FP&A Today Glenn Hopper

From being the First kid in her family to finish high school, Swati Bagri began as a role as auditor at Deloitte (“I did what any 17-year-old smart kid would do. I just followed my friends”). At Deloitte she discovered a “love of finance” realizing it’s “what I want to do for the rest of my life”.
Swati cemented her FP&A career at some of the world’s biggest brands: Nestlé, Mars, Amazon, and Kraft Heinz. At these giants she absorbed and built a playbook to get from “good” to “great” FP&A. Behing the success of FP&A at these teams, she explains is 3 things: strategic planning and forecasting, technology and risk management.
In this episode Swati talks about:
Finance transformation as a significant part of her role (the slippery term of “finance transformation” defined as the “effective use of technology to free up people’s time”)
How predictive analytics was used at Nestlé from rainfall data, and the wider playbook of building financial models with consumers in mind 
Hyperinflationary markets like Turkey and Egypt and FP&A and the lessons learned
Business partnering roles at Amazon and Nestlé and what I have learned about successful relationship building towards common objectives 
Co-founding The Strategy Story (including learning about Marriage insurance for wedding days)
Start by Explaining the P&L and coaching non-finance folk
War stories – annual planning cycles 
FP&A-led transformation at an ecommerce marketplace business and getting buy-in from senior management through a data story
The power of podcasts to keep your at the top of your finance game 
Sky Jumping and my favorite Excel function
Connect with Swati Bagri on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/swatibagri/
Book a mentoring session with Swati at https://topmate.io/swatibagri

We host our first ever FP&A guest from the US casino and gambling sector with the head of FP&A at Genting Americas, a world leader in casinos and lodging with luxurious loactions in Las Vegas, Bimini, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom.
Bill Singh is VP FP&A of Genting Americas, part of the world’s largest Destination Resort operator operating as Resorts World . Genting boasting five public companies capitalized at $45 billion and employing more than 50,000 people worldwide. This episode  reveals their inside FP&A game including metrics such as “win per unit per day” tacking the “hold”. Bill is strategic leader with more than a decade leading FP&A and providing insights on skills and budgeting management, to insider advice about gaming.
In this episode:
Getting an unexpected offer of an FP&A role at a casino in Nevada
Why FP&A at the “nexus of data and decision-making” is an “ultimate” career path 
Critical skills you must develop in FP&A 
Giving “X+1” in your FP&A answers
Salesmanship in FP&A
FP&A metrics: “Win per unit per day and hold”
Lodging: occupancy, your ADR, your revenue per available room
Odds and statistics from tables, games and FP&A modeling 
Insider advice about gaming (including “Don’t play a game right by the door”)
The power of leading budget for the operating side and the capital budget for all divisions +lessons from 10 years of budgeting  
The impact of AI in getting answers faster for operators
MATCH+TEMPO – My favorite Excel function and lessons from drumming  
Follow and connect with Bill Singh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billsinghprofile/

What’s the connection between FP&A and Taylor Swift? To answer we are joined by Michael Stotland, Vice President of FP&A at AEG Presents.
AEG Presents is one of the largest live music companies in the world, and most famously the concert promoter behind the $1 billion dollar revenue Eras Tour by Taylor Swift: the highest grossing tour of all time.For good measure, Stotland’s FP&A team also supports the tours of Paul McCartney, Katy Perry Elton John, and the Rolling Stones, and 25 music festivals, including the iconic Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, along with Stagecoach, the New Orleans Jazz Fest, hangout Fest, electric Forest, and Firefly.
In this blockbuster episode, we want to teach you how FP&A feels (apologies to Swifties):Michael Stotland VP of FP&A at AEG reveals in conversation with host Glenn Hopper:
How growing up in Los Angeles the entertainment industry the entertainment industry was a natural choice, and starting my career at MGM
Spreading my wings at 20th Century Fox 
Building up the FP&A function at MarVista (a TV and movie production company showcasing nearly 2,500 hours of content) and the story behind a facing a “fantastic year” during COVID FP&A leadership at AEG  helping live entertainment “ return from the abyss” 
“Seeing the financials bounce” back as pent up demand was realized 
Pulling external data into daily FP&A work 
Heatmaps on beer costs and price of living as part of FP&A planning 
Managing 3 areas of FP&A at AEG:  General, systems and business strategy units
The FP&A dimension of Taylor Swift Eras Tour 
Using local macroeconomics to impact business decision-making – from the UK to Singapore and the US
How Television revenues and licensing of big movies saves movie studios 
FP&A swiftness when Kanye West bowed out at the last minute at Coachella 
Using AI to look at past events and ticket sales and performance on a contribution margin basis 
Looking to optimize how we do FP&A and ambitions to become CFO
Links between FP&A and my triathlon career 
Connect with Michael Stotland Vice President, Financial Planning & Analysis at AEG Presents: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikestotland/
Further Reading:
Rolling Stone: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Is the Highest-Grossing of All Time and First-Ever to Hit $1 Billion
Investopedia: Swiftonomics: The Economic Influence of Taylor Swift
Datarails Blog: How FP&A makes Huge Hollywood Hits

Antonio Reza is the Head of Finance for Google Cloud Consulting in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). In this episode he reveals the FP&A life and lessons he has learned over the past 14 years working in finance and strategy at Google, Microsoft, and GE. He brings experiences across 10 different countries leading teams across the globe spanning different industries (he also speaks four languages). In this episode he reveals:
How Getting into GE’s finance and FP&A training was life-changing
Why so many tech people like himself are inspired to get into finance 
Country specific differences in finance that he has learnt over his career 
Google in the midst of AI revolution and how we used AI at Microsoft for our commercial forecasting 
How AI in finance is still about automation – with insights the next frontier for FP&A
How FP&A at Google and Microsoft FP&A teams are set up 
Why “Walking  the Shop” remains core to his career in finance
How the biggest companies in the world manage real-time data
Despite the technological avalanche storytelling and persuasion is fundamental at the top tech companies
Why FP&A needs to focus on snapshots vs “real-time” dashboards 
FP&A Need to Ask Why x5 Times: The Secret of great storytelling 
Why I am focused on grasping and applying the economic picture in my work 
My biggest challenges in moving from individual contributor to manager early in my career 
How a  “failure” led to my team and I staying in the office for 56 hours trying to close an audit – and the people skills I learnt along the way 
Why Despite working at Google, Excel still bosses Google Sheets for finance teams
Using your 20s to hustle and have a successful career 
Follow Antonio at X (Formerly Twitter) 48k Followers https://twitter.com/theantonioreza
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/theantonioreza/
Subscribe to Antoniio’s Newsletter Money & Robots https://www.theantonioreza.com/
Further Reading
WSJ: Google Finance Head: Anything That Can Be Automated, We Strive to Automate
The Pyramid Principle:Logic in Writing and Thinking by Barbara Minto
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It; Chris Voss
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma; Michael Bhaskar and Mustafa Suleyman

Greg Lopez has served as the CFO and VP of operations at companies including Futurism, a digital media company, Wirecutter (acquired by the New York Times) and Gawker Media (acquired by Univision). Now Greg is a consultant at high-growth companies working with clients ranging from a “family owned business doing $20 million”,  “SaaS businesses doing $10 million a year” to private equity-backed business doing $500 million a year.”

In this episode he provides his formula for success in FP&A and finance:

How a career in finance suited my character traits and passions

Learning the full aspects of finance, FP&A and business partnering

Building to a commercial mindset as CFO

Acting as an investigative journalist for the business  

Why finance needs to lead in defining metrics in a startup

Moving from a bigger company to a startup - what you need to know 

Increasing the feedback loop in finance teams 

Expectations of CFO in a startup 

Favorite KPIs - from contribution margin and profit to Sales cycle velocity

Variables and determining drivers for the business 

One of the biggest finance challenges - developing talent and cyber attacks 

Lightning round: pickup basketball and lessons for finance

Best Excel feature: introducing Scenario planning and modeling using Watch Window 

Contact Greg

@glopeztweets on X

glopez@eventusag.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-lopez-4b248b88/

Show Notes:

Recommended reading:

How A Hulk Hogan Lawsuit Launched A Career in M&A | Greg Lopez https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-a-hulk-hogan-lawsuit-launched-a-career-in-m-a-greg-lopez/id1642784919?i=1000606411968

Financial Intelligence, Revised Edition: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean: Berman, Karen, Knight, Joe, Case, John: 9781422144114: Amazon.com: Books

Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company's Critical Functions and Teams (Techstars): Blumberg, Matt, Birkeland, Peter M., Dorsey, Scott: 9781119772576: Amazon.com: Books

The Ten-Day MBA 4th Ed.: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering the Skills Taught In America's Top Business Schools: Silbiger, Steven A: 9780062199577: Amazon.com: Books

Amazon.com: Financial Planning & Analysis and Performance Managem

Getting FP&A teams to harness their data to reach their goals is the holy grail. 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). In this masterclass, he shares a practical framework looking at the expectations, fear and hype surrounding data, analytics and AI for FP&A teams.
In this episode:
From a computer degree to leading finance teams
How Nathan discovered the power of telling stories as Chief Credit Officer at Native American Bank 
Overcoming the challenge of presenting to non- financially literate CEOs
The challenge when finance is “last in line” 
When companies don’t have good data and what FP&A teams can do 
“Federated data governance” and avoiding turf battles
why setting up self-service data as CFO came back to bite me 
Using a “metrics cascade” clarifying  data and metrics
Critical thinking as the new superpower for finance teams in the AI age 
Key to setting  up pilot AI programs 
Dinner time when your wife is also a CFO
Key quotes: Remember PPDAC. Problem Plan, Data, Conclusion.
Your Plan, what Data you need to capture against that plan, analysis, and Conclusion.“If you can master that in that order, I think from a skillset, you’re, you’re ready” – Nathan Bell.
Critical Thinking as the new Superpower for FP&A
“Critical thinking is gonna be more powerful than ever. I don’t think there’ll ever be a situation where we’re going to let AI make the decision without going through a human to look at the data. We need to ask what do we do? What’s the action? What’s the decision?”
Connect with Nathan Bell on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-bell-1038662/https://vai-consulting.com/