere else to provide an extra value. And today, for me, the great FP&A is still 50 over 50, but in some years you will have to spend less time on the technical part to finally spend more time understanding what's behind the business and finally become a business person with financial skills.
[00:05:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It sounds like to you it's a combination of both the technical and soft skills or the communication skills. But at the end of the day, you need to become a great business partner to be great at FP&A. Is that kind of what I'm hearing there?
[00:05:27] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah. Indeed. Indeed.
[00:05:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Alrighty, so I know you started your career for PwC. You're doing auditing. What did you learn from your auditing experience that still helps you today? What did you take away from those couple of years doing penance? As I like to say, as an auditor.
[00:05:43] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Well, one of the biggest skills that I got from my time at PwC was the big picture. The thing is that starting with auditing you quickly go from auditing the every booking, every detail of an account to having the full PNL, having the full balance sheet, and sometimes even an analyzing the cash flow statement. And that way gave me the opportunity to already take a step to extract from the detail and seeing the global picture of a company, or of a business unit or a service. That's the thing that I got from my time as auditor, I think.
[00:06:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. And do you have any kind of favorite stories or memories from your days as an auditor, any kind of thing that really stands out?
[00:06:34] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Well, I could tell you about the memories of having to go to the minus four floor to get the binders and filling your trunk, and eventually on a Sunday evening, going back there and put them back. But no, the memory that I have was also it's not a skill, but it's basically the best takeaway that I got from my time at PwC. It's the networking because obviously this is known to be a work that's hard. You spend long hours, but you work with friends, you work with people who are in the same year as you like at college, like at school. And eventually those people became friends. And today I still have them in my life and they are my network. We are spread all over Belgium, but I still have their contacts and we still learn about each other. We still learn about our whereabouts, what we are doing today and eventually. This is my biggest network today because as a trainer, I definitely need to know people who work in finance. And today people who I worked with at PwC, at Deloitte are my best shot at getting new clients.
[00:07:53] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes a lot of sense. Definitely. Having that network is always important, and I would imagine you met a lot of different people working with a lot of different companies as an auditor. So really an opportunity to get to know people throughout the industries.
[00:08:08] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great. So I know you've worked in several different roles since leaving auditing. You've done the auditing, you've been a controller business partner. One of your roles was on strategic projects. Do you have a favorite role or an area you've enjoyed most within finance?
[00:08:25] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: There are two sides, to be honest, because today I could tell you that my favorite role was working as finance business partner for strategic projects, because this was really the the part in which I was the at the highest level, meaning that I had contacts with the X-co, I had contacts with executives, directors, and those people help me understand companies in a way that I didn't before, because I had such a high level that I could connect everything from a point of view that was so high in comparison to other experiences. But on the other hand, I'm a bit geeky and there was an experience I really loved. I was a business controller working at Thomas Cook. That's a tour operator that they don't work anymore.
[00:09:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yep, I've heard of them. Travel agency. Right?
[00:09:21] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yes.
[00:09:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I worked for American Express Travel Agency, so I remember Thomas Cook.
[00:09:25] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Exactly. And there I started as a business controller, but at a certain moment they had to move from business objects towards micro strategy. And I was responsible to be the key user in Belgium. So I had to develop new reports. I had to learn how to code in micro strategy because there was a different languages. You had to learn SQL. And there is a part in that period in in which I think that I learned the most, most technically, and I even wanted to be a BI analyst after that. Luckily enough, I decided to become a generalist, which led me to where I am today. But honestly, at that time, I think that the experience was so satisfying in terms of learning, in terms of having new stuff and in terms of expertise that I could develop thanks to work.
[00:10:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love it. So moving from business objects to MicroStrategy, what year was that?
[00:10:24] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: It was two, 2012, 2013, something like that.
[00:10:31] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I was curious because I did one we didn't move from a platform. We put in MicroStrategy about 2010 and travel agencies. So I think we have a lot in common there or maybe American Express. So I can relate to what you're talking about, learning the tool. And I wasn't in charge of the project, but I was one of a couple people working on that project. Developing proof of concept and things ended up switching roles before we finished. But I think we have a lot in common on that one, so I can relate to that journey. What did you you mentioned how you thought about becoming a BI analyst. What was it you enjoyed so much about the BI side that made you think, maybe I should be an analyst?
[00:11:08] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Well, I think it was the the coding side first because from a different perspective than the one you had in Excel, you could create results. And so by adding filters, by adding, selection, by adding prompts to ask the user to, to select the filters. Well, I had this sort a sort of feeling I was somehow a master of the tool. And when you don't know something and you, you learn it and you see that it creates satisfactory results, there's a satisfaction there. It's exciting.
[00:11:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It makes a lot of sense. It definitely feels good when you're when you see the end user using it. They're coming to you for advice. You feel like you're making a difference. Like I could see all those things.
[00:11:56] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah.
[00:11:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So ultimately you decide, you settle on starting your own business. I think it's been, what, two and a half years now?
[00:12:02] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah, something like that.
[00:12:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: About the same time I did. I've been about two and a half now. So why did you start your own business? How did that happen? How did you go from, you know, working the corporate grind, so to speak, to doing your own thing?
[00:12:16] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Well, I think that as many people I got the revelation when it was the Covid time, you know, you were at home not seeing your colleagues, wondering about your life, what you're is it really what you want to do for the rest of your life? And so I started to think, why do I like, what do I want to do? What do, what do I want to become? And so some things became obvious when I thought about that. I wanted to become a teacher when I was when I was younger. I wanted to become a teacher. And eventually I moved to audit because, yeah, it was more direct. I could have more opportunities. I don't know if it's the case in the US, but it's not like teachers in Belgium could earn a lot of money in their lives. So I thought, yeah.
[00:13:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's not the case in the US either. Teachers are really well paid.
[00:13:08] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Okay, here it's not really the case. So I thought, okay, am I really going to go that risky way or am I going to go on the on the easy way and start in audit and start in a big four company and have all the perks together with this? But eventually, when I had to rethink, I thought, yes, I love teaching, I love transmitting that to other people. And so I wanted to become a trainer and I thought, what do you do? Well, that people would need to learn? And so I thought about the presentations, about the storytelling, And this is how I decided what I was going to teach. And secondly, to start my own business. There was some part I couldn't find in the corporate world, and especially in finance, is that you barely have victories when you work in finance. Meaning that you never have a contract signed by your client. You never have something delivered. That's eventually the final point because you are always in a recurring mode. You have a budget, then it becomes the errand, and at the end you you close the books and you, you make your reporting and you analyze and you make your presentations. But then it's already the second quarter and then you are delivering the forecast, etc.. And so it's a it's a circle and you never have a moment when you say, okay, it's done. And I successfully delivered what I needed to deliver.
[00:14:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: There's definitely some truth to that. It's a constant cycle. You're just going from one thing to another. A lot of the times I could, I could see where it could feel like that. Like, when do I ever get to feel like I've really completed a project, step back, analyze it and move on? It can be a challenge there. There are some times, you know, in the budget and different things you get to do that, but it does sometimes feel like it's a constant cycle. I could see that. So ultimately, you started your own thing. You thought about training because you really loved doing that. But what's been the hardest part about starting your own business? What was the maybe the biggest adjustment from doing traditional FP&A and finance to, oh, all of a sudden I'm on my own?
[00:15:23] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Well, the big challenge and I think you will agree with me selling. The commercial part. I'm not a sales guy when I have to send a mail, I'm always wondering what words to use, how pushy I can be, how many reminders I can sell because I always have the feeling that I'm asking for a favor. Well, maybe people need the training that I give. It's just that when you go from a step where you don't have to sell to a life where you do have to sell to earn something, well, it's a big step. And although I learned a bit about outreach, about a bit about having new clients when I was at Deloitte, well, it's still hard for me because I don't have this commercial touch of having to sell a product to people. I just show what I can do and I hope people will contact me, but obviously it's not how it works. And so I always have to push myself to contact people that I don't know, or to relaunch people that I know and contacted me first, but don't answer directly. It's the biggest challenge for me. And still today, two years and a half after.
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[00:17:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, you're not alone on that. I think it's an area a lot of people struggle with when they start their own business if they haven't been in sales, is making that transition. And then even if you start to get good at selling, it's remember, you always have to be selling. Because just because you have work this month doesn't mean you'll have work next month. And if you don't do the sales part, then you won't have work next month. Even though you may have had a lot the prior month. It's a constant thing you always have to learn, and it's very different from FP&A.
[00:18:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So I would just say to anyone out there who's thinking of, you know, starting their own business, whether it be fractional CFO, training, coaching, consulting, whatever it might be that ties to finance or FP&A is remember, you're going to have to do a lot of selling and you're going to have to get comfortable with it. Doesn't mean you have to love it. Just like every job, you'll have its strengths and weaknesses. But for sure, I totally agree with you, Soufyan. Selling is is a hard part. There are definitely times when I'm putting an email together and I'm like, am I saying this? Do I really want to say it this way? Or should I do something totally different?
[00:18:53] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah, I totally get it Paul, honestly.
[00:18:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, no, I figured you could relate to that one. So I know you ended up settling on focusing on helping people become great finance storytellers. That's one of your core offerings, something you really focus on and part of who you are. But as you've said before, and I've heard you talk about, you weren't always a great storyteller. It didn't necessarily just come natural and you're like, oh, I'm great at this, and I'll turn it into my career. You had to work a lot at it. So talk maybe about that journey and how along the way it became your passion, where you're like, I'm going to teach people about this.
[00:19:30] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: As I said earlier, with my experience as a BI analyst, I was a bit a geek. I loved the technical challenges of finding new ways to learn, new ways to code, new ways to to model something. And basically, I loved that was one of the satisfactions of my work. When I joined Proximus as a finance business partner, I thought work was like that, that I just needed to to pull out everything that I could do and just show it. And it worked in the beginning because, well, when when I arrived, they didn't know about Power Query, they didn't know about PowerPivot. They were lacking some technical skills. So, you know, I had a good effect in the beginning, but I was kind of struggling to get an impact because I thought I was good. But the partnership with my business partner was not that great. I mean, people tried to avoid me. They didn't invite me to their monthly meetings, while the other finance business partner were invited. And every month we had the monthly result review with the VP finance.
[00:20:46] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: It was always a challenge because I was showing what I did and showing the conclusions of the month, but exceptions as well. And so eventually in my slides, there were like ten bullet points for a single month with a variance of 1%, something that was not so important. And every month it was like that. The VP finance started to become impatient and said, okay, yeah, but what what do I need to remember? What do you want to tell me with this? Isn't there a way to make it more simple? I was no, but if I do that, it won't be correct.
[00:21:24] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Because you miss this, this, this. And so one time I think he could not hold it anymore and said, okay, Soufyan, you're a technician and you're talking to me like I was a technician, but I need to bring them insights that they will understand. And those people are not finance people. They don't live in your models. They don't live in your reports. They don't live in your details. No, but they know their business. So you have to talk business. You have to bring them the business story. And that was the first time I heard about story in the in the world of finance. For me, storytelling was just something that salespeople use to deceive potential customers. And I thought, okay, he tells me that maybe I need to get at least a bit more information. And I found this training about that helped experts bringing insights to non-experts how to deliver a presentation to non-expert people. And I followed this program and it didn't come directly. I had to practice and change my methodology, change my way of seeing, of communicating. But eventually I got in a way that my presentations were clear, less detailed, simple, but also broad information that people wanted because they were interesting. But in above the fact that they were interesting, they were also bringing something new that people needed to action to take action.
[00:22:58] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: And this was my revelation about storytelling. When I started to deliver those kind of presentations, I started to to be invited to meetings. I started to be contacted when there was an important project. And I got sometimes after my presentations, people who came to me and said, yes, it looks like a marketing presentation, you should tell your finance colleagues, etc. and so I was, okay, maybe I'm doing something good there. Maybe there is something that I have and that some people didn't. And eventually this is because I noted that there was a lot of training about storytelling. There were a lot of training about presentations, but none that was very much focused on FP&A, none that was focused on finance. And, you know, when we speak about storytelling, it's easy to create a story about a project. You know, you started from a you finish on Z and you deliver the insights based on one single analysis. But what about a recurring analysis where you have the revenues, the Cogs, the the OpEx, the CapEx, the cash flow, all of these together? Well, it's hard for us to, to, to to become simple because we have so many lines and so many items and so many hypotheses to, to, to share. And this is why I think that I could help people like me, who in the past was not, were not good at presenting. Well, gather a story with insights in finance especially.
[00:24:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you for sharing. I appreciate you sharing that. And as I listened to you talk, there are a couple of things that stood out to me. One is making that transition from being the tactician, telling the finance story and giving all the details to thinking like your business partner and what's important to them, and trying to tell the story from their perspective. I think it's a transition many of us struggle with and have to make in finance. I struggled with it quite a bit myself, still do sometimes, and want to get into the weeds and all the details and having to think strategic. It sounds like there's, you know, that was one big part for you. Another was just polishing your presentations and making, like you mentioned, some people, this looks like marketing, really making sure it's professional and it adds to your story instead of just being there because we have to do a slide deck or we have to do a presentation. Therefore, we just slap a bunch of stuff on the page and either we read it or we ignore it and just talk as they go. And neither approach really is ideal. Right. And so it sounds like those are two big parts of your journey. Is that fair?
[00:25:39] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah. That's fair. And you mentioned something very important in finance is that we usually use slides to deliver our reports. And there's nothing wrong with it. I mean, using slides, using Excel, using a BI tool, using any other support doesn't really matter. The thing is that when we go and present, we cannot use the same material. We cannot simply say, this is my report. It's in PowerPoint, so I will just put it behind me and go and discuss about that. Those have two different objectives. A report is meant to be read and to be understood on its own. While slides that you show during your presentations are meant to help you in your presentation, in your speech. So I think that's one of the reasons that we as finance professionals have such a hard time getting away from details to simplicity. It's because in the reports that we put in in PowerPoint, well, we definitely need to put details because those are meant to be read and people have that as documentation. They want to see the tables, they want to see the graphs. They don't always need to see the story in writing. Story is better when it's transmitted in a presentation.
[00:27:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I know you're talking about when you're presenting. You don't want to transmit your story by writing behind you. If that's going to be the case, give them the report, let them read it, then come discuss it. You're going to be better if you're really if it's a lot of written form, right. They want to see visual. They want to see emotion and stories and everything come together, not just read it in the back. Your narrative is very important. So I am totally with you on all that. So I'm curious, you know, when you're helping people with presentation storytelling, do you have some frameworks you like to use, or are there certain frameworks that you're a big fan of that you could share with our audience?
[00:27:36] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Just to to to tell you, in my methodology, I have a four step approach to start with your presentation. The first one is to prepare your message. Your prepare your message. That means that you you need people to remember what you are going to sell. You need to something that people will remember and will act upon. And that's why it's important for this message to use a framework. This is the three word framework. The what, the so what and the now what. This helps you not only share the insight that you brought. And in this I don't say that. You just need to say revenues have decreased by 10% since last year. Now you need to find the business root cause behind because this is the message for them. This is the insight not especially the effect on finance, but the message that you have. And finally, you have to make sure that it's interesting for them. And so you have to make sure that it touches them. This is the so what and the now what is what are we going to do about it. Whereas in finance it's generally linked to our targets. We have a yearly targets, we have a trend that's going on for years and we have to do something about it.
[00:28:51] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Maybe manage to change the budget in the forecast, or maybe do some actions in order to reach our target by changing action A, action B, etc. this is to prepare your message. Then you have to prepare your narrative and there are some narrative formulas that you have to use. The biggest one is the Minto Pyramid, in which you start from the conclusion. You like to call it the bluff. You start with the conclusion, and then you enroll. You roll with the details. And finally, you have to prepare your visuals. And in those ones, well, it's just about simplicity, how you use the best practices in terms of design, how you make it. You make sure that you don't spend hours in PowerPoint with being efficient with this, to finally arrive at the fourth step, which is preparing yourself how to deliver a good presentation by working on your body language, on your public speaking skills, on reacting to difficult questions. Because there will be questions in your presentations, of course. And so with these four steps that I share in my methodology, you're definitely prepared to deliver the best presentation possible with a story and enough details so people are getting the message and remember it after the presentation.
[00:30:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. And I appreciate that. Let's see if I can get the four steps right. You said you're going to start with prepare. Basically, prepare your message. And you shared the what now. So what? Prepare your narrative. What you're going to tell, the details behind that. You have your visualizations as your third prepare those visualizations. And the fourth is really about preparing yourself. It's the execution. It's the tone, the body language, your gestures. It's bringing it all together with whatever you've prepared to tell the story of how you're going to add that, I guess, your own touch to it, or emotion and the ability to interest the audience.
[00:30:56] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Exactly. And you will notice in this for the thank you for having these four steps perfectly, people. You will notice that the slides only come at the third step, not the first one. And correct me if I'm wrong, but in many of your experiences, you will have prepared your slides before thinking about what to communicate in the past.
[00:31:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think most of the time many people do that. It's much like building a financial model. You start in Excel. When you should really start with is understanding your question, defining your question, then doing some kind of prototyping and then really build it out in Excel. And it's true across the board. I think as finance people in general, we don't spend enough time making sure we understand the question, the message, what we're trying to deliver. And often we just jump in and put everything together, don't think about the narrative and then run off and present it. I've been guilty of it. And I still remember when one of my senior leaders looked at me and was like, all your analysis is brilliant, but your presentation lacked. That was his nice way of saying you sucked at presenting, that even though you spent months preparing it and you knew it frontwards and backwards. It's like, make sure you spend more time on telling the story because you lost everybody. I've learned a lot that way of that value. If you don't do a good job at the end, your analysis isn't going to be any good.
[00:32:18] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Well, you have to to think about that way. You have to imagine that you are supposed to produce something and the analysis is not your product. Your product is what we do about the analysis. So basically, if you don't communicate well and that people don't get the message, there will be no action on it. They will not do anything about it. And so you basically have no product. And so people need to sell a product to to be successful. If you don't sell anything, you will just remain in the background.
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[00:33:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: The only way we can influence the business is by having things implemented, by making a difference in the bottom line, and that requires whatever analysis, insights, ideas we've come up with. Some of those have to actually be implemented. Make a difference. Otherwise, like you said, you're not adding value.
[00:34:11] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: I wouldn't go so far, of course, but.
[00:34:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Sure, I mean, there's areas you're still adding. Reports are important, everything. But you're not adding the value you want to know?
[00:34:19] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Sure.
[00:34:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, you say nobody's adding value. If your ideas aren't implemented, just give up. No. I'm kidding. Great. I'm going to get myself in trouble for whoever's listening to this episode. You know, I think storytelling in general is something most people struggle with, but I'd say especially finance is not known for having great storytelling skills. I've worked with a lot of people who are really terrified of storytelling. Why do you think finance people in general are so scared or, you know, worried about being able to tell the story?
[00:34:49] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: I have a theory for that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but many of us have an accounting background or auditing background debits must equal credit, so if you have a slight difference, it will not match, it will not balance. And so you basically consider it wrong. And I think that this reflects remain in the way we communicate, because we feel that whatever we observed in our analysis need to be mentioned. Otherwise we miss something. And this is why we see so many details in presentations from finance. It's because, well, if we don't mention them, we feel like we cheat, or we feel like we just miss one element that doesn't balance the information that we mentioned. And this is why I think that many professionals from finance, from FP&A just have a hard time communicating a clear message because they feel they, they, they just hide something. And as people who are qualitative, they feel they shouldn't hide something.
[00:36:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I could see that, you know, I didn't come from an accounting background. I didn't do an accounting degree. But I'm definitely a very detail oriented, and I want to be able to tell that whole story. And sometimes you feel like, well, I'm hiding things if I don't tell the whole story. And the reality is, no, you're sharing what they need to know to make their decisions. They don't need to know all the details. That's why they have you do the analysis. But it's really hard. At least I found it is to make that transition to be like, but I got to tell you everything and finding that right level. So I think similar to like a debit and credit I do agree tend to be detailed by nature wanting things to tie out, and that can make it hard to know what to include in the story, how to really get up at that 50 zero zero zero foot level, or whatever level you need for who you're working with. It's rarely at the level where you're down in the weeds. It's almost always something higher. I'm curious, what trainings do you offer today? I know you have a few different offerings. I think you have some digital courses, some virtual, so maybe talk a little bit about some of the trainings you offer for people today.
[00:36:58] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: The biggest training I offer is the the financial storytelling program, the version that I deliver to companies, because this is what people want the most. They want their their teams to be trained mostly FP&A teams, but also generally finance teams. And in these ones I deliver this training by offering a one day training in which we cover the four steps, but including a lot of practice. And for that, I create a data set in the same industry as the client, the one, the participants. And so we start from this data set, learn how to extract the message with the first step. And then after we have this data set, we have to create the story with the framework that we get from analyzing the audience. And so there are role plays in those. This kind of fund, because people have virtual people who are there to answer their questions. And when you prepare your narrative after that, people take the time to create their slides. And in those I deliver for sure the the best practices that they have to respect. And after that we prepare together how they must behave in a presentation. And after this fourth step, and this is the best part, each team has to deliver their presentation that they prepared during the whole day. And in those, I generally ask either the CFO or the CEO to be present, so that people really feel that there is a need to step up and create the the best presentation.
[00:38:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: A little bit of pressure.
[00:38:38] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah. And generally the this is the the moment that people prefer because they have practice. They get feedback from me, from the peers, but also from their leaders who are there at the moment. So this is the best part. And I either deliver this training remotely or in person, depending on the possibilities of the, of the of the participants. Of course, I prefer in person because there are things that you you can only practice when you are in person setup, but it definitely works together. Also with the remote version, I also have a workshop for people who cannot spend the whole day. I deliver a workshop in which we cover the five main issues of finance presentation. We cover what the issue is. I give a tip that they can directly apply to linked to this problem, and we also brainstorm on how each of those can happen in their company and how they can be solved.
[00:39:42] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: So it's a short workshop of two hours in which people have the opportunity to share their experiences, but also how to get the the best practices from me and from their colleagues. And finally, there is the Financial Storytelling Program, which is a self-paced program in video. People have access to a lifetime access to it. But the special part in this is that I still need people to practice. And so even though it's a video training. A self-paced training. There is a final exam in which I ask people to record their screen and record themselves giving a presentation, and I personally review it and give a feedback after in writing so that they know what they did well, what they could improve, so that I'm satisfied because I want people to practice as much as possible. I don't want them to sleep behind the screen. I want them to be active.
[00:40:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So you don't want them to be like me who slept through college. I actually have to participate.
[00:40:45] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah, that's the goal.
[00:40:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great. Now that's the only way you learn is by practicing. Sounds like some great resources. And we'll. I know we'll leave some links in the show notes for people I want to move on to. This is the kind of standard section where I ask some standard FP&A questions of every guest to see what they have to say, and the first one is, what is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals should master.
[00:41:10] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: I think it's financial modeling. And when I say financial modeling, it's it's modeling shortly said because you need to link volumes with revenues, you need to link drivers with their impact on the finance. And when I say financial modeling, I see a lot of people talking about the three statements.
[00:41:31] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I was waiting for that to come.
[00:41:33] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah, I don't say it's not useful. It's just that depending on where you work, in the kind of company you work, the business unit you work for, you might not even see a balance sheet in your life and cash flow. Not not all the time. I mean, when you work on a budget in one small business unit or one small project on one small department, you do not always have access to this. The cash flow is managed by the group. The the balance sheet is managed by the accounting department of the group. So you barely have access to those. Where I think that you have value is definitely on the PNL and on the part that you are the best that you are the partner of. So the three statements is important, but it's not needed. Absolutely. When you work in FP&A, because in many of the big companies that there are in the world, you will not even see the two other statements than the PNL. And so what I want people to know is how to make different links between the drivers, so that your financial modeling will strongly depend on 2 or 3 drivers that the business understands and they can play with, and the others try to really understand how they are linked to make sure that your Excel skills can change them whenever the biggest drivers are changed.
[00:43:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Appreciate the answer and I have a similar view to you. Maybe a little different, but I tend to agree with you. The modeling is most important. I would like everybody to understand how to build a three statement, but it's not as critical depending on the company you work for. No doubt there's a lot of different opinions out there. Anyone who wants to see the exchanges on that, go look at LinkedIn. Carolina Lago, Soufyan, myself. Josh Aharonoff? We've had a lot of discussions around three statement modeling and how important it is. I might have to do an episode one day. We'll call it the three statement battle and have sides and have some fun questions.
[00:43:33] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: I'm not sure I would be so happy to lose again in the votes.
[00:43:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Well, I never said I'd invite you. I'm kidding. All right.
[00:43:43] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: I would be glad to lose again. Yeah.
[00:43:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You're like I'm good. So what's the number one soft skill that FP&A professionals need to master?
[00:43:51] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: I think it's communication because there are many soft skills in which you can excel and which you would be good at, but with communication, you make sure that what's in your computer becomes something. And when I say communication, it goes way beyond only storytelling and presentations. It can be the way you send a mail. It can be a way, the way you organize a report and you write your reports. It can be the way you present your send, your slides, and of course, the way you also discuss with your business partners. Communication is this skill that can make sure that as a finance business partner working in FP&A, you are able to translate the needs of the people. Without communication, you won't be able to do that. And when you understand their needs, you understand what you can tell them from your analysis. So it's a two way street because you get their needs and so you can get them what they need thanks to your communication skills.
[00:44:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So building that financial model and then being able to communicate it, being able to communicate in general. Right. So here's the next question. This is a fun one. We added recently. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about FP&A, what would you change? And more importantly, why would you change it?
[00:45:16] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: There are so many things that I would love to change and on every side. But to be more general, the number of iterations in the budget. Because sometimes it can be so ridiculous how and I go back to communication because how the lack of communication makes you change something so many times while you could be in one meeting, having all the people together and just communicate on the best way forward with communication, you would avoid the sandbagging from the bottom up. You would avoid the two ambitious targets from the top down, and just that way, it would just save you like 50% of the iterations and you would have like 2 or 3 times maximum to present a budget.
[00:46:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I take it you've been through a few rounds of budgeting over the years?
[00:46:10] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Yeah. Not any more. My budget is pretty straightforward today, but of course, in the past, I mean, when you had to change the number of versions, I remember. I mean, once there were 23 versions of the budget in Tm1. I think it was the max.
[00:46:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I can relate. I know what you're talking about. Sometimes you're like, can we just end this already? The madness has to stop at some point. Right. So this next section is where we get to ask you some personal questions to get to know you a little bit. Got to know about your love of storytelling, finance, your journey. Let's talk about you personally. What's a favorite hobby or passion you have? If you have some free time, what are you doing?
[00:46:49] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Many things I like to sport, but I mean, it's basically what a lot of people do. I go to the gym and work out. This is kind of fun, but something that I really like to do that makes me peace. It's to draw. I like to draw. And when I say draw, I draw animals. And most precisely, it's Dragon Ball. Dragon ball Z. All these mangas, I like to draw that. And I can just spend like 1 hour or 2 hours drawing something and it's not great. But I did that in some boring meetings as well. And you just start to draw and you feel just better with this.
[00:47:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love it. So drawing is a big one. All right. Next one. If you could recommend one book to our audience, what are you going to recommend?
[00:47:38] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: You have to know something about me is that I started to become a big procrastinator, starting to be distracted by a lot of things like smartphones, etc. and recently, like one year ago, I read Eat the Frog. It's a book called Eat the Frog. It's not that it has been a revelation because there are so many things that are common sense and good sense, but it was a good starting point for me to be efficient and to work efficiently and to plan. Moments of deep work, moments of relaxing, moments of planification. And so all these helped me today, being more efficient and not feeling so bad about myself because I spent the whole day creating LinkedIn posts and not doing something valuable of my life.
[00:48:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, no. It's a great book, and it's important to remember because it's easy to get to the end of the day and be like, I didn't accomplish anything of value. So I really like the idea of eat the frog. And, I mean, there's a couple of things that you said in there. There's the book and then there's the fact sometimes we just need to be patient with ourselves, as you talked about that, reminding ourselves that not every day is going to be a home run day. It's not like not every day does an athlete set a world record, right? Yeah, there's there's balance in all this. And Eat the Frog is a good one. I've used some of those principles and some training before that I've done all right. Favorite travel destination? If you go anywhere in the world on a trip tomorrow, where are you going?
[00:49:05] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: If I can go somewhere I've never been. And it's been a dream all my life. It would be to Japan. I would love to go there. All my life was a bit dreaming about Japan. I used to look and I still look at animes. At manga, I read mangas, I love Japanese culture, I practiced karate when I was younger and so many things link me to Japan and I would love to go there. It's just that of course it's super expensive and you have to find the time to go there because you will not go there only for two days of course, but it's still in my plans and I have to do that before I'm 50.
[00:49:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So you got a few years. You got a little while to go. Now my daughter wants us to take her to Japan. We'll see if it happens, but that's where she wanted to go on vacation this summer. And we're like, yeah, this is like June. Like we're not putting together a trip by August. Maybe next year. Yeah, that's on my list. I'd like to go to. So if you could have dinner with one person in the world who's alive today, who would you take to dinner?
[00:50:09] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: You. Paul.
[00:50:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I knew you. Yeah. I was waiting for you. Yeah, I get that occasionally. Everybody's like you or their spouse, or I'm like, okay, now give me another answer.
[00:50:17] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: If I would love to go on a dinner with someone, let me think about that. Just because I've always been a fan of all my life, I would love to have a dinner with NAS. Nas is a rapper. He's an American rapper, and I've been a huge fan all my life. And just to discuss with him what made him such a lyricist, what made him get so much into the hip hop and rap game, and just to by curiosity.
[00:50:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love it. So we're going to have to have you do some rap for us, right?
[00:50:50] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: I'm not so good.
[00:50:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I want to see the look I get. You're like, yeah, I think I'll pass on that. But that's cool. That'd be fun. One we haven't had that answer before, so I like it. Definitely a little outside the box. Last question. If you could offer one piece of advice to our audience to be a better FP&A business partner today, what advice would you offer them?
[00:51:10] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: It's maybe counterintuitive, but I would advise them to learn how to sell themselves because we learn so much to be humble at work and we do our work, we let other people take the credit of it. It's not that you have to fight for it, but you have to learn to sell yourself how to to show what you did. Because if you don't, nobody will do it for you. And if you want to go high level and to increase in your career, go on interesting projects, be invited in interesting meetings, and continue learning it and eventually do something else. Not staying at your level, but become director, CFO or even work in the business you have to learn to show yourself and to sell yourself. That's the only way people notice you. And if they notice you, you will be the one they will think of. If there is a promotion to give, if there is an interesting project to work on. So it's not bragging, just do this favor to you because you deserve it.
[00:52:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I like it. Learning to promote yourself. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I've really enjoyed chatting with you today. If our audience wants to learn more about you, what's the best way for them to contact you?
[00:52:27] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Well, you can find me on LinkedIn. So I'm Soufyan Hamid and the link will be given in the notes, I think. And the other way is through my website on the finance circle.com So it's only in one word the finance circle.com. You will find ways of contacting me there. You will find all the trainings that I give both to companies and to individuals. And so that's a way for me to explain that before we start discussing.
[00:52:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it? Well love it. And I said those will go in the show notes. Thanks again for joining me. Excited for our audience to get to hear this episode with you as we talked about storytelling and your journey. So thanks again, Soufyan, for carving out some time for me.
[00:53:10] Guest: Soufyan Hamid: Thank you. That was a great time, Paul.
[00:53:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thanks.
[00:53:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thanks for listening to FP&A tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five star rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app, taking a short quiz, and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the FPAC certification. Take the quiz on earmark and contact me, the show host for further details.