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Strategic Planning For FP&A: How To Nail The Kickoff Meeting
You’re in FP&A and the CFO suddenly asks you to lead strategic planning out of the blue. You just joined a few weeks ago.⚡Do you know where to start? There is a lot to consider, but one of the first steps is a kickoff meeting with senior leaders. Here are some practical questions (not exhaustive) to cover →
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Strategic Planning For FP&A: What Is It? What is FP&A’s Role?
Q2 is when many companies kick off strategic planning, and this process is one of the best opportunities for FP&A to help drive impact. The stakes are high, as bad decisions or lack of action could hurt the company’s growth or focus. Over a series of posts, I’m going to share what I have learned →
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Rethinking ROI in Finance: Key Questions to Ask
“What’s the ROI?” 🤔 This is a fair question that I have often asked during my FP&A career, but it’s not always the right one. To be clear, if the amount is large enough and/or the return is forecastable, then ROI is the right way to go. However, for ‘small-to-medium-sized’ requests with uncertain payoffs, there is a →
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Building Scalable Hiring Processes in Finance
Current and future headcount data is critical for a financial forecast but can become a massive time suck 🌀 for FP&A teams if a scalable workflow is not created from the beginning. Lately, I’ve been working with two clients, one early-stage and one more mature, which has made me reflect on how to build a →
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Follow up to ‘Building an FP&A team from 0 to 5’
Last week, I wrote about growing an FP&A team from 0 to 5, based on my experience. This week, I hand-picked sources, added them to Google’s NotebookLM, and used the software to summarize insights. By selecting the sources myself, I avoid the ‘average answer’ that AI models like ChatGPT might provide. Next, I curated the →
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Building an FP&A team from 0 to 5
Last week, somebody asked me about how I would build an FP&A team from 0 to 5. Here is how I would approach it. 𝗛𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿Start by hiring someone with a broad skillset who is eager to learn and comfortable taking on everything. Strong financial modeling skills and the ability to build →
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4 Strategic Approaches for Finance in R&D Management (Cost Savings 3 of 3)
During an interview for an FP&A role at a biotech company several years ago, the head of R&D asked how I would evaluate their sizable annual R&D investment. I suggested project-level discounted cash flows (DCFs), but my answer was impractical and incomplete. R&D is often a challenging area for finance professionals, requiring a delicate balance →
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Maximizing G&A Efficiency: Cost-Cutting Strategies (Cost Savings 2 of 3)
When the pressure is on to reduce costs, G&A often finds itself on the chopping block. It’s seen as an easy target (“just overhead”), but this view can be oversimplified and even misleading. This is the second post in my series on cost-cutting strategies. In the first I covered how to cut costs without →
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How to Balance Your Forecasted Balance Sheet
A few months ago, I spoke with a financial analyst who didn’t know how to efficiently balance a forecasted balance sheet. It’s a common challenge, so I thought I’d share a simple approach that might help those diving into 3-statement modeling. The key? 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗯𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗯𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽, rather →
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What Makes a Great Financial Model in Excel?
In past FP&A roles, I often used the slower days around the holidays to refine and improve my models. It’s a great time to step back and reflect, and ask the same question that I have posed to candidates over the years: What does good financial modeling look like in Excel? Below is my answer: The →
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