FP&A Today

Top 10 Burning Questions in FP&A

In this special episode Glenn is joined by Nate Saperia to answer the 10 most burning questions in FP&A. Nate brings nearly 20 years of finance experience including at Accordion, Spruce Finance, Hess Corporation and GE. At Saperia Consulting Nate specializes in real-time dashboards, financial planning, and interim CFO/FP&A leadership. 
The questions:
Q1: How can I use AI in FP&A?
Q2: What do you think of FP&A solutions?
Q3: How can you get to driver based decision making 
Q4: Fastest levers FP&A teams can pull with margin pressures rising?
Q5: How can an FP&A function trust the financial data it’s using when it doesn’t control the data?
Q6: Should the CTO or CFO own the data?
Q7. Skills to get from M&A Financial due diligence to FP&A?
Q8. FP&A Internship, what advice? 
Q9. Things I wish I had known earlier in FP&A?
Q10. What’s the future of Excel in FP&A? 

FP&A "Wow" Moments at $10m companies

Australian-born Luke Mulcahy started in FP&A at larger businesses including Coates Group (internet leader in Sydney) and manufacturing company Sherwin-Williams. But for nearly 4 years he has loved having “wow” moments of finance insights with smaller companies. closer to the $5-10million range, where powerful insights are taken straight from finance to the CFO. In his words: “You can have those moments a lot more frequently with small business owners and just tell them what they’re, what they’re missing, what they haven’t got eyes on.”In this episode:
Forecasting energy consumption for a utility company in Australia
The fear and strategy of becoming a fractional CFO 
The ideal set up for FP&A in small businesses 
Why big companies often have big data problems (and cleaning that data)
Big FP&A wins in small business
Solving the date problem in Excel 

Data Analytics and AI for FP&A Teams

This special episode formed part of FP&A Con 2025 which saw a record-breaking 1500 registrants. 
The guests: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).
Anna Tioma former CFO of Sandoz and  Softeq. Most recently she has pivoted to become a fractional CFO at Blend2Balance. 
Anna Yamashita, Solutions Consulting at Data Rails who has worked across SAS finance throughout her career where she helps FP&A teams implement modern performance management solutions.
In this session: 
How AI is being applied in real FP&A workflows today 
Predictive analytics as the gold standard
Getting to a single version of truth with AI 
ROI in AI 
Mastering Data Management 
Misconceptions about AI in finance and security 
Co-pilot, prompts
Bonus: Security and AI 

Packed insights for Excel in FP&A: Jeff Gudim

This episode is 53 minutes packed with practical Excel insights for an FP&A practitioner and Excel advocate at the top of his game.Jeff Gudim is a senior financial analyst, Excel evangelist and hardcore financial model architect at Strategic Education, listed on the NASDAQ and which owns for-profit, online Capella University and Strayer University, Jeff made the leap from private wealth management to corporate FP&A, leveraging his financial planning skills and Excel skills rising up as a data-driven problem solver. Jeff  leads forecasting and analysis for a hundred million dollars IT function. 
In this episode
Getting from private wealth management to FP&A
How Excel jumpstarted my career 
My favorite ever Excel model 
Monte Carlo simulations 
3 time saving tips every FP&A professional needs 
Dynamic arrays and Lambda functions and “fundamental” Excel changeHow to convince your team to use advanced ExcelCompletely new favorite Excel function or featureConnect with Jeff Gudim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-gudim-7a994546/

Data Science masterclass with Shifra Isaacs

In this masterclass Shifra Isaacs, developer Relations Advocate at Ascend.io, delves into her experience as data scientist, technical writer, and support lead providing fresh insights for FP&A and finance professionals.
In this episode:
Data science vs business analytics 
Pulling data not yet able to be modeled 
Python for Excel 
The right models for risk scoring, variance analysis and forecasting 
Replicating a process with a new tool using AI
How can we survive in an AI first world
Connect with Shifra Isaacs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shifra-isaacs/

Curiosity, Ambition, Service: FP&A at Dashlane

Taylor Otstot, Vice President Finance,  Dashlane joined GoDaddy (now a $30billion valued) domain registry, domain registrar and web hosting company before their IP. In 8 years he climbed to senior Director of Finance running an FP&A team of 14. From this experience and as VP Finance at DashLane he says he hires for 3 things: curiosity, ambition, and finance leaders who are service-oriented. “If you bring those three things to the table, you're able to wade through a lot of the ambiguity that comes with those decision making processes.”
Also in this episode: 
Finance and FP&A as antidote to the machine of Big 4
3- 4 years in audit as the “perfect amount”
Getting to strategy in FP&A
Partnership vs accountability as a false choice for FP&A
Improv comedy having its moment in finance 
The Tarantino approach to finance presentations 
Connect with Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorotstot/
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Dave Sackett: How FP&A Can Stay Relevant In The AI Age

Dave Sackett is Co-Founder and CFO of ecommerce company, AIOne,  and former CFO of  semiconductor company, ULVAC Technologies. He is a vocal advocate for blockchain and AI and finance, bringing a blend of tech savvy, operational rigor, and a  focus on “servant leadership" - that is putting the needs of the employees first and helping people develop and perform as highly as possible. He's a frequent keynote speaker, a Forbes contributor, and an active member of Financial Executives International.
Cost accountant to CFO and AI leader 
How I practice servant leadership mindset as a CFO 
Being an introvert CFO leader and overcoming the challenges
Costly failures of traditional forecasting in FP&A
Where FP&A Software is going to be in 5 years 
Finance AI use cases 
FP&A as custodians of financial truth in AI age 
Connect with Dave Sackett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davesackett/

Cycling in tariff territory – FP&A at top e-bike brand

Derek Paulson is Director of Finance and Performing Marketing at Rad Power Bikes, a Seattle-based e-bike company changing transportation. In this episode he talks about his approach to  navigating tariffs (“There  no, no word in the English language more scary to a finance professional than the word uncertainty” says Paulson as he discusses required “efficiency” and “flexibility” in their supply chains). He also reveals his approach to the finance transformation required to shift Rad Power from a direct-to-consumer to an e-commerce and retail focused model, that is “starting   with a blank Excel sheet to do the modeling for Rad Power Bikes”.In this episode:
How Honeywell and PepsiCo are top training grounds for finance leaders
Efficiency vs flexibility in supply chains 
Is an MBA worth it in finance?
Data privacy, AI, and finance 
Making the case for SUMIFs
Connect with Derek Paulson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekpaulson/

Big shifts in FP&A – Bryan Lapidus

“The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) is a non-for-profit with a really simple mission, which makes it really easy for me to wake up and know what I’m doing every day,” says Bryan Lapidus, Director, FP&A Practice at the Association for Financial Professionals. “We exist for the success of the corporate finance and treasury professionals. FPAC, our certified corporate FP&A certification has been in the market for about 11 years now and 5,000 people have earned it in more than 80 countries.”
Returning guest Lapidus joins Glenn Hopper  as they discuss the climate for FP&A including:
Evolution of FP&A  and AI 
Certificates vs Certification 
Why business school doesn’t prepare you for FP&A roles
The impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on changing the CFO role 
Why you need different CFOs at various stages of a company lifecycle 
Why FP&A professionals are so hirable and promotable
How to become CFO from an FP&A role  

How I learned to love FP&A again – Annette deYoung

Annette DeYoung, Principal Solutions Consultant at Datarails, is an accountant-turned FP&A manufacturing leader. She has deep experience in leading finance teams at manufacturing companies including Berner Food and Beverage, Rockford Products, Fairbanks Morse Engine, and JL Clark. It was at JL Clark, as Director of FP&A, that Annette implemented FP&A Solution, Datarails to mop up inefficiencies and end drain all-late night sessions at the finance department— she  liked the product so much she ended up joining the company and has since spoken to more than 1000 FP&A professionals seeking to love FP&A again by removing tedious repetitive processes.
In this episode 
Why I fell in love with manufacturing and finance over my career 
How creativity drew me from accounting to FP&A
Why a hard-coded accountant attitude was difficult to reconcile with more creative FP&A 
How to create finance business partnerships on the manufacturing floor 
Why I brought Datarails into my finance team at JL Clarke 
The future of Excel in FP&A
Is finance (finally) making a move with AI? 
The power of getting out of your comfort zone in finance 
Connect with Annette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahdeyoung/