FP&A Today

Lance Rubin: Becoming the World’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.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Read the Full Program Transcript 
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube
 
Episode Links
 
FM Knowledge Hub
https://fmwiki.glideapp.io/
 
Oz Du Soleil
https://www.youtube.com/user/WalrusCandy
 
Financial Modeling Institute
https://fminstitute.com/
 
Modelcitizn website
https://www.modelcitizn.com/knowledge-hub-apps
 
Financial Modelling Elective by the CA (ANZ) which includes the study guide Lance wrote a significant portion of (Chapter 4 design and build a financial model).
https://www.charteredaccountantsanz.com/become-a-member/course-descriptions/ca-program/financial-modelling
 
Financial Modelling Podcast
https://financialmodellingpodcast.com/
 
Eloquens
https://www.eloquens.com/?ref=modelcitizn
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Leader being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com

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 Bootcamp 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.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Read the Full Program Transcript
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Leader being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com

Kathy Svetina: The Fractional CFO’s Inspiring Guide to FP&A

From a family of entrepreneurs, Kathy Svetina was always going to run her own business. Kathy first took financial planning and analysis roles at big companies such as AON and Wolters Kluwer for more than a decade. Then, Kathy founded Newcastle Finance, providing Fractional CFO services – supplying financial expertise to startups and fast-growing companies not yet able to justify a full-time CFO and facing growing pains. Kathy uniquely serves women-owned businesses (achieving $1M to $10M in annual sales). 
In this wide-ranging interview Kathy describes:
The growth of fractional CFOs in business
The challenge of data consolidation nightmares in small companies 
The optimal way of starting FP&A in fast-growing businesses
A favorite Excel function that felt like angels had landed on earth.
Follow Kathy on LinkedIn
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Read the Full Program Transcript
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Leader being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com

Aliyyah Abdullah: How to Succeed with Supply Chain Value

Aliyyah Abdullah is Strategic and Operational Finance Leader, Universal Foods Limited. Based in Trinidad and Tobago, Aliyya began studying management, which she describes as “closer to psychology”. Aliyya only shifted careers to finance when a friend told her about an opportunity. After getting a degree in accounting, she specializes today in working with top SMEs in finance in the food and beverage industry, most recently at Universal Foods Limited – maker of Charles Chocolates, Sunshine Snacks and Universal Lightly Frosted Corn.  
Being a leading finance expert in a country of 1.4 million people, Aliyya gets to perform a number of roles including FP&A specializing in supply chain value.
In this episode of FP&A Today Aliyyah discusses
The importance of leading and lagging indicators in food and beverage FP&A
Why she has focused in the past 12 years on small business FP&A
Secrets to mixing  finance and operations to add value
How a food and beverage leader is managing mounting supply chain issues such as the rise in the cost of a containers
How her love of Horror movies has got her through anxious FP&A moments
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Read the Full Program Transcript
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Leader being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com
 

Carl Seidman: FP&A as the Great Anticipator

Carl Seidman  is an FP&A Leader who works with Fortune 500 companies providing advice and strategy on best practices and scaling FP&A. In this interview Carl discusses:
His background in turnaround and restructuring of businesses
His “first retirement” from business at 32, which formed the basis of a TEDx Talk (519,000 views and counting).
Setting up his own business focused on FP&A advice to the Fortune 500
Why successful FP&A always means anticipating
Why large companies do not always have the best FP&A processes
Public speaking skills as a game changer for any FP&A solution
The evolution of software as the biggest opportunity in FP&A
Follow Carl on LinkedIn
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Read the Full Program Transcript
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Leader being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com

Anna Oblakova: 50 Shades of FP&A Maturity

Anna Oblakova has spent 15 years in FP&A - it is the only job she ever wanted. 
She started her career in large Russian companies. Beginning her career at VMHY Holding her first taste of FP&A was being pushed into the deep end of M&A, due diligence and business valuations.
Future accomplishments include building an FP&A function from scratch at Bank Zenit where she eventually managed a team of 10 FP&A professionals. Following a career break, Anna moved to France where she is manager of FP&A at Sodastream (bought by Pepsico for $3.2 billion in 2018). In this interview Anna discusses some of the highlights of her career including:
The reasons for setting up the online resource and blog FPANDA CLUB
The 50 shades of FP&A Maturity and why it is important to measure FP&A progress
How FP&A teams can use personas to build better business partnerships 
Why it is vital that key metrics to follow should be aligned with the strategic objectives of the company
The constantly growing gap between expectations of stakeholders and FP&A teams
The need for continuous learning to succeed in FP&A
Follow Anna on LinkedIn
Check out the FP&A Club website founded by Anna Oblakova
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Read the Full Program Transcript
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Pro being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com

Stéphanie Herbots and Zoe Cooke: Mental health and Burnout in FP&A

For Stéphanie Herbots, a finance perfectionist, everything was going to plan. Stéphanie got her masters degree. Sailed into a career in finance. Controllership and FP&A roles for the most prestigious companies followed This included budgets and forecasting for a division of telecoms giant, Orange. 
Then it struck.
Stephanie faced a series of challenges in the midst of the 12th revision of the annual budget (no exaggeration!). Becoming a mum. Staff leaving. Being forced to pick up the slack for FP&A challenges with strict deadlines. Stephanie could not cope. 
Stephanie faced burnout and a spiral of low mental health she describes as “slow and vicious.She had no option but quit finance
In episode 8 of FP&A Today, discussion Stephanie speaks about her journey, with Zoe Cooke, FP&A Director at We are Social, who has been a powerful advocate of mental health in finance throughout her career. 
Leading the discussion FP&A Today host Paul Barnhurst, who himself has seen the impact of mental health first hand and is among those leading the drive for better recognition and transparency  among the FP&A profession. This wide-ranging conversation discusses
The specific mental health challenges within the FP&A profession
Proven advice to lead and cope with stress, burnout and mental health in finance
The limits and challenges of forecasting in uncertain times
How challenges with data and manual processes can be overcome
Follow Stéphanie Herbots on LinkedIn
Follow Zoe Cooke on LinkedIn 
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Read the Full Program Transcript
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube 
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Pro being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com
 

Kenneth Fick: FP&A as Influence without Power

Kenneth Fick, had it in his background to be in FP&A: His father spent 40 years in FP&A at Fisher Price.
Ken is now Vice President of Financial Planning Analysis at Citrin Cooperman which is a $350 million accounting tax and advisory firm based in New York. In this interview Kenneth discusses:
Being a 20-year-old watching the chaos unfold at Circuit City which is now taught as an example of corporate failure in America
While technical skills get you first roles, you get promoted through skills in influence and storytelling
Becoming a leading name in FP&A through his writing – including a viral article about how to exactly define to a stranger what FP&A is, at a cocktail party
His budget process and love of budgeting as a means of listening to the company
Why it angers him that FP&A is being judged on predictions
How fuzzy data is at the core of FP&A
Linear regression and statistical modeling in Excel
 
Follow Kenneth on LinkedIn
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Read the Full Program Transcript
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Pro being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com

Cameron Janke: Lessons from Moving from Audit, to FP&A, IPO, M&A and Beyond

FP&A veteran Cameron Janke has spent most of the last decade working at HealthEquity, the largest health savings account in the US. Cameron played a large part in the company  going public in 2014. As HealthEquity took off so did Cameron’s career –  he rose up the ranks from SEC Reporting and Analysis Manager to VP of FP&A at the company which now has assets of $20.3 billion and Cameron oversaw 32 consecutive quarters of the company meeting or exceeding EBITDA consensus.
In this masterclass for anyone in finance, Cameron explains:
How he took the initiative to move from accounting to FP&A by building his own forecasts and sharing them with management
Why anyone involved in an IPO Needs to Worry more about Day Two – not just Day One 
How FP&A can best manage ongoing M&A opportunities and not get sidelined
The secret to building the best performing FP&A teams 
Plus how a Kind CFO's words gave him a leadership lesson to remember
Follow Cameron on LinkedIn
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Read the Full Program Transcript
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Pro being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com

Gemma Davie: Leading from the Front to Score Excellence in FP&A

Gemma Davie, Associate Director, Performance (FP&A) leads a team of 12 in her FP&A function at comparethemarket.com, one of Britain’s best loved finance brands. Speaking to FP&A Today she reveals her secrets for producing excellence.
Gemma defines excellence in FP&A as driving action and leading to better customer outcomes or a tangible benefit. Gemma reveals her unusual “squiggly” career path to Director, the importance of prioritizing her FP&A team’s development, how FP&A has moved from scorekeeper to top coach in business, and why most FP&A teams are only thinking about cash flow when it's too late.
Plus, a surprising hobby that not many people know about.
Follow Gemma on LinkedIn
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
With Datarails on your side for FP&A you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.
Get in touch at www.datarails.com
Follow DataRails on LinkedIn to find out about upcoming episodes and the latest FP&A news
Get the full program transcript 
Watch the full YouTube video 
To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Pro being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com