FP&A Today Episode 38 - Casey Woo: My Adventures in Finance from Wall Street to Silicon Valley
Casey Woo is a serial high Tech CFO turned investor. The Harvard educated financier “escaped” a life as an Investment Banking Analyst, at Morgan Stanley to take a big pay cut and join a 10-person startup (“If you wanna do tech, you gotta go to the Bay Area”).
Since then, he has held various executive finance roles, at multiple companies, including at WeWork and property tech company Landing. He also founded an “operators community” and investment fund FOG ventures
FP&A Today Episode 37: Ian Schnoor: Going from Good to Great in Financial Modeling
This episode is all about financial modeling from one of the world’s experts. Ian Schnoor is Executive Director at the Financial Modeling Institute (FMI) & President and Founder at The Marquee Group. In this episode he provides frank assessment of why most financial models fail and how you can take instant actions to instantly transform your financial modeling.
FP&A Today Episode 36: The Complete Year in Review with Top 2023 Predictions
In this special jam-packed episode Paul Barnhurst looks back on 2022 (and with special guests) reveals the biggest predictions for FP&A in 2023. This episode looks back at one year of FP&A Today and how our dedicated audience helped us reach more than 40,000 downloads in our first 35 episodes across 100 countries. In between we hear Paul’s favorite FP&A guest insights from the first 35 episodes interspersed with new hot takes on everything you need to know in FP&A for 2023 from FP&A leaders, Soufyan Hamid, Hector Rubalcava, and Mario Vasquez.
FP&A Today Episode 35 - Glenn Snyder: The Secrets to Building World-Class FP&A Teams
Glenn Snyder, builds high-performing FP&A teams from scratch. In this episode Glenn reveals the secrets to building high-performance FP&A teams.
FP&A Today Episode 34 - Data Visualization & Storytelling: All your Questions Answered
In this special LinkedIn Live/ FP&A Today, join Paul Barnhurst and our all-star panel to answer your questions about hard-won experiences in data visualization and storytelling to get FP&A a seat at the table.
FP&A Today Episode 32 - Joseph Clayton: The outsized role of FP&A in big real estate deals
68 Ventures is a holding company for numerous operating entities transforming the Alabama Gulf Coast and Florida Panhandle.
FP&A is central to this mission, says Joseph Clayton Business Analyst at the company. At 68 Ventures the FP&A team is tasked with analysis that is fueling multiple big ticket real estate deals. Specifically, FP&A oversees a due diligence process to “ensure we're getting land at the value that we need in order to sell those lots at a profit to pay back our lenders, pay back our investors” alongside “tracking the schedule of project.”
FP&A Today - Episode 31 - Cole Dixon: How Cotopaxi uses FP&A in its Mission
Cole Dixon is FP&A Director at outdoor sports company Cotopaxi which has a tagline of Gear for Good on its high performance and eye-catching gear. For Dixon, the FP&A function at the company is central to “upholding a mission of our founders Davis Smith and Stephan [Jacob] that Cotopaxi can get us exploring and make a positive impact on other people’s lives. So we’re really truly committed that all of our products can be repurposed and that we prioritize human rights.”
FP&A Today - Episode 30 - Sruthi Lanka: Why Top Startups see FP&A as Central to Strategy
In this episode Sruthi reveals
Her vision for FP&A as central to business and executive leadership
Her experience of The GameStop Frenzy in late January 2021 which coincided with her joining Public.com, helping it explode from “a relatively young startup to having over a million members”
The centrality of data or analytics partnering with finance and why some engineering and SQL is an important skill set for CFOs
Her founding membership of FSuite in which StartupCFOs meet to discuss everything from the best tools to complex challenges they are facing
Why a regular monthly meeting with FP&A is “sacrosanct” - in order to optimize what is measured and show progress against targets
The importance of FP&A doing the “hard work” of building “simple” financial models
FP&A Today - Episode 29 - Chris Reilly: Simplifying Private Equity, FP&A, and Financial Modeling
In this episode Chris talks to Paul about:
How he became skilled in finance through “sink or swim” encounters that taught him modeling and FP&A
How mastering the Three Statements changed his career trajectory
The brutal response from a boss that changed his attitude to financial modeling forever
His worst model? (Or why is still haunted by 7,000 rows on multiple tabs)
Why every financial model starts with the end user in mind (and how to do this practically)
Why the model itself should not be considered only a means to a “conversation”.
Why building a model of their own lives” can be the most powerful beginning training
His new courses including financial modeling for private equity which have attracted five-star reviews
How he went from fine arts and Spanish double major to a career in finance
FP&A Today - Episode 28 - Anders Liu-Lindberg: Start with Why in FP&A
In this podcast Anders discusses:
How he moved from "pretty poor numbers" as a LinkedIn creator 10 years ago, to be the leading influencer on FP&A
Why more voices on FP&A on LinkedIn and other platforms is propelling change for the profession
Why business partners need to better understand key drivers for their business and translates insights into action
Why change in FP&A is still not happening on the scale that businesses need to see
Analytics vs FP&A? Should they be competing
What is really meant by common buzzwords "business partnering" and digital transformation
Why he feels that in common with other finance professionals he held himself back for too long to avoid breaking out of his comfort zone.
FP&A Today - Episode 25 - Nick Brignola: How FP&A Birthed $46 billion worth of Pharma Takeovers
n this straight-talking episode Nick reveals the secret inside story of FP&A's behind the scenes role in closing M&A deals. He also discusses:
Getting to 1% Forecast Accuracy in Pharma and the lessons others can learn.
The vital metrics anyone in pharma manufacturing need to know.
What are the main differences betweeen Corporate FP&A or Business Unit (or operational) FP&A?
FP&A Vs Sales The secret for FP&A teams to truly challenge your sales team (productively)
His secrets to building the most effective and dynamic FP&A team which bring results
FP&A Today - Episode 24 - Becoming the Agent for Change in FP&A
Larysa Melnychuk, founder and CEO at FP&A Trends Group and the International FP&A Board, is pushing FP&A to new levels, having launched 27 chapters across 16 countries hosting webinars, posting resources, and championing the industry. In this episode, she joins host Paul Barnhurst to champion all things FP&A.
FP&A Today - Episode 23 - Gaining FP&A Mastery in SaaS Rocket Ships
In this episode of FP&A Today CJ talks to Paul Barnhurst about his journey from private equity to SaaS mastery, and ultimately his CFO role. In this essential episode for anyone interested in SaaS for FP&A he discusses:
His motivation for creating the fast-growing finance newsletter Mostly Metrics, an irreverent and analytical spin on metrics which has crossed more than 10k subscribers (and growing!)
The best way FP&A can create impact for M&A activity
3 absolutely essential SaaS FP&A metrics based on his experience at rocket ships
The one thing he is most scared of in his new CFO role
The painful FP&A mistake that CJ made that changed his entire approach to financial presentation forever
The differences between his roles in FP&A and investor relations
His strategy for moving from FP&A to CFO
His boxing career
His most inspiring advice for anyone in FP&A
FP&A Today - Episode 22 - Using AI to Predict Revenue
In this episode, Gabriela discusses the pivotal moment in her career: how she learnt to love coding and embraced data analytics and ML to deal with the vast amount of data at the company.
FP&A Today - Episode 21 - From FP&A and Chill to CFO
Jon Laudie reveals his playbook for rising up the ranks from analyst to CFO and the methods he used to advance his career.
FP&A Today - Episode 19 - Budgeting & Forecasting: All Your Questions Answered
In this special LinkedIn Live/ FP&A Today, join Paul Barnhurst and our all-star panel to answer your questions for budget season based on their decades of experience.
1) The best piece of advice you give - or have been given for a successful budget process over your career?
2) Top Down or Bottoms Up Budgeting?
3) Should we move beyond budgeting?
4) The role AI can play in budgeting?
5) What do you do when leadership comes up with unrealistic numbers?
6) How do you incorporate and manage your finance tech stack during the budget process?
7) What does the budget process in a startup look like?
8)What impact did COVID have on budgeting?
FP&A Today - Episode 18 - What Gen Z Wants in FP&A
What does Generation Z Want from FP&A?
Between them, college students Gabriel Valentin Navarro, Charlee Wambolt, and Derek Baker secured FP&A and finance internships at companies as diverse as Credit Suisse, Clark Construction, Amex, Expedia, Regeneron, and SavviLegal. In this special episode we explore the experiences of a Gen Z cohort experiencing work in Finance for the first time.
FP&A Today - Episode 17 - John King: Inside the Success of FP&A at Walmart
In this interview John speaks about the intersection of FP&A and business-decisions at Walmart and his career.
His passion for technology and the tech stack used at Walmart
The core metrics which Walmart judges FP&A on and what other retailers can learn
How to get insights for the business “today or tomorrow” through dimensional modeling
How to keep focus on the most important data in the face of potentially limitless consumer data
As both a Python and Excel expert, whether FP&A leaders need to know Python, Excel or both?
The importance of taking logic and analysis to the data - rather than the other way around
The most important advice for anyone starting in FP&A to succeed
FP&A Today - Episode 16 - Jamie Genge: Winning Big with Monte Carlo analysis in FP&A
In this wide-ranging interview Jamie provides his take on
Moving from audit to FP&A
How FP&A acts as bid support in governmental organizations such as the NPL
His passion for Monte Carlo analysis, a mathematical technique to account for risk and upside in decision making
How Monte Carlo is used in the sales funnel, with examples from NPL
How NPL conducts its budget and forecasting
Bottom up vs Top Down budgeting
The pride of building a team in FP&A as one of the greatest career achievements
The challenges and opportunities in FP&A at this crossroads
Jamie’s gardening project as an analogy for FP&A
FP&A Today - Episode 15 - Matthew Bernath, Host of The FInancial Modeling Podcast
Matthew Bernath, based in South Africa, has been a financial modeler for 15 years. Such was his thirst to learn best practices in the field, he set up a podcast, The Financial Modelling Podcast. Eighty episodes and 100,000 followers later The Financial Modelling Podcast is now ranked as one of the top finance podcasts.