Connagh Hopkins is Head of Business Planning and Reporting at Western Power, one of Australia’s largest electricity network operators. Connagh shares her fascinating and unconventional journey from working on the global licensing for “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to navigating Australia’s energy transformation. In this episode: Who Wants To be a Millionaire success (powered by Lotus123) The Consolidated 10 year plan at Western Power Scenario planning and Inflation challenges in utilities How w...
Jul 22, 2025•49 min•Ep. 169
Matt Hudson became CFO of Grammarly – the popular writing assistant tool – after the company acquired Coda (a productivity tool)- of which he was a founding member. Now as CFO at Grammarly he is overseeing rapid change at the company which has over 40 million daily active users and $700m in revenue (and a 50 person finance team). Finance is helping pioneer a company vision of AI redefining every business application and workflow, “reinventing productivity”. To this end, in May 2025, Grammarly ra...
Jul 17, 2025•56 min•Ep. 168
Lauren Pearl is a Business Strategist and CFO Advisor who helps startup teams build data-driven businesses. The 3x founder with over 13 years of startup leadership experience now serves as CFO, advisor, and instructor for over 300 growing companies. She also runs the podcast “Growth Minded CFO” and offers a free course on financial modeling. In this episode: Financial models at startups Sniffing out BS at startups Storytelling as a pitchdeck Getting startups to engage with finance Free financial...
Jul 13, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 167
Today’s guest barely needs an introduction. Purna Duggirala (aka, “Chandoo”) is a celebrity in Excel circles. Since 2004, Chandoo has been regularly sharing everything he learns working with Excel training hundreds of finance teams, and had roles including as Data Lead, Remuneration Modeling & Analytics for the New Zealand government. The 16-time Microsoft MVP runs Chandoo.org , which aims to “make you awesome in Excel and Power BI” getting 250,000 visitors per month from all over the world ...
Jul 03, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 166
In this special episode Glenn is joined by Nate Saperia to answer the 10 most burning questions in FP&A. Nate brings nearly 20 years of finance experience including at Accordion, Spruce Finance, Hess Corporation and GE. At Saperia Consulting Nate specializes in real-time dashboards, financial planning, and interim CFO/FP&A leadership. The questions: Q1: How can I use AI in FP&A? Q2: What do you think of FP&A solutions? Q3: How can you get to driver based decision making Q4: Faste...
Jun 23, 2025•53 min•Ep. 165
Australian-born Luke Mulcahy started in FP&A at larger businesses including Coates Group (internet leader in Sydney) and manufacturing company Sherwin-Williams. But for nearly 4 years he has loved having “wow” moments of finance insights with smaller companies. closer to the $5-10million range, where powerful insights are taken straight from finance to the CFO. In his words: “You can have those moments a lot more frequently with small business owners and just tell them what they’re, what the...
Jun 19, 2025•50 min•Ep. 164
This special episode formed part of FP&A Con 2025 which saw a record-breaking 1500 registrants. The guests: Nathan Bell, Managing Partner, VAi Consulting, is among the most in-demand experts. Bell has unique experience– having started in computer science, before leading finance teams at Native American Bank, Digital Media Trends and Gartner– where he advised hundreds of FP&A teams facing chaotic data situations). Anna Tioma former CFO of Sandoz and Softeq. Most recently she has pivoted t...
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 163
This episode is 53 minutes packed with practical Excel insights for an FP&A practitioner and Excel advocate at the top of his game. Jeff Gudim is a senior financial analyst, Excel evangelist and hardcore financial model architect at Strategic Education, listed on the NASDAQ and which owns for-profit, online Capella University and Strayer University, Jeff made the leap from private wealth management to corporate FP&A, leveraging his financial planning skills and Excel skills rising up as ...
Jun 08, 2025•51 min•Ep. 162
In this masterclass Shifra Isaacs, developer Relations Advocate at Ascend.io, delves into her experience as data scientist, technical writer, and support lead providing fresh insights for FP&A and finance professionals. In this episode: Data science vs business analytics Pulling data not yet able to be modeled Python for Excel The right models for risk scoring, variance analysis and forecasting Replicating a process with a new tool using AI How can we survive in an AI first world Connect wit...
May 28, 2025•54 min•Ep. 161
Taylor Otstot, Vice President Finance, Dashlane joined GoDaddy (now a $30billion valued) domain registry, domain registrar and web hosting company before their IP. In 8 years he climbed to senior Director of Finance running an FP&A team of 14. From this experience and as VP Finance at DashLane he says he hires for 3 things: curiosity, ambition, and finance leaders who are service-oriented. “If you bring those three things to the table, you're able to wade through a lot of the ambiguity that ...
May 21, 2025•54 min•Ep. 160
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. Co...
May 13, 2025•33 min•Ep. 159
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 ...
May 08, 2025•48 min•Ep. 158
“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...
May 02, 2025•49 min•Ep. 157
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 ...
Apr 23, 2025•38 min•Ep. 156
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 ClearSi...
Apr 17, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 155
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 100,0...
Apr 09, 2025•50 min•Ep. 154
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 forecas...
Apr 01, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 153
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 Boa...
Mar 25, 2025•49 min•Ep. 152
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 (deal...
Mar 20, 2025•49 min•Ep. 151
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 acco...
Mar 13, 2025•34 min•Ep. 150
Today’s guest is perhaps the leading CFO name in data and analytics, the ex-CFO of Tableau and DataRobot. Now as Founder & CEO at Caliper, Fletcher draws on over a decade of executive experience at the intersection of finance and analytics. At Caliper, his mission is transform cloud cost and usage data into actionable insights In this episode Fletcher discusses The relationship between analytics and the CFO Subscription, net dollar retention, customer retention, and annual recurring revenue ...
Mar 05, 2025•41 min•Ep. 149
Walmart, Kraft Heinz, Blue Rock Therapeutics, and the Four Seasons hotels are just some of companies that regularly invite Ron Monteiro to coach their finance teams in storytelling. But Ron’s success followed decades of fear in presenting and public speaking in FP&A settings. Starting in accounting at Hitachi (“Ron Monteiro: “it was actually the only job I could get”) the CPA and CMA was inspired by a manager who gave him direction and mentorship doing FP&A as Kraft, as well as work over...
Feb 26, 2025•46 min•Ep. 148
“Consolidation. A lot of people don’t know exactly what it is. They think that it’s just an aggregation of numbers. Like you just add numbers, but it’s more technical than that. Most of the time when we are talking about consolidation, it’s international big groups that have subsidiaries around the world. Consolidation is the process of converting those financial statements normally built locally, because they have to be compliant with the local requirements and be compliant with the GAAP of the...
Feb 19, 2025•40 min•Ep. 147
Grab a beer and listen to this special episode. We are joined by Pavels Cvetkovs FP&A director at Carlsberg Group who reveals the formula of FP&A at the famous brand. Carlsberg was founded in 1847, has 140 brands, and 30,000 employees – and FP&A is core to their success, says Cvetkovs. In this episode: How my career in the Big Four (and audit) served as “finance military school” Moving from business controller to FP&A The essence of Carlsberg – innovation in brewing and sustainab...
Feb 12, 2025•38 min•Ep. 146
Alex Edmans is a professor of Finance, non-executive director, author, and TED speaker. He is regularly interviewed and writes for WSJ, Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox, ITV, NPR, Reuters, Sky News, and Sky Sports. He was previously a tenured professor at Wharton and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. In this episode we talk to Alex about his new book “ May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases – And What We Can Do About. He is also a co-author of the cla...
Feb 04, 2025•34 min•Ep. 145
Over the last 12 years, Jason Hershman led financial planning & analysis at successful, hyper-growth companies in the sports arena. But his career started as a ballboy at the Philadelphia Eagles. It was a job he spent months pursuing at 14 years old. This experience taught Jason a key lesson. He says: “things that seem out of touch, out of reach are not, it just takes a little hustle, a little effort.” This attitude has stayed with him as he has led multiple finance teams and embarked on eve...
Jan 28, 2025•49 min•Ep. 144
Evgenia Elezova, Head of Regional Finance, Lindström joins us to talk about FP&A and finance transformation at the 175-year old textile giant. Helsinki-based Lindström is one of Europe’s leading textile service companies employing over 5000 people in Europe and in Asia with turnover of 496€ million in 2022. Elezova herself has transformed the finance function during 14 years, during which time she’s driven M&A initiatives, to leading finance projects. Highlights include a two year develo...
Jan 21, 2025•50 min•Ep. 143
Jarad Backlund is VP of FP&A at JFrog, a DevOps platform streamlining software development and delivery. In this episode Jarad provides frank insights and lessons from over 18 years of experience in FP&A spanning Apple, Google, and Facebook (as well as at bootstrapped startups). From overseeing multi-billion dollar capital projects to leading finance at cutting edge startups, he reveals his secrets to building top quality FP&A teams, bringing strategic insights and creating a builder...
Jan 14, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 142
I speak with Anna Talerico, the CEO of CFI, a powerhouse provider of training and productivity tools for finance and banking professionals (serving 2m finance professionals, offering 5,000 on-demand lessons and 200 courses) including the famous – including the famous Certified Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA®) accreditation. She is also CEO of Macabacus, a top enterprise productivity add-in on for finance teams. In this episode: why anyone can be a world class financial analyst ...
Jan 01, 2025•42 min•Ep. 141
“I transitioned into FP&A when I realized that it wasn’t just about crunching the numbers, it was more about telling a story and trying to influence the future. Working with Fortune 100 companies has given me the fantastic platform to leave transformative projects in finance, procurement, and supply chain. I saw firsthand how FP&A acts as the strategic backbone of any type of organization” – Enrique Rodriguez, Finance Director, Walgreens Boots Alliance Enrique Rodriguez is a multilingual...
Dec 26, 2024•39 min•Ep. 140
