Glenn Hopper: Using ChatGPT to Build an FP&A tool and What Happened Next

Many CFOs preach about keeping up with technological change. But CFO Glenn Hopper went a step further. As ChatGPT talk reached fever pitch he was ready with a proof of concept for an FP&A version of Chat GPT. For good measure he also provided 30 pages of documentation about the process (“Application of ChatGPT to Build an FP&A Tool”) - to acclaim among FP&A professionals.

Hopper, a serial startup CFO, and U.S. Navy veteran who earned a master’s degree at Harvard says: “I wanted to see if someone with just a base understanding of the underlying technology could use artificial intelligence to first off build a tool that would help automate some of the FP&A processes and secondly, get to a way where you could use that tool to interact with your company's financial data.”

The Chat GPT project was a perfect technical project for Hopper, playing to his technological mindset and  skills foreshadowing technological transformation for finance professionals as explored in his book Deep Finance In the Information Age: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Finance-Corporate-Information-Age/dp/1637351240. The study also draws on his career and love of FP&A.

In this episode Glenn Hopper discusses

• His unusual transition to CFO, moving from journalism in the Navy to product manager.   
• How a passion for writing helps to formulate projects and challenges in finance
• His experience with financial transformation in finance companies and the lessons he learned from the experience – as set out in his book Deep Finance
• How having a mathematical and analytical mindset is crucial for anyone in FP&A
• How his biggest corporate failure (missing a $1.5million invoice in budget preparation) was essentially his “origin story” to becoming a transformative CFO
• How he wrote a feature film – a low budget horror movie, The Hanged Man which streamed on Netflix
• His favorite Excel function

Links from the show

Deep Finance In the Information Age: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Finance-Corporate-Information-Age/dp/1637351240

“Application of ChatGPT to Build an FP&A Tool” - https://github.com/ghopper3/ChatGPT-Project/blob/main/ChatGPT%20for%20FPA.pdf

The Hanged Man (2007) Written by Glenn Hopper https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1185596/

 

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