FP&A Today

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📈 Numbers matter, but stories make them resonate. In the latest episode of 🎙 FP&A Today, I talk with Brent Dykes about the importance of storytelling in finance. Brent shares insights on how to transform data into compelling narratives, why storytelling is crucial for effective communication, and practical strategies finance professionals can use to make their insights unforgettable. We explore how statistics inform, but stories inspire action — something every finance leader needs to master. Tune in and learn how to make your financial analysis not just heard, but felt. Listen at the link below: https://lnkd.in/eeEYdqg6

Forget Founder Mode. In FP&A, it's Owner Mode. “In rugby, if you observe, a player often clings on to the ball, not letting it go out of his hands until the goal is scored. That’s how we need to handle things. Own it — cling onto it — achieve the goal,” says former IBM India CFO Ravikumar Ramanan, author of the brilliant book: The CFO Lens, how to Thrive in the Fast Changing World of Finance He tells Glenn Hopper: “The expectation of a finance partner is not to stop at the sign off and say, okay, I have now committed $10m in company money. You then need to get involved in the execution of the strategy. "I changed my role from just being the person who signed off and asked for periodic reports to actually going out into the field and starting to talk and feel like an owner.” In this masterclass episode Ravikumar reveals The Bigger business context we are living through that finance cannot ignore ❌ The failures when strategy projects are not being tracked by finance 🎯 How to feel really that the results are yours 🗣️ Storytelling and influencing secrets from the finance seat 💰 Good and bad costs ⚖️ Balancing short term and long term in your finance role 🚀 My biggest advice for people to succeed in a finance role at any stage of their career 📊 My favorite Excel Function (even corporate legends get asked)

Unlocking the Secrets of Lost Sales Opportunities (via FP&A) In this week's episode Herman Kastroll (Skip Kastroll), Senior Director, Insights and Analytics at AmPhil. He gives the inside story on creating and selling a report in conversation with host Glenn Hopper. It is a practical example of effective FP&A leading to revenue-grabbing opportunities. Skip says: "I took all of our closed loss opportunities over a period of time, and I wanted to know what is it telling us? What is it telling us about the organization? About the person who made the sale? And what does it say about all the information that is typically cataloged when you have an opportunity in your pipeline." Structuring the report: 1. Start with a Catchy Title Skip's example: "Unlocking the Secrets of Lost Sales Opportunities" 2. Add a Memorable Quote Skip's choice: "Data is the new oil, but we keep losing the map to the oil field." 3. Provide an Executive Summary Skip says: "I gave a summary right away. The report was nine or 10 pages long, and I gave a summary at the front. Some people want to read the whole report and some people are gonna stop on page two." 4. Distill Key Findings into Main Takeaways In Skip's words: "I then took the distilled key findings into three main takeaways. So instead of just presenting the data, I provided what my best (3-5 main) interpretation of the data was." 5. Make each takeaway actionable Link data to potential strategies. "In particular when people are pressed with time, they will al almost always fill their open time with what is practical over what is ideal." 6. Deep Dive with Detailed Analysis "I then had a bunch of detailed analysis below for each finding. I give context and implications." 7. Tailor Content for Different Audiences "I tried to tailor different sections to different types of people. So this report went to the CEO, but it also went to individual directors who lead a team. So, I broke out some of the numbers by teams, by groups so that they would have something relevant that they could look at." "Find the genuine human impact that the data is letting you guide the narrative, that can make it memorable. 8. Create memorable charts and graphs I recommend Dona Wong, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics("whenever I make a chart, I’ll always flip through a couple of pages") Ensure visuals support your narrative 9. Encourage Discussion Some of my insights were way off base. But it sparked some thinking. Some executives said we probably couldn’t do exactly what Skip suggested, but we could maybe do something like it." Also in this episode:  🧳My multidisciplinary journey – studying math, economics, educational leadership and religion (and how it applies to my data insights)  🎓FP&A business partnering at a University Finance team 📈Leading vs lagging indicators  😻My favorite Excel function 🖇Please connect and with Skip and and feel free to ask him questions.

We are calling for grizzled Senior Analysts who aren’t afraid to call it like it is! If this is you (or you know of one) please comment or suggest future guests in the comments. Thank you to the Reddit community for the feedback and keeping us honest. We always want new interesting and diverse guests from the trenches of FP&A. Let us know 👇

2️⃣ great bits of career advice from Laura Bloom, MBA (this week's guest) who has been a senior FP&A leader at companies including Dotmatics, Salesforce, Comcast, and Icertis. However she reveals that she pivoted to accounting and finance from an early career as a contracts manager for an air cargo company. Speaking with host Glenn Hopper she says: 1. Keep an open mind about what role you take and then learn to craft your story. So for example, with contracts management, you wouldn't think that would translate over into finance and accounting. However, as part of that role I was working with sales to build the sales bids for new business. So that was was obviously finance related. Then also working very closely with accounting to give them the revenue expectations for commercial contracts and OPEX expenses for all our commercial properties. 2. In Interviews for a finance role send over your “Portfolio” in advance Though normally associated with a Creative position it gives you an edge in finance interviews. In a finance interview you can tell them your story and then you can say, look I've built up this portfolio of models of financial models, maybe a three statement model or a revenue model, or even just a basic opex forecasting model. I'd love to send my work over so you can see the quality of, of my work. And I, that's something I've actually used to great effect. 99% of the time finance companies are not expecting that, and it absolutely blows their mind. They get very excited to be able to see your work product ahead of time. So it's definitely something I tell people to, you know, to consider and keep in mind. In this episode: 📊 My passion for bringing order from chaos in finance 💼 Examples from my FP&A career including calculating the obsolescence reserve for almost a billion dollars worth of inventory on a biannual basis 🔄 Building a new model and updating assumptions (transforming the process from 6 months to 60 days and releasing $5m back to the balance sheet) 📉 The importance of data minimalism 🎲 Monte Carlo analysis giving you a wider range of possible outcomes 📈 Tableau as a data visualization tool and digging into commissions 🔄 Importance of flexibility in finance and FP&A 🔑 Most important FP&A Skill? 🪜 The ladder of abstraction 🚀 The most vital go-to-market finance metrics

72% of all data is not used in any form of analysis. And, and it begs the question why? One of the questions posed by this week's guest Brandon Wilson Co-founder and CEO of Steady Dynamic Continuing our “Masters of FP&A Data” series,Brandon works with clients from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies giving expertise to those who lack experience building digital solutions. He encourages big ideation, assuming technology can solve any problem, and works to prioritize and constrain scope relative to business objectives. He talks with Glenn Hopper about: 🤖 AI's transformation of finance and financial modeling 📈 Predictive analytics to prescriptive analytics 💰 Moving from cost center to "value add" in finance through the data 🔄 How best to deliver and integrate your data to enhance financial functions 💬 Studying sentiment analysis in your CRM to investigate pipeline 🧮 Complex models in FP&A including clustering and Naive Bayes 💾 SQL vs no SQL and FP&A 📄 The Panama papers 🔮 What the data environment looks like for FP&A in the next two years 🎯 Zero shot prompts and chain of thought prompting 🔍 Reverse engineering to get the best AI finance results

Returning guest Christian Wattig (ex FP&A leader at P&G and Unilever) reveals fascinating new FP&A insights this week. 💥 The evolution of FP&A: FP&A is moving from being seen as a publisher of reports and forecasts, to being seen as a strategic partner to the business help leaders make better decisions." 🤝 On the importance of business partnering: " The relationship aspect is super important, showing people that we do more than just cut budgets and update forecasts. Finance can actually be a strategic partner and help the business reach their goals." Christian Wattig, a veteran former leader of FP&A at P&G, Unilever, and Squarespace, also reveals new skills he has learnt as he created the recently-launched 8 week Wharton Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Certificate Program, one of the most comprehensive FP&A training courses on the market. He describes highlights from his career, new strategy, and analysis, and how he sees the future of the profession. In this episode: 🤝 The common bond between FP&A educators such as Christian and former host Paul Barnhurst, The FPandA Guy and Glenn Hopper 🏢 FP&A at multinational consumer goods companies P&G and Unilever 🚀 Startup FP&A vs Big FP&A 📚 Creating FP&A Prep to the new Wharton (University of Pennsylvania FP&A) 8 week Online Course 📖 Two great books I recommend The CFO Lens, Ravi Kumar, and Future Ready by Steve Morlidge and Steve Player 🧠 Two Fascinating FP&A Things I hadn't come across in 14 years previously: Business Driver Tree Analysis + Differences-in-Differences Analysis 📊 BI, financial analysis and data science vs FP&A 🏗️ Building an FP&A Team through four phases explained-data focus, story focus, and proactive value creation 🛠️ The importance of FP&A tools and choosing the right one 🔮 Key insights and trends for finance we will see this year 🤖 Practical uses of AI in FP&A