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 33 -Jeff Marx: How to Land your Dream Job with a Finance Passport
In this episode Jeff talks to Paul Barnhurst about:
Understanding the finance passport and how to adopt this shift in your career
Moving from a promotion-based to a growth-based mindset in finance
The difference between a finance “athlete” and a finance “specialist”
How Treasury and FP&A can work most effectively together to drive business efficiency
His favorite Excel formula
Why ability to communicate effectively remains the best advice for anyone in FP&A
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 27 - FP&A’s Big Lessons from AFP 2022
From the conference floor of the AFP (Association for Financial Professionals) in Philadelphia (23-26 October), Paul Barnhurst sums up some of the key themes of the conference talking to some of the participants and key speakers. More than 100 educational sessions tackled everything from using AI to improve FP&A forecasting, to skills in building trust, and essential drivers business should focus on.
FP&A Today - Episode 26 - Ben Murray: My Career in FP&A
Ben Murray is known to his 40,000 dedicated subscribers simply as “The SaaS CFO”. On the number one website for SaaS finance (thesaascfo.com) Ben provides blogs, research, courses and templates based on more than 25 years running finance teams.
In an essential listen for anyone working in or considering a career in SaaS FP&A, Ben talks to Paul Barnhurst.
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 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.
FP&A Today - Episode 14 - Lance Rubin: Becoming the Wrold’s Next Top Financial Modeler
Lance Rubin is one of the world’s leading experts on financial models. He has created thousands of models for some of the biggest companies and literally wrote the instruction manual on financial modeling as a certified trainer for the Financial Modeling Institute.
In this wide ranging interview Lance reveals the secrets to successful financial modeling:
-How to Instantly Improve your Financial Modeling
-Why you need to build and Treat a Financial Model like your House
-The Best Resources to Learn better Financial Models
-How to achieve Better Storytelling in FP&A, and bringing Emotion to the Numbers
-The power of non-financial data to change your models
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
FP&A Today Episode 13 - Christian Wattig: Getting from Good to Great in FP&A
Christian Wattig is one of the world’s leading experts in FP&A having led teams at Unilever, Procter & Gamble, and Squarespace. Today Christian is FP&A Solution Architect, Datarails, and manages the top-rated FP&A Bootcamp explicitly designed for professionals who work full-time and want to ramp up their FP&A game.
In this wide-ranging interview Christian provides actionable advice for any FP&A professional:
➡How FP&A can help marketing attribution
➡The need for FP&A to embrace Gray Areas
➡The importance of curiosity
➡His FP&A ootcamp teaching hundreds of FP&A leaders
➡Hard-won secrets for business partnering
➡The need to forecast ranges
➡How to cope with vast data
Follow Christian on LinkedIn
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.