FP&A Today

How to win at FP&A with Psychology, Strategy and Tradeoffs

Taylor Otstot is VP of Finance at Dashlane, and former Senior Director of Finance at GoDaddy. He joined GoDaddy a year before their IPO and was there for eight years as the domain registrar and web hosting company scaled from $1.5 billion to $4 billion revenue. “By the time I left I was supporting about a billion and a half of that revenue and I was running a team of about 14", Taylor says. "So not only was I part of a business that was going through a lot of growth, but personally had to go through a lot of growth.”
In this episode Taylor reveals the psychological skills and strategy he uses to win in his career.
Insights from this episode:
Printing Excel files (aka the worst budget he has ever experienced)
Why every conversation in finance is really a conversation about tradeoffs.
Letting go of what “made you great” when managing an FP&A Team
Psychology learnings that have transformed my finance career and how you can apply them to your career
Eight Lessons Learned the Hard Way, Reflection from Eight Years at GoDaddy.
How a hard experience showed him that in finance “ titles unlock doors, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be invited in”
Why I am a big fan of decision frameworks and breaking out of your “normal default positions”
Burritos vs tacos and finance decision-making (with lessons for business reviews and business partnerships)
Why the “safe choice” isn’t normally the right choice in finance 
Secrets to building a high performing team 
The big Sales comp revelation
Noteshttps://taylorotstot.com/
Follow Taylor on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorotstot/
Creativity Inc, Ed Catmull
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
Reflections from 8 Years at GoDaddy

Your 12 Biggest FP&A Questions from 2023 Answered

We have an all-star panel getting into the Christmas and New Year spirit. Howard Tunnicliffe, Head of FP&A, The Economist, and Brett Hampson, Director of Finance, AllState, joinin host Paul Barnhurst, The FP&A Guy in this special edition of FP&A Today. They tackle the 12 most burning questions asked on reddit.com/r/FPandA in 2023. Mid-way we give you the end of year results of the top 5 Favorite FP&A Function for FP&A Pros, based on our 80 episodes!
Let us know your thoughts on your thoughts on these questions, what you want a panel to answer for 2024 (and of course any Excel Function shamefully omitted from our top 5). 
Special guests:
Howard Tunnicliffe, Head of FP&A, The Economist https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardtunnicliffe/
Brett Hampson, Director of Finance, AllState
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-hampson/
12 Questions Answered on this special Holiday episode:
How difficult is it for someone to switch industries in FP&A? 
Do you need a CPA to get an FP&A job?
How easy is it for someone or hard to break into FP&A that has a non-traditional background?
Any advice on how you run/lead the annual budgeting process? 
How do you get your first VP of FP&A role? 
How do you develop KPIs from scratch? 
How do you decide on when you should upgrade to an FP&A tool?
BONUS!!! The results of Favorite Excel Function (from 80 episodes)
What advice would you give about management reporting in a turnaround situation?
 Can you explain how the headcount process works for budgeting? How have you typically seen it work?
 If someone knows nothing about FP&A, any advice you’d offer on how to teach it or learn it? Where do you start?
Is FP&A certification actually worth it? 
How do you de-stress, especially during budget season?
Join Brett Hampson's new weekly email newslettter, Forecasting Performance at https://forecasting-performance-2.ck.page/62f28563e1

How CFOs build a Goldilocks “just-right” budget – Jeff Epstein ex-CFO of Oracle

Jeff Epstein is an operating partner at Bessemer Venture Partners leading its CFO Council where he helps CEOs and CFOs at their 200- portfolio company share best practices. Epstein, one of the most famous names in finance, is former executive vice president and chief financial officer of Oracle, with a market value of over $200 billion. Prior to joining Oracle, Jeff served as CFO at public and private companies, including DoubleClick (acquired by Google), King World Productions (acquired by CBS), and Nielsen’s Media Measurement and Information Group. Earlier in his career, he was an investment banker at The First Boston Corporation. 
In this episode:
From Wall Street to first-time CFO 
Running finance at Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and Oprah-TV hitmaker King World
The skills needed to be a top CFO
The 3 routes to CFO: Auditors, Wall Street or FP&AWhat Andy Gove OKR setting can teach us about budget setting 
What is the right percentage of time to hit budget goals?
Balancing between Elon Musk (Papa Bear) and Charlie Munger (Mama Bear) in setting targets 
Giving people the opportunity to overachieve 
Best case/worst case/base case at Oracle strategy 
The delicate balancing act of Wall Street guidance 
Using a stagger chart 
Why FP&A is so critical; how  the biggest strategic decisions involve FP&A adviceRevisiting the  processes as Oracle bought Sun Microsystems
Merger integration strategy worked on our sales compensation
Truck drivers and sales commission – a must-listen to story
How in 1983 at the Washington Post I learned from Warren Buffet and ended up scrambling to buy 4 shares of Berkshire Hathaway. Guess much it’s worth now?
Show notes 
Forecasting 101 and how to build a Stagger chart
Jeff Epstein: How CFOs build a Goldilocks “just-right” budget
Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
Winston Churchill: My Early Life 
Andy Grove: High Output Management

Why and How I built an FP&A Center of Excellence at Verizon - Ed Hyer

Ed Hyer, as VP FP&A at Verizon, built one of the most ambitious centers of excellence (COEs) undertaken in finance. 
Put simply, a center of excellence centralizes similar types of work into a single entity. While relatively common for payroll functions or “back-end transactional work”, FP&A presented an altogether bigger challenge for the COE concept. 
The creation of Verizon’s Center of Excellence at the  $134 billion revenue 118,000 employee company counts as one of the most audacious challenges undertaken in FP&A–ultimately comprising 175 professionals, took more than a year to complete and fanning through 24 different waves  transformation to take effect. Though the impetus from the beginning was on proving the concept could work, Verizon's FP&A COE has now transformed the business in impactful and unexpected ways.
“I remember one case, where someone showed there were 16 different processes here. He said he could  get it down to two, and I've just saved myself six hours on workday one. It didn't require any new tools or technology.
In this must-listen to episode Hyer reveals the secret of Verizon’s FP&A transformation:In this episode:
How my passion for FP&A was lit compared to other finance work
Leading FP&A for some of the biggest US companies including Hertz and Verizon
The “why” of creating an FP&A CoE - and it is not just about cost saving
The lessons of building a Center of Excellence
How COE-building places finance teams at the vanguard of automation
The  oh-crap moment when building the COE
Heretical answer on his favorite Excel function‼
Ed Hyer/LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ed-hyer/
Paul Barnhurst LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy/Datarails LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/datarails

All about Not for Profit FP&A - Amy Omand

“One of the myths I'd love to dispel is that nonprofits are not strategic. People think we aren’t forward thinking or just scrapping for change and trying to get things done. I've had the honor of working with organizations where we really focus on our mission in a nonprofit context in a very strategic way.”
You don’t want to miss this masterclass with Amy Omand. Omand is Fractional CFO, at 7 Seat Consulting, working with not for profits getting from early to mid-stage growth. In this episode she reveals her journey from managing FP&A at Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream (bought by Nestle) to former CFO of New Schools Venture Fund and setting up her business focused on not-for-profits.
In this episode: 
Dreyer's ice cream Budgeting Experience - the problems that can melt financial analysis with a new ice cream line launch
Passion for K12 education and the finance factor in education
The differences-and similarities- between nonprofit and "for profit" FP&A 
Why cash is (still) king at nonprofits 
Restrictions placed on how money is spent by nonprofits
Taking Revolution Foods, a Healthy School Lunch Company, through their first B Corporation certification
Why Metallica works best for budget and modeling
The comfort in numbers
NotesThe Social Responsibility of Business: Kelly McElhaney. https://executive.berkeley.edu/kellie-mcelhaney
Follow Amy Omand on LinkedIn

When FP&A meets AI, Python, and Excel

Christian Martinez, Finance Analytics Manager at Kraft Heinz  is an in-demand Conference Speaker and specialist who teaches a top-rated course, with (previous guest) Nicolas Boucher. In this episode discover the secrets about game changing uses of AI and Python for your FP&A career.
“We’re in the same era as when Excel was first invented,” says Martinez “There were people still using calculators and pens while others shifted to Excel and dramatically improved performance.”
In this episode: 
Why Python and Excel together at long last as a “game changer” for FP&A
“Explainable” AI in FP&A 
How AI is improving overall budgets and forecasting 
Can non-data science people jump right in with AI?
Getting comfortable being uncomfortable 
His path to a “boutique” course teaching practical application of AI in FP&A 
Why the best way to fully learn something is to teach it 
The most awesome uses of AI in FP&A
How Gen AI is going to change FP&A in 2024
Waterfall charts in Excel 
Follow Christian Martinez (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianmartinezthefinancialfox/
Links
FREE COURSE – PYTHON FOR FP&A AND FINANCE. Curated by Christian Martinez
Advanced ChatGPT for Finance course by Christian Martinez and Nicolas Boucher

FP&A and product-led growth at Adobe

Product led growth is a business strategy and philosophy that puts the product at the center and the key driver for customer acquisition, activation, adoption, and retention.  Parth Kulkarni, Head of FP&A, Adobe Express, recounts his chance to reimagine FP&A using product-led growth. He explains the process leading the FP&A team powering Adobe Express – a major new AI-driven product at the software giant (Adobe is competing with companies such as Canva and Microsoft Designer).
Kulkarni says: “We optimized different parts of the customer journey  by adopting product led growth. From an FP&A perspective it was a fantastic opportunity for me and my team to reimagine the way that we approached financial planning and, and supported the business.”
Describing the approach of FP&A underpinned by product-led growth, he says: “We tend to forecast based on historicals. But here we took a much more bottoms up approach in our modeling, starting with building forecasts and projections around every single critical upstream metric – whether it’s acquisitions, how customers are really engaging with the product, or what kind of conversion rates are we seeing in the product, or what kind of retention we are seeing. I got the opportunity to actually understand the customer journey, translate that into a financial model, and then build my financial planning around that.
Kulkarni, with training and a background in engineering,  recounts his path to FP&A and why a background in data analytics is a perfect route to a top job.
In this episode:
Kulkarni’s path from Data analytics to FP&A as Senior Manager of FP&A at eBay – business partnering with the Merchandising / Shipping & Logistics Business and Product Teams. Followed by his career at Adobe.
Moving from analytics to FP&A and why it is a perfect route
Four proven pillars to become a successful FP&A professional 
The tested formula to get a seat at the table in finance 
My framework for analyzing data to get the juiciest insights – SCQA framework explained
My aha moment in FP&A automating ecommerce/holiday space reports 
Tabla playing and love of Indian classical music
Steve Jobs and what we can learn about his relentless desire to understand the consumer
The SCQA framework explained by Parth
Follow Parth Kulkarni on LinkedIn
Catch the full episode on YouTube

All your Budgeting and Forecasting questions answered: the Sequel!

This follows one of our most popular ever episodes (episode 19: Budgeting all your questions answered). In this sequel episode, new and returning  guests answer all your new burning budget and forecasting questions and challenges. Joining us in the budget and forecasting war-room are: 
Alejandra Boggione, FP&A Manager and Senior Business Controller, FASTA
Follow ⏩https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandraboggione/
Andrew Childress, FP&A Solutions Consultant Datarails (ex finance at Accupac, One Inc and Flint Group)
Follow ⏩https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewrchildress/
Annette deYoung, Senior FP&A Solutions Consultant, Datarails (ex finance at JL Clark, Berner Food & Beverage, Fairbanks Morse Engine)
Follow ⏩ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahdeyoung/
Some of the questions tackled in this LinkedIn Live episode of FP&A Today (November 2023):
What’s budgeting and forecasting good for?
How do you approach budgeting in consulting firms?
Which type of budget process works best (top down or bottom up?)
How can FP&A be the bridge between the two?
How does the budget work in a startup?
What is the linkage between forecasting and the model?
How can finance best prepare for the budget ahead of time to avoid crazy late nights?
Revisiting the previous year’s budget – (what can be cut)?
How can you ensure alignment between the financial plan and operational plan?
Static annual budget versus a rolling forecast?
How do budgets help with inflation challenges?
How do you kickstart scenario planning?
How often should you reforecast?
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails the AI-powered Financial Planning and Analysis platform for Excel users.

This is Audible FP&A (with Frank Aburto)

From Camp Taji in Iraq, to Will Wheaton’s narration of Ready Player One, this is the story of Frank Aburto who helped build Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) at Audible. 
Frank Aburto, senior Director of Finance, leads strategic finance and FP&A at Audible the audio storytelling subsidiary of Amazon.
In his role, Aburto supports more than 150 partners across marketing and product where the FP&A function has been central to Audible's success in reaching millions of listeners around the world and becoming the largest player in the audiobook market (sales of audiobooks hit $1.8 billion in the US alone in 2022). 
In this episode:
How the military veteran applied his strategic skills learnt in Iraq, Hawai, and South Korea to finance and business 
Building FP&A at Audible through the "lens of the customer"
The one trait he looks for in a finance hire
Why understanding customers matters more than P&L metrics
The power of investment banking as a route to FP&A and finance leadership
Using SQL to get ahead in your career
Recommendations for your next Audible book 
How to get a finance job at Audible or Amazon
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails. www.datarails.com 
Follow and connect with Frank Aburto: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fcaburto/
Watch the Full YouTube episode: https://youtu.be/9w-MfrBN6K0

How to never be left out of the conversation again in FP&A - with Airbase CFO Aneal Vallurupalli

Airbase, a spend management company currently processes over $5 billion of annual payments on behalf of finance teams. It is a pain point Vallurupalli is all too aware of. "Moving to Airbase solved a challenge I had personally experienced at previous companies were there were 65 or 70 physical [credit]cards in a 300 person company and spend was not controlled. There was no way to forecast when someone was thinking of using a physical card, which was for anything at that time".
CFO Aneal Vallurupalli joins Paul, on Datarails' podcast FP&A Today, to talk about what CFOs increasingly require from the best in FP&A, his experiences of financial planning and analysis at previous companies, stretching from investment banking to series A companies and public companies.
In this episode:
• The importance of understanding the context and priorities when coming into a new company or role. There's always a rationale for why things were done a certain way before.• Building credibility and relationships across the organization by understanding pain points, providing value , and conveying industry expertise.• Moving from growth at all costs in SaaS to revenue growth• Why he has no single favorite financial metric to analyze a business. The most important metric is often "not financial" and varies by company.• How AI will displace some repetitive, manual tasks but not logic-based and contextual decision making which is core to finance roles.• Why having a hunger for knowledge as the most crucial way to win in your FP&A career - with most technical skills being "table stakes"
 
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.Read the full transcript: https://www.datarails.com/how-to-never-be-left-out-of-the-conversation-again-in-fpa-with-airbase-cfo-aneal-vallurupalli/Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/J0keFw4WPjM