FP&A Today Aarish Shah: What I learned from two decades operating as CEO or CFO
Aarish Shah is Founder of EmergeONE a Fractional CFO firm for venture backed UK tech startups and scaleups (from Seed to Series B). He has spent close to two decades operating as a CEO or CFO, and now specializes in helping startups understand and act powerfully on their numbers. In this episode, Aarish shares his insights on financial planning and analysis (FP&A) in startups and the fundamental lessons he has learned in his career.
- His “worst budget ever” when one of his factories burnt down in Papua New Guinea
- Who he would most like to meet
- His Nothing Ventured podcast and key lessons talking to players in the venture ecosystem
- Why he likes the constant “challenges” of Series B startups over other stage companies
- The difference between "building" the playbook and "running" the playbook in startups
- How to consider your finance tech stack scales pre-seed to Exit
- How FP&A should consider their tech stack
- Why you need to spending your money at pre-seed
- Investing in early stage businesses in the UK
- How do we go about creating a budget and forecast for a startup?
- Key metrics I use to analyze startups
- How startups can cope with the drying up of cheap capital
- How to get your CFO to say yes
- Favorite Excel function
- How AI understanding is the one skill every FP&A practitioner needs
Episode links:
hello@emergeone.co.uk (to contact Aarish)
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YouTube video of the episode
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