FP&A Today Glenn Hopper

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/
Sign up to Christian’s weekly (free) newsletter with tips and practical FP&A advice: fpa prep.com/newsletter
Connect with Christian on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-wattig/

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

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

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 Essentahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gribbon-37349b1/Connect with Laura Streather, Consultant, Private Equity at Essentahttps://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?

Geetha Ramachandran is an FP&A change agent. She helped transform FP&A operations at GE Healthcare and Cummins (“When I walked into the FP&A at GE Healthcare, and I saw the close was eight days, my approach to things is usually I don’t take things just on face value or just because someone has been doing something a particular way).”
Geetha has since swapped supersized companies for startups, most recently leading FP&A at fast-growing businesses including SimpleTire. In  her current role as Head of FP&A at New Jersey decor company, Triangle Home Fashions, she continues to propel FP&A as a “co-captain” in the business.
In this episode Geetha reveals:
Her career journey from PwC auditor to equity research to GE Healthcare 
The CPA in India and why the pass rate is only 10%
Key FP&A achievements including shrinking number of days of closing from 8 days and spending  more time on value added activities 
How to better establish KPIs for departments aligned with business goals 
Presenting  KPIs for improving warehouse efficiency at Triangle Home Fashions (pick and pack time, average utilization, inventory turnover, SKUS meeting minimal sales threshold)
The challenges at multinational manufacturer, Cummins, integrating four companies and restructuring the finance team at a time of low morale 
Doing FP&A at company as fast as Simple Tire vs more mature business 
Her approach at Triangle Home with inventory levels purchased during COVID
Lessons from two decades in business partnering 
Follow Geetha Ramachandran https://www.linkedin.com/in/geetharamachandran201/

A compelling FP&A story is essential. In this second (and final) session from FP&ACon 2024, Glenn hosts Soufyan Hamid, FP&A leader for 16 years who runs the Financial Storytelling Program, and Matthew Herbert, Chewy Director of Finance. 

First poll: How confident are you in your ability to craft a compelling FP&A Story:?

The move  from numbers to storytelling

Soufyan on why the finance director was always frustrated by my business presentations (when I was even invited to meetings)

By contrast Matthew was forced to get to grips with storytelling early in investment banking (but faced a different challenge as an FP&A business partner at Walmart)

The gap between perception and reality in our storytelling 

When information becomes insights 

The connection between business partnering and storytelling 

What (selfishly) do FP&A pros get by developing storytelling skills?

Remember you are not giving a TED Talk 

The 5 Points that FP&A Pros Most Struggle with in their Storytelling

Actionable tips in your presentation 

Follow and connect with Soufyan Hamid: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soufyanhamid/

Follow and connect with Matthew Herbert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-herbert-6a56637/

Matthew’s training course at https://biztrix.us/

Soufyan (The Finance Circle) training www.thefinancecircle.com