From Rice Paper to AI: FP&A Lessons from 30 Years at the Top of Global Finance - Sébastien Privel

What does it actually take to move FP&A activities into a shared service organization at Coca-Cola— and then transform how a global marketing giant manages billions in spend? Sébastien Privel, Senior Director Financial Services FP&A, has done both.

Sébastien Privel career spans pharma controllership in late-'90s Beijing to country CFO for France, being involved in the implementation Coca-Cola's global FP&A shared services from scratch, before leading a multi-year marketing finance transformation

 

In this episode 

Building finance infrastructure from scratch in 1990s China — from rice paper ledgers to SAP, with floppy disks in between. 

Business partnering and being the finance voice in multi functions projects (including Coca-Cola buying Tropico an iconic French brand) 

Driving transformation in the FP&A area standardizing processes and moving key activities to a shared service organisation

Experimenting with AI including baseline forecasting and the real impact