FP&A Today

Managing a remote FP&A Team to Big wins

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

DNA of A Digital Finance Function from PepsiCo’s Tariq Munir

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

Nord Security’s $3B Growth: The FP&A Vision

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

The Chief Forecaster will See You Now-Nate Kaemingk

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

Brent Dykes: People Hear Statistics, But they Feel Stories

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

Budget Battles, Politics, and AI: CFO Anna Tiomina

Anna Tiomina has faced multiple FP&A challenges in a 15-year finance career. This has included budget nightmares, all-nighters, and the  stark realization that “politics” is central to any FP&A or finance role.The former CFO of Sandoz, a huge pharmaceutical company,  describes her move to finance chief at Softeq, a smaller IT and consulting firm. Most recently she has pivoted to become a fractional CFO with a passion to help finance professionals bridge the gap between “curiosity and confident AI adoption”. In this honest and frank interview, Anna describes
The challenges for anyone  in a full time finance role when you don’t have enough time to look at new things
Structuring FP&A in a big company vs a smaller one
Comparing and contrasting FP&A at a large and big companies
Budget war stories
When your key accounting person… is not an accountant 
Ensuring a higher level of agility in budgeting
Using AI in a safe way in FP&AConnect with Anna at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-tiomina/https://blend2balance.com/Subscribe to her insights at: https://balancedai-newsletter.beehiiv.com/subscribe

A bird’s-eye view of FP&A from a top fintech VC – Saaya Nath

Saaya Nath is a partner of Jump Capital, a VC firm specializing in investments in software and infrastructure (their portfolio includes treasury software to products helping companies visualize and understand their cloud bills). 
In this episode talks to Glenn about:
How the CFO’s Office can automate workflows around finance  and  AI 
The most common complaint talking to finance teams 
Main focus of AI for finance teams we are seeing and rates of adoption
Spend management, finOps, cloud cost management, and cash flow management opportunities
How well are SMBs served by the proliferation of CFO Tech stack tools?
Regulatory challenges in founder pitches 
Ways to begin in a low risk way for AI in finance 
Case study from Glenn on finance automation challenges in a manufacturing finance team
How Jump Capital chooses the companies and early stages in an era of change vs FOMO and bubbles 
Favorite Excel function 
Follow Saaya Nath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saaya-nath-12ba82a3/overlay/about-this-profile/

Business Partnering from Maersk to Lego: Christian Franz Hansen

Christian Franz Hansen is a seasoned management consultant and finance thought leader. He’s made it his mission to bridge the gap between strategic decision making and data analysis with a background that includes roles at EY and a finance consultant helping big-names including General Motors, Lego Group, and Maersk. He’s now a member of the Business Partnering Institute, where he’s revolutionizing how finance professionals approach their roles.
In this episode:
From Excel Wizard as a stepping stone to career growth (“ I still love the beauty of a well designed Excel model”)
From EY to a change-oriented consulting company at Finance Business Partnering Institute
Top ways to elevate the finance professional
Partnering, communication, influencing stakeholders, problem solving and understanding the value drivers 
Working with 500 business professionals at Maersk to turn the finance ship around from bean counters to business partners 
Meeting Anders Liu Lindberg and starting the Business Partnering Institute 
Outcomes vs Outputs in finance 
Allocating finance hours to not drown in tasks 
Resistance against our “soft skills” training and how to overcome it in your finance team
Top down communication
One piece of advice to make daily finance easier 
PowerQuery in Excel 
Connect with Christian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantzhansen/

Top Senior Data Scientist on AI and Future proofing FP&A

Tobias Zwingmann is an ex-Senior Data Scientist-turned managing partner of RAPYD.AI - which is empowering companies from B2B SaaS startups  to leading financial institutions towards a unified AI strategy.  His data insights are shared in his books including “AI-Powered Business Intelligence” (O’Reilly 2022) and “Augmented Analytics” (Co-author, O‘Reilly 2024) as well as weekly newsletter “The Augmented Advantage” read by 4,500+ business leaders from brands like Amazon, Mercedes-Benz, Gucci, and Santander. 
In this episode:
My rise in data science
Did the latest changes to Co-Pilot actually make it good?
What finance can learn from other departments using AI
Consolidating reports and augmenting processes using AI 
Let’s talk forecasting and analytics and regression analysis 
Leveraging Excel and Power BI to enhance their data analysis capabilities
Getting to “data progressive” and “data active” in your organization 
Augmented Analytics Explained 
Clean (but not tidy) data in finance
Two ways to make data tidy in ChatGPT
Connect with Tobias Zwingmann on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobias-zwingmann

An Excel MVP walks into a podcast

George Mount is an Excel MVP and author of Modern Data Analytics in Excel (he describes it as a guide to becoming a data analyst in Excel). His latest book, Advancing into Analytics: From Excel to Python and R could be subtitled “becoming a data scientist in Excel. As founder and CEO of Stringfest Analytics, he provides analytics education and upskilling including works with finance departments at the top ten banks. In this episode he answers how someone in FP&A – killing it in Excel – can go further in their career while using Excel as home base.
In this episode: 
Two books and the ROI you get as a finance professional from reading it 
Using Excel as your home base for FP&A
When to use Excel vs Python 
citizen data scientists (or citizen data analysts) in Python 
Using low code/no code tools
Excel, copilot and Python as a new “trinity” for FP&A
Getting your data house in order before getting to AI
A surprising Excel favorite befitting an MVPConnect with George Mount on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gjmount/Further Reading
George Mount: Modern Data Analytics in Excel: Using Power Query, Power Pivot, and More for Enhanced Data AnalyticsGeorge Mount: Advancing into Analytics: From Excel to Python and R