FP&A Today

Perspectives from Controller, FP&A, CFO and Gartner: Marko Horvat

Marko Horvat has been a public accountant, Controller, head of FP&A and CFO, as well as VP in Gartner's research and advisory practice, specializing in topics most relevant to CFOs and finance transformation.
In this episode he talks: 
Interplay IT and CISO and organizational politics (“if it runs on electricity, it’s ours”)CFO skillsets gap
Real change in CFO’s Office with AI (audit pattern recognition to forecasting)
Last mile transformation in finance 
Mindset, skillset, toolset transformation 
Treating forecast as in perpetual beta 
The power of the subtotal function 
Recommended books:
There's Got to Be a Better Way: How to Deliver Results and Get Rid of the Stuff That Gets in the Way of Real Work
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

35 Years in Finance and constant change: Troy Anderson CFO at Kelly Services

Troy Anderson is CFO of Kelly Services, a staffing solutions provider to various industries, who has spent his career driving transformation across some of the most complex business environments. Before joining Kelly, he served as CFO at Universal Technical Institute, where he helped double revenue over five years through a mix of organic growth and strategic acquisitions. Earlier in his career, he held senior finance leadership roles at Conduent, a $6billion player (bought by Xerox). 
Conduent life cycle a $6b public company acquired by Xerox
Investor relations at Xerox as a game-changer for my career 
Making finance a partner across the value chain
Business Process Outsourcing vs AI
The need for a deep understanding of your business 
Catch the full transcript below

The Future of the AI-Native ERP Stephen Hedlund, Rillet

Stephen Hedlund is head of finance at Rillet, an AI-native ERP which has raised over $100million from Sequoia and  Andreessen Horowitz. In  Steven’s words Rillet is “building the modern NetSuite.”In this episode:
How Isaac Asimov’s Foundation helped me discover finance 
Experience from enterprise at Walmart to building startups 
Go-to-market (marketing) to Head of Finance Gillet 
The moat for leading ERPs and our strategy 
Being the ICP and marketing voice for Rillet 
“To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.”― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

Building back Trust Between CFOs and CROs: Eddie Reynolds

Eddie Reynolds, CEO of UnionSquare Consulting, opens up about the often-fraught relationship between CFOs and CROs. Eddie shares insights from his unique journey—from banking and private equity to being an account executive at Salesforce which forecast within 5% accuracy despite 30%+ growth.
The conversation tackles the critical disconnect between finance and go-to-market teams: Why do CFOs struggle to trust CRM pipelines? What breaks when companies hit $50-100M in revenue? 
In this episode:
How Salesforce was able to forecast with 5% accuracy,
The role of FP&A and CROs in go to market strategy and efficiency
The issues with LTV to CAC ratio in SaaS 
Biggest challenges of the CFO/CRO relationship
Bottoms up annual planning working with finance 

From Flight Deck to Finance: Bobby Bray on Military Precision in Analytics and FP&A

Bobby Bray brings his perspective from more than 20 years in banking and consulting with Capital One, Oliver Wyman, and Regions Bank. The retired Navy Captain with four commands talks about strategic decision-making under pressure, working with Fortune 150 C-Suite executives, and the rigor required in FP&A.
He says: “To use an aviation term you need to be able to follow the drop of gas through the engine and understand the different cogs in the engine that turns a drop of gas into thrust, but it also is what turns raw data into usable analytics on the back end.”In this episode 
A Truly Non-Traditional Path to Finance
Commercial banking as the most educational finance job
Discipline and rigor in FP&A
Cloud infrastructure changes in the past 7 years 
The rigor of a capital market stress test 
Explainability of AI in finance 

Demystifying the Role of the CFO in Growth Stage Companies: Rick Smith

Five-time CFO Rick Smith has led finance at companies including inVentiv Health Communications, Exos, Parchment, Solera Health before founding Bonfire advisory. He is also the author o fDemystifying the Role of the CFO in Venture and Growth Stage Companies, a no-nonsense approach to the topic. Reviews for the book include: “This book is a must-read if you want to understand how to scale a company as a CFO” and “Should be required reading for CEOs and PE people along with CFOs.”
In this episode Smith provides his take on being a CFO and his long background in FP&A, providing insights on:
The path from FP&A to CFO (without a CPA)
Why I like being CFO at SMBs (sub $50m)
Being a dreamer, artist and buildingFP&A 
Audits vs QOEs 
The unspoken challenges working with PE firms
FP&A and M&A – what you need to know 
Link to the book: Demystifying the Role of the CFO in Venture and Growth Stage Companies

Building a lean, mean, FP&A team from scratch – Preston Naegle

Preston Naegle started his career in private equity at Leavitt Equity Partners (founded by Michael Leavitt, the former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Negale then moved into the operating world and for more than 2 years has led strategic finance and FP&A at a PE-backed Midway Mechanical Services  in the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) industry at the company which has completed 15 acquisitions (3 in 2025 alone) within the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing sector across the Western US region. 
In this episode
An origin story in Private Equity
Learning from a “firehose” of business models 
Bringing PE thinking to a head of finance role at Midway Mechanical 
Bringing people with you as you create FP&A, budget and forecasting processes
Choosing an FP&A solution
Enhancing time to insights that bring long-term business partnering and profit growth 

Aligning Sales and FP&A: Adam Shilton

Glenn reconnects with Adam Shilton—who reveals the highs and lows of more than a decade selling to finance teams and what 134 deals in 36 months taught him about CFO challenges. The founder, writer, and speaker has now launched his own venture focused on helping entrepreneurs and solo business owners.
My Experience selling finance software including SAP
Bridging the Sales-Finance Divide: Why pipeline forecasts are inherently “fluffy”
The Deposit Game-Changer: Why commission should only be paid on receipt of deposit, not just signature
Finance coaching sales on overdue invoicesAI and AR automation
AI Agents workflows 

CFO of AWA Studios on Building a Hits-Driven Business

What does it take to be the finance leader behind Hollywood stories? Diya Sagar, CFO of AWA Studios, which produces critically acclaimed, original stories for comics, TV, and movies, joins Glenn Hopper to reveal how she manages the money behind the magic—from funding graphic novels that may not pay off for years to navigating the unpredictable world of graphic novels, film and TV deals. 
How a “creator-first” approach shows up in budgets
Building a Hits-Driven Portfolio
The Ultimate Model: From Page to Screen Economics
The 2-4 year timeline 
What Boards Really Want in a creative industry

From CFO to AI Evangelist: Maria Azatyan on Finance, and Startups

With more than 20 years of experience helping startups scale from seed to series B, Maria Azatyan has built architectures for companies across ai, robotics and the new space economy, translating complex technologies into numbers. This is coupled with her frank perspective as a single mother balancing finance leadership and advising startups. 
Sci-fi Dreams Made Real: sharing experiences with Waymo
Setting up ArmGate, empowering entrepreneurs 
One month to “two minutes” using AI to work with data
Case study: AI to Automate ERA Filings for Venture Funds
Role as ex-CFO at DocDoc.ru whose exit was ranked one of Russia’s top five IT & Digital M&A deals. 
Problems with cash flow to 45% year-over-year revenue growth 
Biggest startup challenges for finance teams