FP&A Today

Latest Episodes:

For the Love of FP&A: Christian Wattig Jul 23, 2024

Show notes

Only our second ever returning guest, Christian Wattig, a veteran former leader of FP&A at P&G, Unilever, and Squarespace, 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 and Glenn
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

8-WEEK ONLINE COURSE Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Certificate Program https://wallstreetprep.wharton.upenn.edu/financial-planning-and-analysis-certificate/

Connect with Christian on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-wattig/

The Art of Finance: Joe Knight on Demystifying Numbers to Empower Businesses Jul 16, 2024

Show notes

When any finance business partner–a CFO or an FP&A professional–wants their counterpart across the table in marketing, sales or HR, to understand the essentials of numbers, they hand them the business classic, Financial Intelligence, A Manager's Guide to Knowing what the Numbers Really Mean.

First published in 2006, the book has been named in the Top 100 Business Books of all time and remains a word of mouth sensation and continues to sell rapidly nearly two decades on. The classic was authored by former CFO, Joe Knight and Karen Berman. Until her untimely death 10 years ago, Karen, was also a force in engaging all employees in improving a company’s finances

Based on the principles of the book, Joe Knight, Partner and Senior Consultant with the Business Literacy Institute, trains execs at some of the biggest companies in the world including NBCUniversal, Electronic Arts, and McKesson on business partnering and the importance of getting a business to understand and embrace their numbers and works. He has also been a guest on Bob Brinker’s Money Talk show on KABC ratio and CNBC’s Morning Call program.

In addition his engaging keynote addresses, include "The Love affair with EBITDA" and "The Secrets of Finance Revealed". As CFO of Setpoint Companies, he spearheaded the financial education of engineers in this automation and roller coaster company and tells us some of his adventures from this journey and secrets to finance business partnering at the highest level.

In this episode

The origins of the writing one of the most famous business books
Why I hated my time in finance at Ford Motor Company and how it shaped my thinking and journey
Busting the fallacy you shouldn’t share your numbers with your business
Why actuals are not actual but just a guess (accountants close your ears).
How business partnering has changed
The metric of Financial literacy has stayed at 38% in companies for large companies nearly 20 years on
Why it hurts operators if they don’t understand the numbers
Focusing on three to five numbers
My experience with GE and NBC
The art of using limited data in finance
Harry Potter roller coasters and what it taught me about the ridiculous focus on EBITDA
Having seven Kids
Not being a “numbers” person but a accretive person with numbers

Business Literacy institute: https://www.business-literacy.com/

Contact: mail@business-literacy.com

When AI Outperformed Financial Analysts – Alex Kim Jul 09, 2024

Show notes

In this episode Glenn Hopper talks to the researcher responsible for the groundbreaking study which found that AI is better at conducting financial analysis than humans. Alex Kim, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, provides a full overview of his findings, methodology and the impact on FP&A, CFOs and finance from the attention-grabbing study “Financial Statement Analysis with Large Language Models”. The analysis, which made headlines across the world, found AI produces a 60% rate of accuracy in predictive financial performance. Human experts’ accuracy tends to fall between 53% and 57%.

In this episode Alex Kim reveals the implications for finance professionals:

Alex’s finance background – from a Master’s degree in Business Administration to a Accounting and a dual Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Administration- to his doctoral and PHD career
How he self taught himself coding and AI
Practically how do finance pros take the insights from this paper and use them in their day to day?
Why the model didn’t do so well with loss-making or startup companies
Improving on the performance models using a startup company data
How can you combine AI and Human Intelligence
What humans can do better than AI in financial forecasting
Future research projects into information processing for investors
How to keep up to date on the latest ground breaking research in AI and Finance
My military experience stationed with US soldiers in South Korea
My favorite Excel feature ( and why one thing about Excel still cannot be rivaled).

Read the full paper here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4835311

Check out the analyzer for yourself here: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-9P3sIn487-financial-statement-analyzer

Follow Alex Kim on Linkedin Ph.D. Student at the University of Chicago: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexgunwookim

How to get on CFO headhunters’ radars and win your next role Jul 02, 2024

Show notes

We received a flood of FP&A and CFO questions from our audience (and FP&A Reddit). These and more are put to this this week’s finance headhunter special guests: Nick Gribbon,Senior Partner, Financial Officers Practice at Essenta, and Laura Streather, Consultant, Private Equity at Essenta, who run the finance headhunting section at the global executive search firm. Hear all the behind the scenes anecdotes and secrets to getting your next big FP&A or CFO job.

Connect with Nick Gribbon, Senior Partner, Financial Officers Practice at Essenta
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gribbon-37349b1/
Connect with Laura Streather, Consultant, Private Equity at Essenta
https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-streather-451966137/

Shortage of Exit Private Equity CFOs and what you will need to fill the role
How to go from Director FP&A of a large public company to CFO of a PE-backed company
The importance of demonstrating “behavioral competencies of leadership” to pass the first screening
Getting exposure to the right industry – how important is it?
Getting to understand where you are going to have most impact in your next role
How important is the CPA?
What is the best way to get on headhunters’ radars?
What the headhunter interview looks like and is designed to accomplish for you and the recruitment firm?
The importance of referrals and how to play them to your advantage
How slow is the CFO job market?
Is being the CFO at a private equity-backed company right for you?
What can candidates add to CVs to stand out?
Salary bands and how to negotiate the most money
Salary inflation and how that impacts senior role

Will moving as CFO from a $100m to $1bn company automatically get you a higher salary?

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