FP&A Today (The FP&A Guy)

10 episodes scanned. 22% of ad slots promote the show's own products.

Recent Episodes

1. Copy the Architecture. Not the Bureaucracy. | Eric Lin

   Nov 3, 2026

   Eric Lin, former Head of FP&A at Roku TV, discusses how his view of finance evolved from analysis to influence to decision architecture, drawing on his earlier work at Google and Netflix. The conversation covers which big-company finance processes small and mid-market teams should copy (shared metrics, explicit assumptions, driver-based forecasts, and a planning cadence) and which to leave behind, along with a layered view of AI use in FP&A. Lin also walks through a thought experiment on which reports to rebuild first, emphasizing cash flow and forward-looking KPIs.

2. Is Your Forecast Just a Target in Disguise? | Alejandro Hellmund

   Oct 29, 2026

   Alejandro Hellmund, a financial analyst with experience in financial planning, private equity, and real estate development projects, discusses how top-down targets set years before construction can become fixed expectations that Finance must defend. The conversation covers the tension between making a forecast defensible and making it achievable, the value of maintaining a change log of assumptions, and the importance of understanding the business model and accounting behind the numbers. Examples include a Las Vegas mixed-use development with an eccentric chef-investor and a failed joint venture.

3. Would Your FP&A Forecast Survive an Audit? | Norm Osumi

   Oct 20, 2026

   Norm Osumi joins host Sarah Schlott to discuss where accounting and FP&A diverge, using a SaaS contract example to show why bookings, billings, and recognized revenue differ and how implementation fees and sales commissions complicate them. The conversation covers EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA add-backs, including restructuring charges and legal fees, and how those choices can be challenged in audits or due diligence. The episode centers on how an FP&A forecast becomes audit evidence, with Norm explaining why revenue assumptions need to be reasonable and documented, including his response to an auditor's request for five years of purchase orders.

4. A System Designed to Forget Finance: Why FP&A Ends Up Carrying the Rest in Excel

   Oct 13, 2026

   Purity Kibaki, a Kenya-based CPA who leads group reporting, consolidation and finance systems at Hatch Africa, discusses why systems are often built to stop at order-to-cash and leave FP&A to rebuild analysis in Excel. The conversation covers the data points and tags that need capturing at the point of entry, how to gather requirements from the people doing the work, and why finance should shape system selection rather than IT. Sarah Slott and Purity close with practical steps for FP&A leaders, including fixing the data source before buying another tool.

5. Do You Actually Need a CFO? Instead, Hire for the Problem with Tom Hunter

   Oct 6, 2026

   Tom Hunter, founder of Story Recruitment, discusses why the first finance hire at a startup is often not a CFO. He explains that founders should first define the financial problem they need solved—typically building financial controls, governance, and reliable reporting before layering on strategy. Hunter shares a cautionary example of a founder who conflated GST with ARR, losing a lead investor, and explores how the finance skill set is evolving as AI reduces the technical moat, making communication, commercial judgment, and problem-solving increasingly valuable.

6. Would You Rather Be Lucky or Good? Building FP&A From Absolute Zero, with Katelyn Stienen

   Sep 29, 2026

   Katelyn Stienen, Director of FP&A at Good Day Farms and a top-16 Excel World Championship competitor, shares her experience building FP&A from scratch at a five-year-old cannabis company with 170+ legal entities, 10,000 budget lines, and no planning system. She discusses the critical challenge of aligning operational budgets managed by department heads with the financial narratives communicated to leadership and investors, and how bottom-up planning creates accountability. Katelyn explains why introducing structure to finance is fundamentally a people and process problem, not a spreadsheet problem, and how implementing data rails enabled her team to shift from collecting numbers to understanding what drives them.

7. The Real Job of FP&A: 40% Numbers, 60% Influence

   Sep 22, 2026

   Gauri Tambe, Head of Finance & Accounting at Genezen, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) in gene therapy, discusses how finance leadership in high-risk biotech requires deep operational understanding beyond traditional accounting. She breaks down her role as 40% numbers and 60% influence—aligning sales with manufacturing capacity, protecting revenue through staged contractual terms, and coordinating cross-functional teams around shared business outcomes using tools like probability-weighted pipelines and weekly flash reporting.

8. The $100M Revenue Mistake Everyone Missed

   Sep 16, 2026

   Devon Coombs, a CPA and revenue recognition expert, discusses a $100M acquisition that was nearly completed before he discovered through weekend contract review that the target company had no contractual right to the revenue it had recognized. The episode explores how invoice-based revenue recognition can mask underlying performance obligation failures, the complexity of ASC 606 guidance, and how principal-versus-agent determinations can distort reported revenue by orders of magnitude. Coombs shares frameworks for aligning contract structure, commercial objectives, and revenue recognition policy—critical before pursuing transactions or IPOs.

9. 50% of your job needs to be finance transformation: Anders Liu-Lindberg

   Sep 8, 2026

   Anders Liu-Lindberg, a partner at Implement Consulting Group, returns to FP&A Today to discuss why finance transformations fail despite significant investment. Drawing on his decade at Maersk and years advising CFOs across Europe and the US, he argues that 50% of a CFO's job must be dedicated to transformation sponsorship, and that most failures stem from poor change management rather than flawed strategy. He shares a real example of a transformation that didn't land and outlines three metrics for measuring business partnering impact.

10. What boards really expect - from a CFO and Executive who isn’t coaching from the sidelines

    Sep 2, 2026

    Peter McKenzie, a General Manager at a Blackstone portfolio company and professor at IESE Business School, discusses what boards actually expect from CFOs and finance leaders. The conversation unpacks five foundational principles for finance professionals—being a business partner, knowing the right numbers, storytelling with a narrative "red line," earning a seat at the table, and staying forward-looking—through the lens of board deck design and effectiveness. McKenzie emphasizes that these foundations are about influence and decision-making, not just reporting, and challenges the bloated 70+ page board decks that obscure signal with noise.