#85 How to Align RevOps & FP&A – with Seth London Senior Director of RevOps at Meltwater

Seth London, VP of Revenue Operations at Meltwater, joins the podcast to unpack one of the most strategic (and misunderstood) relationships in GTM: the connection between RevOps and FP&A. With firsthand experience leading both functions, Seth shares how to bridge financial planning and go-to-market execution—without getting caught between the boardroom and the field.

This episode is a practical deep dive into annual planning, metrics ownership, communication cadences, and building mutual trust between RevOps and Finance.

We cover:

• Why most planning processes break down between FP&A and GTM
• How to align top-down board targets with bottom-up GTM modeling
• Which metrics RevOps should own—and which belong to Finance
• What “joint planning” really looks like in practice
• How ARR and retention metrics drive enterprise value
• Why cadence, clarity, and relationship-building are non-negotiable

Seth London on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-london/

Pipeline Visibility Cheat Sheet: ⁠https://www.getweflow.com/content/pipeline-visibility-cheat-sheet⁠

Janis on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/janiszech ⁠⁠ ⁠

Phillip on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/philippstelzer ⁠

Chapters:

00:00:00 Intro & Why FP&A and RevOps Often Misalign

00:02:30 What Seth Learned From Working in Both Worlds

00:07:00 How Meltwater Rebuilt the Planning Process

00:11:45 Translating GTM Plans into Financial Models

00:16:30 Weekly Cadence, Forecasting Rituals & Narrative Sync

00:21:40 What Makes FP&A a Champion vs. a Blocker

00:26:00 Metrics Ownership: Pipeline vs. Profitability

00:31:00 The ARR Debate, Gross Retention & CFO Buy-in

00:34:30 Final Thoughts & Reflections on Alignment