FP&A Today

Dave Sackett is Co-Founder and CFO of ecommerce company, AIOne,  and former CFO of  semiconductor company, ULVAC Technologies. He is a vocal advocate for blockchain and AI and finance, bringing a blend of tech savvy, operational rigor, and a  focus on “servant leadership" - that is putting the needs of the employees first and helping people develop and perform as highly as possible. He's a frequent keynote speaker, a Forbes contributor, and an active member of Financial Executives International. Cost accountant to CFO and AI leader  How I practice servant leadership mindset as a CFO  Being an introvert CFO leader and overcoming the challenges Costly failures of traditional forecasting in FP&A Where FP&A Software is going to be in 5 years  Finance AI use cases  FP&A as custodians of financial truth in AI age  Connect with Dave Sackett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davesackett/

Derek Paulson is Director of Finance and Performing Marketing at Rad Power Bikes, a Seattle-based e-bike company changing transportation. In this episode he talks about his approach to  navigating tariffs (“There  no, no word in the English language more scary to a finance professional than the word uncertainty” says Paulson as he discusses required “efficiency” and “flexibility” in their supply chains). He also reveals his approach to the finance transformation required to shift Rad Power from a direct-to-consumer to an e-commerce and retail focused model, that is “starting   with a blank Excel sheet to do the modeling for Rad Power Bikes”. In this episode: How Honeywell and PepsiCo are top training grounds for finance leaders Efficiency vs flexibility in supply chains  Is an MBA worth it in finance? Data privacy, AI, and finance  Making the case for SUMIFs Connect with Derek Paulson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekpaulson/

“The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) is a non-for-profit with a really simple mission, which makes it really easy for me to wake up and know what I’m doing every day,” says Bryan Lapidus, Director, FP&A Practice at the Association for Financial Professionals. “We exist for the success of the corporate finance and treasury professionals. FPAC, our certified corporate FP&A certification has been in the market for about 11 years now and 5,000 people have earned it in more than 80 countries.” Returning guest Lapidus joins Glenn Hopper  as they discuss the climate for FP&A including: Evolution of FP&A  and AI  Certificates vs Certification  Why business school doesn’t prepare you for FP&A roles The impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on changing the CFO role  Why you need different CFOs at various stages of a company lifecycle  Why FP&A professionals are so hirable and promotable How to become CFO from an FP&A role  

Annette DeYoung, Principal Solutions Consultant at Datarails, is an accountant-turned FP&A manufacturing leader. She has deep experience in leading finance teams at manufacturing companies including Berner Food and Beverage, Rockford Products, Fairbanks Morse Engine, and JL Clark. It was at JL Clark, as Director of FP&A, that Annette implemented FP&A Solution, Datarails to mop up inefficiencies and end drain all-late night sessions at the finance department— she  liked the product so much she ended up joining the company and has since spoken to more than 1000 FP&A professionals seeking to love FP&A again by removing tedious repetitive processes. In this episode  Why I fell in love with manufacturing and finance over my career  How creativity drew me from accounting to FP&A Why a hard-coded accountant attitude was difficult to reconcile with more creative FP&A  How to create finance business partnerships on the manufacturing floor  Why I brought Datarails into my finance team at JL Clarke  The future of Excel in FP&A Is finance (finally) making a move with AI?  The power of getting out of your comfort zone in finance  Connect with Annette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahdeyoung/

Craig Barry has held senior finance roles at some of the most iconic companies in tech and entertainment, including LinkedIn, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Electronic Arts. At LinkedIn, he led central forecasting, supported more than 10 acquisitions, and played a key role in the company’s integration with Microsoft before becoming Head of FP&A at BioRender- building FP&A from the ground up helping the company scale ARR from $18 million to $50 million. Now Barry is principal consultant at ClearSightIQ. In this episode  My winding road to strategic finance  Junior FP&A Analyst position at Electronic Arts as my first break  Cost center focus in creative industries at EA with $3b sales LucasFilm (pre-Disney) run as a sole proprietorship by George Lucas  Pixar head of finance for their Canadian operations and production planning  LinkedIn and focus on “revenue, revenue, revenue” FP&A focus on modeling for acquisitions at LinkedIn and “virtual” P&Ls Strategy for building out FP&A from scratch at BioRender  My fractional CFO life 

Mike Dion works at a Fortune 100 company. He has previously worked as a finance leader at Verizon-as well as startups and as a mentor to  enterprise giants to scrappy startups—unlocking tens of millions of dollars in value across industries like Entertainment and Telecom.  He does this through Mike’s F9 Finance:  a no nonsense website and newsletter (with 20k subscribers) passing on the skills that have accelerated his career, providing a guide to new tools (based on his experience automating 100,000 hours of labour) and secrets to promotion. He tells Glenn Hopper: “Three things, increasing revenue, decreasing expenses, and making your leaders look good. Those are the three things that move your career, not the reports, not the forecast tools to get to that.” In this episode  Passion in media and entertainment  putting in our first consolidated planning system At Verizon starting a center of Excellence (after facing a situation where 40 VPs wanted 30 decks based on Excel files    Lack of approachable finance content: introducing Mike’s F9 Finanance    Secrets to dynamic modeling and scenario planning  3 Ways teams are getting overwhelmed with forecasts   Better prompting and my relationship with AI A completely new answer for Fave Excel Function F9 Finance: https://www.f9finance.com/  F9 Finance YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@f9finance

FP&A Today goes on the road!. Our host city is Boston and the historic Harvard Club with an audience of Boston CFOs and FP&A leaders. Our first live recording sees an all-star panel of Jack McCullough, CFO Leadership Council, Michael Bayer, CFO of Wasabi Technologies, Cathy Yang, CFO Trexon.  By way of background, Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, talked of “remarkably high” levels of economic uncertainty. “I don’t know anyone who has a lot of confidence in their forecast,” he said. FactSet, a financial-data firm, found that over half of the companies in America’s S&P 500 index cited tariffs in their earnings calls—more than in any other time over the past decade. In this episode we probe how finance executives can navigate today’s complex geopolitical and technological landscape including:  The ROI of a CFO AI Strategy   How to navigate as a financial leader with tariffs and trade tensions Trexon’s Experience navigating tariffs affecting 12 business units and 16 sites Tech and AI’s role in enhancing supply chain visibility  Pricing increases for customers due to tariffs and navigating that from the CFO’s Office  Back to work or not for finance teams? The future of accounting

Shannon Nash is a chief financial officer, board director, investor, attorney, filmmaker, and CPA. She sits on the boards of Net Scout systems, Lazy Dog restaurants, and Sofi Bank, and most recently was CFO at Wing, the Alphabet-owned drone delivery company, and one of the hottest companies in the US. Here, she reveals the secrets FP&A professionals need to know about presenting to the Board and how to turn numbers into a narrative to advance to CFO and beyond Explaining the power of the Board to shape a company’s strategy The finance of film-making and my experience making a major new documentary  The power of  FP&A in securing $150 million in funding at Reputation.com   Presenting to boards -what drives us crazy How improv training unexpectedly revolutionized her executive communication style Connect with Shannon on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonknash Watch On Board documentary: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/onboardthefilm

CEO and Principal Analyst at Amalgam Insights, Hyoun Park helps CIOs & CFOs create the ROI and strategic business cases for better AI and IT FinOps. He is also host of the weekly podcast, This Week in Enterprise Tech. In this episode Hyoun discusses some of the quick AI wins for finance departments. My journey Starting as a CRM administrator to analyst  Cloud spend getting out of control (unexpected cloud bills for $20m!) AI use cases: invoices, contracts, billing and spending contracts (dealing with 1000 software contracts) and reconciliations Agentic AI and uses in Finance  Zero based budgeting and Forecasting in the AI age  ROI for AI investment People who will lose their jobs in AI in finance vs those who will survive   My futurist prediction  Connect with Hyoun on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hyounpark/ Host of weekly podcast, This week in Enterprise Tech: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2319034  http://www.amalgaminsights.com/

With nearly 300k subscribers on YouTube, Bill Hanna’s weekly videos on The Financial Controller Channels provide his audience with lessons over a 15-year career in Auditing & Corporate Accounting. He provides inspiration and practices in accounting and finance through his videos and courses “Designed To Save You Years of Learning” (as one reviewer wrote “I have learnt more with you than 3 years studying accounting and finance”). In this episode: How I stumbled into accounting  Lessons in accounting leadership  The power of mentoring teams about mistakes I make FP&A vs controller  The accounting crisis affecting the CFO’s Office   My accidental influencer journey  Bringing practical explanation of concepts through one company followed across the course The accounting concepts needed to get to CFO Having a wife who is also an accountant  Being a Mac user using Excel  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-hanna-cpa-7653a851/ YouTube channel (Financial Controller) https://www.youtube.com/@TheFinancialController Courses: https://controller-academy.com/