FP&A Today

Tolga Hocanin shares lessons from 20 years of budgeting, importance of mix management in CPG, running IT and finance as CFO, building strong team culture, $1.5M reporting error response, and building cross-functional relationships.

Three revenue leaders, Paul Ignacio, Arvind Chahal, and Drew Noel, discuss the importance of aligning FP&A and RevOps, challenges faced when they don't collaborate, data issues, and transitioning between roles. They emphasize defining metrics, utilizing data dictionaries, and the impact of AI on operations functions.

Andrew Lynch, the Head of FP&A at Blue Light Card, discusses the power of mentors, the challenges of building an FP&A team, negotiation tactics, and skill stacking in his finance career. He also shares his experience of being fired by a bestselling author and being one of the few FP&A leaders on the comedy circuit.

Jon Allen and Duke Heninger, experienced finance professionals from Amplēo, discuss the challenges of managing data in small to medium-sized companies, the advantages of paying off investments, exploring alternative career paths in FP&A, and using chat GPT for finance and Excel. They emphasize the importance of education and communication to gather necessary data quickly and continuously learning to open doors for career opportunities.

Didi Gurfinkel, Co-Founder and CEO of Datarails, talks about the two directions for AI in finance - extending hands or brain. Using AI as an extension to the brain is a life changer, allowing CFOs to analyze businesses at scale with historical, internal, and external data. Didi shares his journey of setting up Datarails, challenges faced, and finding product-market fit. The podcast also explores the benefits of AI in finance, advice for implementation, and the potential of AI to push boundaries.

Tunc Tezel, VP Group FP&A at Ontex, shares his experiences managing FP&A during economic crises, the shift to private label manufacturing, coping with the pandemic, and the challenges of data in FP&A work. He also discusses the role of FP&A in supporting ESG, the importance of storytelling in finance, and using technology in the finance industry.

Guest Jack Alexander, author of Financial Management: Partner in Driving Performance and Value, discusses post-pandemic practical approaches to performance management, planning, forecasting, business valuation, mergers, acquisitions, and capital investment. He emphasizes the need for FP&A to consider external forces like hyperinflation and geopolitical events. Jack also shares his journey to becoming a CFO and highlights the importance of attitude and understanding job value in the FP&A profession.

Cayla Pingel, a senior director with experience at Warner Bros, Fox Sports, and 2K Games, discusses managing FP&A for major sporting events like the Super Bowl, the impact of COVID on live sports, differences between accounting and FP&A, and the challenges of forecasting in the evolving media and entertainment industry.

“I last came on FP&A Today before I started my new CFO gig, and I was pretty nervous. I was talking a lot in theory of what I thought it would be, and now I can tell you a little bit more of the reality. So it's been quite the ride.” Returning guest CJ Gustafson–master of the hugely popular Mostly Metrics newsletter–delivers in his custom funny and frank style the lessons from his first year as CFO and the practical lessons for anyone in finance (and particularly FP&A). His worst budget experience - working six months on an operating plan  thrown away within a week during COVID (and the surprising conclusion) Getting stamps on my finance passport getting me to CFO The biggest lessons on being a CFO-as removing blockers and letting an organization go faster. CFO as chief psychologist, chief contract signer, and chief risk officer How I prioritized my finance hires Views of FP&A as a CFO  How knowing numbers better than anybody else projected me to CFO Why BI was put under the CFO function (“it’s like putting data insights on steroids and you combine FP&A and BI”) Why ARR per employee is my favorite SaaS metric CAC payback period as the golden SaaS metric  How I (painfully) learned about the power of the “meeting before the meeting”  Creating a category for yourself as CFO Sign up for the Mostly Metrics Newsletter from CJ Gustafson: https://www.mostlymetrics.com/ Check out Run the Numbers hosted by CJ: a weekly podcast about financial metrics and business models, designed for ambitious people operating tech startups https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/run-the-numbers-startup-finance-strategy-and-operations/id1704418764 Follow CJ or get in touch with him on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/ Or Twitter https://twitter.com/cjgustafson222

Taylor Otstot, VP of Finance at Dashlane, shares insights on the worst budget experience, the importance of tradeoffs in finance conversations, managing an FP&A team, psychology learnings in finance, and decision frameworks. He also talks about the secrets to building a high performing team and the big sales comp revelation. The podcast covers leveraging technology, challenging safe choices, implementing tools, improving team meetings, and the benefits of using name ranges in Excel functions.