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 as key metrics
• Getting from CFO to CEO and the learning curve
• How we rely on AI and predictive ML and seasonal patterns to find anomalies
• Getting to base analytics and starting in AI
• Challenges and waste with cloud and holding engineers accountable
• The opportunity to save 30% on cloud spend
• Moving from Excel to Google Sheets

Connect with Damon LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damon-fletcher-bb8a6614/

https://calipersoftware.ai

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 a decade in daily overcoming his debilitating fears. Now he delivers a playbook to teams across the world where finance is “expected to be at the table, not just tactically, but strategically.”Ron is also the author of a new book: Love Mondays which draws on his experience and interviews with finance leaders.

In this episode

• Fear of public speaking I’ve carried through my life
• Kraft Foods and a leap of faith from my manager
• 15 years at Kraft with 7 jobs and five promotions including FP&A manager, analyst and director
• Transforming Kraft FP&A into strategic value: Kraft Singles and “Getting Our Shit Together” meetings
• Brendan Flynn’s leadership of finance at Kraft developing future finance leaders
• The downward trend of FP&A post 3G Capital’s buyout
• CPG and the essential metrics
• Learning what you can do to grow – listening tour as business partnering and putting your hand up

Love Mondays! A Proven Process to Bring Joy Back Into Your Work Week and Life Paperback by Ron Monteiro https://www.amazon.ca/Love-Mondays-Proven-Process-Bring/dp/B0DPMTVYY3

“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 group.”

Charaf Bourhalla has been Head of Consolidation at Nestle Skin Health, Vimian Group and Edify Investment Partner. He holds several key certifications, including the FMVA from CFI, ACCA with a focus on IFRS, and the PMP from PMI. His posts on LinkedIn reach millions of people explaining complex topics simply such as IFRS 10 – Consolidated Financial Statements, AS 16 – Property, Plant and Equipment and AS 1 – Presentation of Financial Statements.

In this episode:

• From years of struggle, to Kimberly Clarke as a reporting analyst to entering a pharma company as business controller
• 13-year tenure as a consultant developing a deep understanding of IFRS, USGAAP, French GAAP, and IPSAS,
• 3 Jobs as Head of Consolidation including Nestle Skin Health with 70 subsidiaries around the world
• Simplifying complexities of financial consolidation and non financial KPIs
• Secrets to working with FP&A for consolidation and forecasting and building a mid-term plan
• Continual training for teams in subsidiaries
• Technology and complexity changing the consolidation game
• How Charaf called in when a company found itself consolidating more than 70 legal entities using Excel
• Not to pick consultants with partnerships with only one provider

Connect with Charaf on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charaf-bourhalla-04760a1b/

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 sustainability
• Distinct shareholder structure at Carlsberg run by Carlsberg foundation
• What’s so special about the beer and beverage industry and our FP&A practices
• Power of inventory management, sales seasonality, and supply chain and cost planning in brewing
• Forecasting and planning and achieving highest levels of collaboration
• FP&A set up and management of 10-20 KPIs at Carlsberg
• Business partnering as a mindset at Carlsberg
• Visiting sites in operations at Carlsberg
• Biggest challenges overcome in budget season
• Refining my financial modeling skills

Follow and connect with Pavels on Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavels-cvetkovs-471b231a

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 classic text book, “Principles of Corporate Finance” and top business book (his first book) Grow the Pie, How Great Companies Deliver both purpose and Profit. His Ted Talk on what to trust in a post truth world has alone been viewed nearly 2m time.

So many thought-provoking takeaways for anyone in FP&A!

• Leaving Morgan Stanley to become a professor of finance
• Why I give Ted Talks rather than just publishing research
• How CFOs and FP&A leaders can think about purpose
• Is ESG a tick-box exercise for finance?
• How FP&A and finance leaders can check their biases
• How you can control your addiction to bias
• Silicon Valley Bank and why financial models were affected by bias

Follow Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aedmans/

Links to Alex’s new book:

May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases―And What We Can Do about

TED: What to trust in a “post-truth” world

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 everything from redesigning the chart of accounts, owning the month-end close, building financial models from scratch, raising millions in equity, renegotiated debt, to IPOs.

Finance highlights included leading the $400 million sale of Appetize, a B2B SaaS business in the sports industry (Appetize is the software provider for all of the MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL stadiums as well as theme parks such as Six Flags, Disney, and SeaWorld). After this, Jason launched his own fractional CFO business, Point FP&A, providing FP&A to some of the most exciting companies in the sports industry. He has the luxury of turning down clients who are not in the sports world.

In this episode:

• The Philadelphia Eagles as a ballboy for 5 years – things that are out of touch are not
• Learning accounting and FP&A on the job in my first online retail startup in New York – which eventually became public
• Getting hired at sports startup Appetize (B2B SaaS)- combining my passions for sports and finance + getting to exits
• The power of rebuilding a financial model as central to my career
• Going to market as a sports FP&A fractional CFO at Point The ideal balance and differences between accountancy and FP&A
• Secrets to rebuilding the financial model
• Being honest on my journey with AI and FP&A

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn

Check out Point at www.pointfpa.com

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 development program for business controllers at Lindström, designed to move finance from back office roles to strategic co-pilots for management.

In this episode:

• Being responsible for M&A Due diligence and integration
• Experience in successful M&A
• Business Partnering at Lindstrom
• Focusing on future scenarios
• HowControl assists strategy at Lindstrom
• Our two-year long finance training Lindstrom Finance Business Development Program
• Moving from back office in finance to having impact on business
• Lindstrom’s approach to budgeting/target setting
• Core KPIs in a global textile company
• Seeing change in controller work
• Coaching finance leaders

Connect with Evgenia at https://www.linkedin.com/in/evgenia-elezova-513ba12/

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 mentality.

In this episode:

• My journey from failing as an architectural major to FANG FP&A
• Canned reports vs the ability to create new processes and systems
• Facing an “impossible” project at Facebook/Meta
• The skill needed to win an interview for FP&A at a FANG company
• From Bootstrapped FP&A to billion dollar companies
• Raising the cap on Apple Care Products helping it become a $2billion+ business
• Clean data and analytics
• LLMs contextual awareness and FP&A
• Skills and education in the age of AI
• Becoming a builder in finance
• How VLookUp almost cost me a job

Connect with Jarad Backlund: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaradbacklund/