FP&A Today

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

Amy Omand, Fractional CFO at 7 Seat Consulting, shares her journey working with not-for-profits. Topics include budgeting challenges with an ice cream line launch, the role of finance in education, differences between nonprofit and for-profit FP&A, cash flow management at nonprofits, B Corporation certification, and the comfort in being a numbers nerd.

Guest Christian Martinez, Finance Analytics Manager at Kraft Heinz, discusses game-changing uses of AI and Python in FP&A, including improving budgets and forecasting. He emphasizes the importance of getting comfortable being uncomfortable and his path to teaching practical application of AI in FP&A. Learn about the most awesome uses of AI in FP&A and how Gen AI will change the field in 2024.

Parth Kalunari, Head of FP&A at Adobe Express, discusses the FP&A team's approach to product-led growth, adopting a bottoms-up modeling approach, understanding the customer journey, and building financial planning around it. He also shares his transition from engineering to FP&A and the importance of data analytics in his role.

In this sequel episode of FP&A Today, guests Alejandra Boggione and Andrew Childress answer new burning budget and forecasting questions. Topics include budgeting in consulting firms, the link between forecasting and modeling, preparing for the budget ahead of time, static annual budget vs rolling forecast, challenges of getting funding for finance technology, and exploring Excel's versatility.

Frank Aburto, senior Director of Finance at Audible, shares his journey from military veteran to building FP&A at Audible. He discusses the importance of understanding customers, using SQL in your career, and recommendations for Audible books. Learn how to get a finance job at Audible or Amazon.

CFO of Airbase, Aneal Vallurupalli, discusses the challenges of spend management, building credibility and relationships, the importance of understanding context, the evolution of finance research, and the ease of finding information online.

Daniel Sousa-Lennox, a data scientist at Microsoft, discusses how the company uses AI for accurate forecasts. They developed FINN, an AI finance tool that has achieved 99% accuracy in revenue forecasting for an Azure product. Sousa-Lennox emphasizes that while AI isn't magic, it has transformed financial forecasting at Microsoft. FINN provides access to 25+ models, reducing forecasting time significantly. The podcast also covers building flexible budget models, improving forecasts with machine learning, the role of AI in data analysis and forecasting, and the curiosity about meeting historical figures like Leonardo da Vinci.

Jeff Duresky, Senior FinOps Commercial Architect at Amazon AWS, discusses cloud financial management and its importance for FP&A. He shares insights on trading fixed expenses for variable expenses in the cloud, common cost language, cloud forecasting, cost reductions, and core metrics. The episode also touches on challenges with budget inheritance, the significance of finance and engineering collaboration in cloud forecasting, and the importance of note-taking and learning from other companies in cloud finance.

Chewy Director of Finance Matthew Herbert reveals the secrets to effective business partnering and discusses insights from his 15 years of experience. He shares how Chewy does FP&A, the KPIs they manage, and the impact of being a self-taught programmer in a finance career. Herbert emphasizes the importance of customer service at Chewy and provides advice for starting a career in FP&A.