Note:
This episode is a pod swap from FP&A Unlocked. We’re sharing it here to help you discover another excellent show in the finance leadership space. All content belongs to the original podcast and host Paul Barnhurst.
Note: This episode is a pod swap from FP&A Unlocked. We’re sharing it here to help you discover another excellent show in the finance leadership space. All content belongs to the original podcast and host Paul Barnhurst.
In this episode of FP&A Unlocked, host Paul Barnhurst talks with Andrew Hull, a seasoned finance leader in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. They explore the role of FP&A professionals in driving business results, navigating inflation, and transitioning from traditional budgeting to impactful analytics. Andrew Hull is a financial executive with over two decades of experience in CPG.
Currently the Vice President of Finance at UNFI Canada, Andrew has a proven track record of partnering with business leaders to deliver results through strategic insights and principled financial analysis. With a competitive spirit and passion for team leadership, Andrew shares his unique approach to FP&A, analytics, and the importance of actionable storytelling.
Expect to Learn:
- The three pillars of great FP&A: technical skills, storytelling, and actionable decisions.
- Why Andrew advocates for changing FP&A to “FA&P” and focusing more on analytics.
- Lessons learned from leading finance during the pandemic.
- Key metrics for success in the distribution industry, including variable margin and truck utilization.
- Practical advice for accelerating budget processes and focusing on analytics that drive results.
🔗 Connect with Guest Andrew Hull
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewhull4/
UNFI Canada: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unfi/
🔗 Connect with Host Paul on
Website: https://www.thefpandaguy.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Welcome back to the Diary of a CFO. I'm your
00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 host for See Ya Come On, and today I'm bringing
00:00:04 --> 00:00:06 you an episode I found very helpful from another
00:00:06 --> 00:00:10 podcast called FDNA Unlocked, or Finance Meets
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 Strategy. It is hosted by my good friend Paul
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 Barnhurst, aka the FDNA guy, and if you don't
00:00:16 --> 00:00:18 already follow him or listen to his podcast,
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 I highly encourage you to do so. In this particular
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 episode, Paul is interviewing Finance Executive
00:00:23 --> 00:00:27 Andrew Hall and I really like how they broke
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 down what success truly looks like in FP &A and
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 how you can bring those best practices to your
00:00:33 --> 00:00:37 organization. Enjoy. I would love to change FP
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 &A to be FA &P. One of the big problems is people
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 get too caught up on the planning and budgeting.
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 Do you believe the FP &A profession gets the
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 credit it deserves from the business? You know,
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 I've been in a couple other places where FP &A
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 is more of an afterthought and a little more
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 reporting and back shop. And did they get credit?
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 No. Now we can better manage the budget process.
00:00:56 --> 00:00:59 I love really condensing the time frame. The
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 problem when you plan budgets over six months
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 is the base change. So many things change and
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 you got to reset it. What are some of those metrics
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 that you're always looking at to see how the
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 business is performing? Like any business, you're
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 always looking at profit, sales, trends, and
00:01:12 --> 00:01:13 growth. One of the main things we're looking
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 at is variable margin. And for an FPA professional,
00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 being able to truly split your P &L that comes
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 in the lines into drivers and really get at a
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 P &L that has fixed cost and variable cost. Set
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 a strategy for your team. Think about a vision.
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 If you learn to do that early in your career,
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 it's going to benefit you as you move up the
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 chain. Yeah, absolutely. I challenge people all
00:01:33 --> 00:01:39 the time. One way to practice that is... Are
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 you tired of being seen as just a spreadsheet
00:01:41 --> 00:01:44 person while others get a seat at the table?
00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 Well, welcome to FP &A Unlocked, where finance
00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 meets strategy. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst,
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 the FP &A guy. Each week, we bring you conversations
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 and practical advice from thought leaders, industry
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 experts and practitioners who are reshaping the
00:02:00 --> 00:02:04 role of FP &A in today's business world. Together,
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 we'll uncover the strategies and experiences
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 that separate good FP &A professionals from great
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 ones, helping you elevate your career and drive
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 strategic impact. This week, I'm thrilled to
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 be joined by Andrew Hull. Andrew, welcome to
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 the show. Thanks a lot. Looking forward to our
00:02:21 --> 00:02:25 conversation. Yeah, excited to have you. Andrew
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 is a financial executive with progressive experience
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 in consumer packaged goods. He is passionate
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 about inspiring teams and partnering with business
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 leaders to deliver results. He has a breadth
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 of finance experience supporting sales, marketing,
00:02:40 --> 00:02:44 operations, and corporate, and currently is the
00:02:44 --> 00:02:48 VP of Unifi in Canada. He loves setting visions
00:02:48 --> 00:02:51 and strategies and bringing them to life with
00:02:51 --> 00:02:55 objective business perspectives, principled financial
00:02:55 --> 00:02:59 analysis, and inspirational leadership. He also
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 loves winning. Who doesn't, right? and he brings
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 the competitive spirit to everything he does.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:09 All right, so we like to start off every interview
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 with this question just to see the different
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 answers people give. In your mind, what does
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 great FP &A look like? What is great FP &A? That,
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 first of all, is super great to be here looking
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 forward to our conversation. I love the space
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 that you own too. I mean, I was thinking about
00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 if I was starting out my career and if I want
00:03:25 --> 00:03:27 to get into marketing sales, there's so many
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 podcasts and information out there, but to own
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 the FP &A space is amazing. So congratulations
00:03:32 --> 00:03:33 looking forward to our conversation. Well, thank
00:03:33 --> 00:03:37 you. I love doing it. So FP &A to me, there's
00:03:37 --> 00:03:38 a couple of things. I mean, one thing I'd say
00:03:38 --> 00:03:42 about create FP &A, I would love to change FP
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 &A. to be F, A, and P, because I think one of
00:03:45 --> 00:03:46 the big problems is people get too caught up
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 on the planning and budgeting. You think about
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 the 80 -20 rule. I think back in my career, I've
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 probably done more 80 budgeting, planning, re
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 -forecasting less on the analytics. Love to see
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 that flip. You're thinking of starting your own
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 career. Where do you really add value? It's in
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 the analytics piece. In FP &A, specifically,
00:04:05 --> 00:04:07 I've always thought there's kind of three elements
00:04:07 --> 00:04:10 of FP &A. And what good looks like would, of
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 course, be starting with your technical skills.
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 I mean, how could you not start with being really
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 good at modeling system analytics? And I'm sure
00:04:17 --> 00:04:19 we're going to talk a little bit about Excel.
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 It's the test of time. I love the program. People
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 are trying to get rid of it. Twenty years ago,
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 it's still there. So how do you not have great
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 Excel skills? The second part is, of course,
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 storytelling. I mean, in FPNA, you're faced with.
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 enormous amounts of information. How do you ultimately
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 bring it back to business owners and explain
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 a story? What are the numbers mean? But what
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 I always say is the most important part, and
00:04:41 --> 00:04:45 this is maybe where I differ on some, is action.
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 I always kind of say you could be the best functional
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 expert at a system. You could be an amazing storyteller.
00:04:51 --> 00:04:52 But if you don't drive an action out of what
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 you're doing, what's the point? So you have to
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 be amazing at getting actions done. So convincing
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 your audience through your storytelling, through
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 your analytics to make a decision. Are we going
00:05:02 --> 00:05:04 to invest in capital? Are we going to cut a product?
00:05:05 --> 00:05:06 Are we going to take pricing and following up
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 to make sure it gets done? So you have to bring
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 great analytics. You have to be able to tell
00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 your story, but then you have to make something
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 different, impact the business. So that's what
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 I always say, kind of the three levels of FPNIC.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 I really like that. I love the three levels example.
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 I totally believe with you, right? You could
00:05:24 --> 00:05:26 do great analysis, but if you can't impact the
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 business, that last mile influence what happens.
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 kind of dies on the vine. And how many of us
00:05:32 --> 00:05:33 have done that? Where we're certain something
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 will work, but nobody listens. And that's where
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 that storytelling and influencing skills are
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 so important. That's often where finance people
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 fall off or is a great analytic, great Excel.
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 They can storytell a little, but they leave the
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 meeting and say, Oh, you know, why didn't they
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 implement it? Well, maybe your story wasn't perfect.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:52 Maybe you didn't bring that action ability to
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 it. Um, so totally agree. And the other thing
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 I love that you said, is, you know, you wish
00:05:58 --> 00:06:02 it was F, A, and P. Remember having a CFO on
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 the podcast, C .J. Gustafson, and he referred
00:06:05 --> 00:06:09 to, he goes, all too often the P is fat and the
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 A is skinny. It's like, we need to reverse that,
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 which is exactly what you were talking about.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:17 I really, that stuck with me because I agree
00:06:17 --> 00:06:19 with you. How often do we spend six months on
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 a budget and the numbers changed? How much from
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 beginning to end and how much benefit did we
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 get out of it? Probably not much. I was trying
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 to add up for this to do a little mental math
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 and how many budgets I've done and, you know,
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 over a hundred and probably the classic 10
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 hours and how many of those have they really
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 added value. And if I'd implemented the 80 20
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 through my career and somehow forced the budget
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 down and the analytics up, how much more I could
00:06:43 --> 00:06:46 have impacted company. So it's a, I think it's
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 the 80 20 of F P and A and F A and P doesn't
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 have the ring that F P and A does, but I still
00:06:52 --> 00:06:53 think if people put that in the back of their
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 heads. Um, how do I impact analytics more than
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 budgeting? Well, I might have to see how my podcast
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 does if I change the name to f a and p tomorrow
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 I don't know if it has to say ring, but hopefully
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 people get the point I'm sure they would so you
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 spent most of your career. I think your whole
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 career in cpg What have you found so interesting
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 about that industry or what kind of attracts
00:07:15 --> 00:07:19 you to cpg? Yeah, I fell into it. My career started
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 at a Canadian university, Wilfrid Laurier, and
00:07:21 --> 00:07:24 I got an internship at Procter & Gamble food
00:07:24 --> 00:07:26 company. And I worked at Thai and sunlight detergent.
00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 And I just fell in love with it. It's such an
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 amazing industry being in food and consumer packaged
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 goods. And I think what I love about it the most
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 to put it, the one word is its simplicity. I
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 mean, when you're working on a box of Kraft mac
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 and cheese, You can impact the financials, the
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 marketing, the sales, HR, the strategy. I mean,
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 it's only a box of Kraft Dinner. You could get
00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 involved in the whole thing, which is, I always
00:07:49 --> 00:07:50 think very different than if you're in banking,
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 you're working on convexity of a bond curve,
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 and maybe you understand the math, but you really
00:07:55 --> 00:07:57 understand what you're talking about. And the
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 other thing that's amazing about the food industry
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 is you see your work on shelf. So as a consumer,
00:08:02 --> 00:08:05 maybe you work on an innovation for Kraft Dinner.
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 Maybe you work on new advertising campaign. Maybe
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 you the financials on a reinvestment in new manufacturing
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 facility. You go to the grocery store and you
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 see it there right away. So you see the fruit
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 of all your work and you get feedback right away.
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 You talk to your friends about it so everyone
00:08:19 --> 00:08:21 can engage in it. So I love that I've been able
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 to use my finance degree at the heart of what
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 I do. But I also use my business theory every
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 day, sales and marketing, packaging, branding,
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 everything. So it's just been an amazing. I've
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 had an amazing career. I just love the food.
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 Consumer practice gets industry fun. Do you have
00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 a favorite product you worked on over the years?
00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 Like is there a brand that you're just really
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 worth the great experience with it's like picking
00:08:45 --> 00:08:49 children. I know I Worked at thousands. I really
00:08:49 --> 00:08:53 love delisio pizza. It was a US brand of rebranded
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 relaunched in Canada We set off the brand strategy
00:08:55 --> 00:09:00 the pricing strategy it grew from Small to 200
00:09:00 --> 00:09:04 million a short time. We are so many this disagreements
00:09:04 --> 00:09:06 and back and forth on what sort of advertising
00:09:06 --> 00:09:08 we should be doing, price points and competitive
00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 landscape. We sold the business. I actually worked
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 at Kraft most of my career. We sold to Nestle
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 and my career went to Nestle. So I got to see
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 the list, see another company and then Nestle
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 ultimately discontinued it in Canada. So I saw
00:09:21 --> 00:09:25 the full life cycle of a $200 million brand from
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 inception and I worked on. acquisition, I worked
00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 on divestiture, I worked on egg, I worked on
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 everything. So, and an incredibly tasty pizza,
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 rising crust pizza at the same time. So I never
00:09:37 --> 00:09:39 thought about that before, but maybe that would
00:09:39 --> 00:09:41 be my top one. Sounds like you got to see that
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 entire life cycle. Was there a part in that,
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 like during the life cycle that maybe you enjoyed
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 the most or lessons learned from getting to see,
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 it's not very often you get to see the entire
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 life cycle, right? That's pretty rare. So what
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 was maybe a key takeaway or learning from seeing
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 that whole thing? I mean, the divestiture is
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 always fun getting into the math and everything
00:10:02 --> 00:10:03 that comes around the divestiture. But I think
00:10:03 --> 00:10:05 probably where we added the most value for an
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 FP &A standpoint was when the brand was starting
00:10:08 --> 00:10:12 to mature. So it kind of got to 170, $180 million
00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 and really started slowing down. And we had to
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 spend a lot more time doing trade analytics.
00:10:18 --> 00:10:20 It wasn't just show up and have 20 million more
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 sales. So we started a whole team. Looking at
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 all the ads and the price points and looking
00:10:25 --> 00:10:27 at the lifts we got out of them Didn't make sense
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 to run a front -page ad at Walmart, you know,
00:10:30 --> 00:10:31 we get a five million dollar lift But we had
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 to pay a lot of money to get it that that made
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 sense So where we added the most value from a
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 finance perspective was definitely that period
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 where we took the profitability up Maybe not
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 so much the sales. It was kind of later in its
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 life life stage of the product So I love that
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 stage doing the analytics on the brand and really
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 impacting the brand, the profitability, trying
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 to get the right trade promotion management mix.
00:10:54 --> 00:10:57 Sure. That makes that makes a lot of sense. So
00:10:57 --> 00:10:59 tell us about your current role. I know you're
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 a VP there in Canada and working for a consumer
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 packaged goods. Tell us about the company and
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 what you're doing today. Yeah. So it unifies
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 the largest food distributor in North America.
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 So we do about 30 billion dollars in sales. So
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 great organization. Like I said, I've started
00:11:15 --> 00:11:18 my whole career has been in CBG. I started 18
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 years at Kraft. I did four at Nestle and now
00:11:20 --> 00:11:24 I've been four years at UNFI. So I'm the lead
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 for finance in Canada. It's great company, really
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 good people, different being in a distributor
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 and kind of a CPG company. I mean, obviously
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 our margins are a little bit lower, public information
00:11:35 --> 00:11:39 on margins and distribution industry. So I own
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 everything finance, treasury, cashflow, taxes,
00:11:43 --> 00:11:47 banking, P &L, budgeting. Fantastic job what
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 I always want to do run a finance organization
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 So I get the leadership aspect a ton of analytics
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 budgeting a lot of time with a leadership team
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 a great leadership team in Canada and Get a great
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 organization in the US some companies I work
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 for we have another best relationship back and
00:12:02 --> 00:12:05 forth, but we've got great leaders in the US
00:12:05 --> 00:12:08 great strategy Really enjoyed the company. It's
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 been it's been fantastic and I really get to
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 use my whole finance degree on the whole gamut
00:12:14 --> 00:12:18 of Beyond fpna accounting treasury everything
00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 as well. So the first role where you've owned
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 everything where you've had all the different
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 functions Yeah, so at craft I moved through kind
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 of strategy up any corporate fpna marketing and
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 brand fpna operations so I've owned plants and
00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 distribution centers and Nestle I ran sales finance
00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 and then Category finance, but this is the first
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 one I've been able to see it all which is was
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 kind of always my goal to be able to get that
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 spot so Amazing experience exactly kind of what
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 I wanted. Well, congratulations. What, uh, what
00:12:49 --> 00:12:53 was the hardest adjustment or maybe thing you
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 were surprised the most by is you went from maybe
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 having just an area to kind of having all of
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 finance. I had my big surprises because I think
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 the way my career was set up. Kraft and Nestle
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 were really good at rotating you through. So
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 I think you're starting, I think it was starting
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 your own career. I've had to get into a big company
00:13:11 --> 00:13:14 that will move you laterally between roles. So
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 I did so many different functions that when I
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 got into this role, I've already done treasury,
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 I've already done accounting, I've already done
00:13:21 --> 00:13:22 corporate, I've done a little bit of everything.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 So to see it all together, I could leverage all
00:13:25 --> 00:13:27 those little parts. You get some people off and
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 they're trying to rush their way up there. The
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 learning career curve, you know, it's not bad
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 taking some lateral roles along the way and make
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 sure you have a good understanding. And I really
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 think it's helped me in this job that I haven't
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 had a ton of surprises. And of course, I've got
00:13:41 --> 00:13:44 a great team around me. I don't understand everything
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 going on, but I've got great leaders underneath
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 to help with that. So I'm not an expert yet.
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 It'd be a big change moving to distribution,
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 a lot different sort of financial model and where
00:13:53 --> 00:13:57 we add value than what Nessia crafted, but no
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 major surprises. And I think that's partly due
00:14:00 --> 00:14:03 to the kind of career trajectory moving around
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 and up at the same time. Yeah, that's great.
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 Cause I agree with you. Sometimes we are in such
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 a hurry to move up that we just take that next
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 role when we might be better off taking a lateral
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 in the long run and gaining some additional experience.
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 the better prepares us down the road. But when
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 we're young, we often don't want to hear that.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 Oh, wait, more money. More money. How do I go
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 to the top? Look at this. I've seen so many examples
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 of people going too fast and making some money
00:14:30 --> 00:14:31 and doing okay, but then running into problems.
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 They haven't had the leadership experience maybe.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 I had some great examples of a big team. So I
00:14:37 --> 00:14:39 had team experience, a leadership experience,
00:14:39 --> 00:14:42 which set me up for this. So one of the big advice
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 I give to people starting out is, is accept lateral
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 roles if it keeps growing, you're learning. So
00:14:47 --> 00:14:51 lateral maybe into another brand, okay, but can
00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 you get a lateral into another function? Can
00:14:53 --> 00:14:55 you get into strategy or in a corporate or in
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 operations or see a plant get into the service
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 division, get into treasury? One thing that's
00:15:01 --> 00:15:03 amazing I find with, you know, I used to think
00:15:03 --> 00:15:06 FP &A was kind of the core of finance, but you
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 really realize that you've got to do accounting
00:15:08 --> 00:15:10 roles. You've got to do treasury roles. You've
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 got to touch banking and insurance to be able
00:15:12 --> 00:15:16 to do a CFO job. So FP &A is certainly the core
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 of it, but It's really important to get some
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 lateral moves to your career to be able to do
00:15:20 --> 00:15:22 that as well. Yeah. As I've heard someone put
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 it, we had a guy on, they call it the finance
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 passport. Oh, that's a lot of it. If you want
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 to move up to CFO, there's certain things you
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 need to stamp, whether it's taking a role or
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 working on a special project, right? You don't
00:15:34 --> 00:15:35 have to be an expert in all of them, but you
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 definitely have to be able to check the boxes
00:15:38 --> 00:15:39 enough that somebody's comfortable to say, yeah,
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 you can run my finance function. I'm going to
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 steal that. Is that a wrong idea? I don't know
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 if it's someone else. No, the guy came from Jeff.
00:15:48 --> 00:15:50 I'm trying to remember his last name. It was
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 almost two years ago. I interviewed him, but
00:15:52 --> 00:15:54 it was something with Gartner. They used it at
00:15:54 --> 00:15:56 the at the company and they talked about how
00:15:56 --> 00:15:59 there's finance athletes and finance specialists.
00:16:00 --> 00:16:01 And depending on the role you wanted, you needed
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 to stamp certain things in your passport, especially
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 if you want to move up to CFO or higher roles
00:16:07 --> 00:16:11 with a broader responsibility. So it was a really
00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 really cool framework they'd implemented in their
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 company and I interviewed him about it. Jeff,
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 I'll find the name and email it to you. I can't
00:16:17 --> 00:16:20 remember offhand, but yeah, craft was great at
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 giving you the opportunities to, I'm going to
00:16:22 --> 00:16:23 steal that stamp your passport because you just
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 rotate through so many elements. And I find when
00:16:26 --> 00:16:28 I got to this Ross, I I've touched all this,
00:16:28 --> 00:16:31 maybe not an expert. Maybe I forget some of it.
00:16:31 --> 00:16:33 Certainly my Excel skills are not what they were
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 10 years ago when I was doing modeling, but I've
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 got a good passport to go with it. Sure, I think
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 what's pretty common most most CFOs are not spending
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 the same amount of time modeling as they were
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 as an analyst or a manager Yeah, funny story.
00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 My team makes fun of me a lot when we go on screen
00:16:50 --> 00:16:52 and do an analysis and I pull up Excel You can
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 see their faces like get this guy off Excel.
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 That's our job. He's not very good anymore So
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 back in the day I could run macros and V look
00:17:00 --> 00:17:03 up with the best of them and now this new generation
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 Just blows me away And it's good. I don't need
00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 that skill set anymore. I can do basic stuff.
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 I can analyze what comes out of Excel with the
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 best of them, but I get made fun of quite a bit.
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 I was there making fun of me even back at Kraft
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 and Nestle at my weakening Excel skills over
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 time. Hey, you know, that's usually what happens.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 And as long as you can do the analysis and do
00:17:23 --> 00:17:27 the job, that's what's important. As I say, no,
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 no, no business person ever asked, did you use
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 the latest formula in Excel for that? They really
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 don't care. The output, the assumptions, how's
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 it going to help me? So I'd love to ask, you
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 joined Unifi during the pandemic. What was that
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 experience like maybe for you coming into a new
00:17:43 --> 00:17:44 company and just for the company as a whole?
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 I imagine that was an incredibly challenging
00:17:48 --> 00:17:52 time with all the disruptions we had to supply
00:17:52 --> 00:17:54 chain and everything going on. Well, it was an
00:17:54 --> 00:17:56 amazing experience personally because I had to
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 learn sort of the leadership role of finance.
00:17:59 --> 00:18:01 Um, I made sure that I talked to a lot of people
00:18:01 --> 00:18:03 before I came in. It was the right culture, right
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 place. Uh, I had some friends here, some ex -craft
00:18:06 --> 00:18:08 colleagues that made the transition really smooth.
00:18:08 --> 00:18:11 So that was really good. The, the big thing for
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 UNFI and for a lot of food companies is our business
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 was on fire. I mean, if you look back and look
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 at public information on sales, obviously we
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 are stealing from restaurant chains. Um, what
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 I say a lot of it, this was in my career where
00:18:23 --> 00:18:27 I've seen FP &A add the most value because the
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 general questions were. Why is our business doing
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 so well? And what is the underlying driver of
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 what that was? Is it actual case growth because
00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 our business is doing well, our brands doing
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 well, or is this simply because we've got a trade
00:18:40 --> 00:18:42 off for people trading down from restaurant chains?
00:18:43 --> 00:18:44 That was the start of the pandemic. Then the
00:18:44 --> 00:18:48 next question became when inflation hit and what
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 is right? What's driving the inflation? How do
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 we control it? What can we pass along through
00:18:53 --> 00:18:57 the supply chain and then? How does this all
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 come together? So a ton of analysis on what's
00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 the underlying inflation? What will continue?
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 What won't? We learned a lot going through that.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:08 So great experience. Definitely a time for FPA
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 to shine. I saw my team and other teams in our
00:19:11 --> 00:19:13 company do a ton of analytics and really help
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15 kind of guide the company on where we're going.
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 Yeah. And I'm curious in general, going through
00:19:18 --> 00:19:22 that experience, any advice on managing inflation?
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 Because I think that's something every company
00:19:25 --> 00:19:27 Struggled with right is this transitory is the
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29 permanent how much do i raise prices how much
00:19:29 --> 00:19:32 will that hurt volume so many things go into
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 that how did you kind of think about that maybe
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38 some lessons learned from going through that
00:19:38 --> 00:19:42 definitely a lot of raw analytics we try to get
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 as much information we could whether it was sort
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 of nielsen information from the industry. um,
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49 as much as we could on our own business. So a
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 lot of sort of good fundamental that was not
00:19:52 --> 00:19:54 through a high level, like do quick analysis
00:19:54 --> 00:19:57 that was down at skew levels on what's driving
00:19:57 --> 00:20:00 pricing. So really good tools and modeling. I
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 mean, I think in business and finance, you really
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 need to know when you need to do an A plus job
00:20:05 --> 00:20:07 and get something really good. And when you can
00:20:07 --> 00:20:09 kind of float, I'd say to my team a lot, I'm
00:20:09 --> 00:20:11 okay. You're doing a B job on this. You don't
00:20:11 --> 00:20:13 need it to be perfect. That one needed to be
00:20:13 --> 00:20:16 perfect because it was at such big consequences.
00:20:16 --> 00:20:19 Um, so probably that was one is making sure that
00:20:19 --> 00:20:22 because of the impact was so big, making sure
00:20:22 --> 00:20:25 we had good, good, uh, analytics to go with it.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 Maybe the better ones, a lot of conversation
00:20:28 --> 00:20:32 with leadership and then a lot of, uh, potentially
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34 risk taking on what do we think the market's
00:20:34 --> 00:20:37 going to do? We did a lot of sort of game theories.
00:20:38 --> 00:20:39 What will competitors do? What will other people
00:20:39 --> 00:20:41 do? How everyone reacts. So a lot of the thing
00:20:41 --> 00:20:45 I love about FP &A and math is the transition.
00:20:45 --> 00:20:48 out of the analytic onto the whiteboard. So I
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 love getting together with cross -functional
00:20:50 --> 00:20:52 leaders or president and everyone else and saying,
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 OK, this is what the math shows. Let's start
00:20:55 --> 00:20:56 drawing some pictures out here of what could
00:20:56 --> 00:20:58 happen. What if this scenario happens? What is
00:20:58 --> 00:21:00 this scenario happens? What should we do? How
00:21:00 --> 00:21:03 would we react? So great financial analysis and
00:21:03 --> 00:21:06 something that needed an A plus, not a B job.
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 And then a transition to sort of whiteboarding
00:21:09 --> 00:21:11 and higher level analytics and putting the two
00:21:11 --> 00:21:14 of them together. And now a brief message from
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00:22:09 --> 00:22:13 teams go to think forward. Yeah. I loved how
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 you said the transition. You talked earlier about
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 storytelling, and I've shared this experience
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 many times on different podcasts. I still remember
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 one of the worst experiences I had presenting
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 something is it went terrible. Later, I asked
00:22:24 --> 00:22:27 my boss what happened, and he's like, your analysis
00:22:27 --> 00:22:30 was brilliant. Your presentation lacked and gets
00:22:30 --> 00:22:32 exactly to your point of sometimes we struggle
00:22:32 --> 00:22:35 to make that transition. So any advice thoughts?
00:22:35 --> 00:22:38 You got all the analysis done. Any thoughts on
00:22:38 --> 00:22:40 transitioning it to the whiteboard, making sure
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 the business It's the key takeaways. Is there
00:22:43 --> 00:22:46 something you've done in your career when you're
00:22:46 --> 00:22:48 putting together that presentation or, you know,
00:22:48 --> 00:22:50 putting it on the whiteboard that's really helped
00:22:50 --> 00:22:53 you connect with your business partners? Well,
00:22:53 --> 00:22:56 plug for a friend. Ron Montero teaches some good
00:22:56 --> 00:22:58 whole courses in this area. He's really good
00:22:58 --> 00:23:00 at this. I wasn't taking away a lot of what he
00:23:00 --> 00:23:04 said, but I just really liked the simplicity
00:23:04 --> 00:23:08 of pictures and how do you get Generally, you've
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 got analysis with a million data points that
00:23:10 --> 00:23:12 you've got to bring it down to a story. I love
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 getting it on the one page and I love getting
00:23:15 --> 00:23:17 it into storytelling or pictures or visuals.
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 But at minimum, I got a lot of appendices. If
00:23:21 --> 00:23:23 you want to go into details, it's all here, but
00:23:23 --> 00:23:26 I'm going to give you one page with a story and
00:23:26 --> 00:23:28 an actionable insight and a recommendation on
00:23:28 --> 00:23:31 where to move. So how do you take all the hits
00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 on a one page everyone goes to powerpoint get
00:23:33 --> 00:23:35 on one page on powerpoint and this is my record
00:23:35 --> 00:23:39 can i love to get pictures and if i can. On inflation
00:23:39 --> 00:23:41 definitely inflation curves here's where we were
00:23:41 --> 00:23:44 here's where it's going here's what we see you
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 know visuals really help people to bring it to
00:23:46 --> 00:23:51 life so one page. Visuals simple in english.
00:23:52 --> 00:23:54 um, you know Analogy sometime that a kindergarten
00:23:54 --> 00:23:57 student would learn would understand or how do
00:23:57 --> 00:23:59 you think to yourself? I've spent a hundred hours
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 looking at this That other person hasn't so how
00:24:01 --> 00:24:05 do I explain to them in english? Yeah, I love
00:24:05 --> 00:24:07 that. So i'm hearing the advice is and one of
00:24:07 --> 00:24:10 the big things is really boil it down And get
00:24:10 --> 00:24:14 it to that one page focus on english not finance
00:24:14 --> 00:24:19 terms simple put pictures in there, but make
00:24:19 --> 00:24:23 sure you also have a recommendation and a call
00:24:23 --> 00:24:26 to action that you don't just give them the data
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 and leave it at that, that you help further the
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 discussion so that actions can be taken at the
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 end of the meeting or the whiteboard session
00:24:34 --> 00:24:37 or whatever it might be. That's perfect. And
00:24:37 --> 00:24:39 I think we're tired of the start that you need
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 the call to action. There's no point doing analysis
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 and tell a story if it doesn't come with a recco
00:24:45 --> 00:24:47 that also gets implemented. It gets followed
00:24:47 --> 00:24:50 up. It's actionable. It's simple. It makes sense.
00:24:50 --> 00:24:53 and it ties back ideally to your company strategy
00:24:53 --> 00:24:55 too. You're not coming up with a record that
00:24:55 --> 00:24:57 doesn't tie back to what your leaders have told
00:24:57 --> 00:25:00 you as a strategy for the company. Yeah. I love
00:25:00 --> 00:25:02 that you mentioned a time back to the, to the
00:25:02 --> 00:25:05 strategy. Cause often you see that's where you
00:25:05 --> 00:25:07 kind of get off the rail. Sometimes some comes
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09 up with an idea. It has nothing to do with strategy
00:25:09 --> 00:25:11 and you get distracted and try implementing it.
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 You're looking back going, why did we do that?
00:25:13 --> 00:25:16 That doesn't fit for us at all. I've definitely
00:25:16 --> 00:25:18 seen that more than once. I want to go back to
00:25:18 --> 00:25:20 unify for a minute. I know it's a. Obviously,
00:25:21 --> 00:25:24 low margin, high volume business, right? You're
00:25:24 --> 00:25:27 sending a ton of stuff out. Are there some key
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30 metrics you really like to watch closely in this
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 business or what are some of those metrics that
00:25:32 --> 00:25:34 you're always looking at to see how the business
00:25:34 --> 00:25:37 is performing? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like
00:25:37 --> 00:25:39 any business, you're always looking at profit,
00:25:39 --> 00:25:41 sales, trends, and growth. That would be anywhere,
00:25:41 --> 00:25:44 but I would say fundamentally in this process,
00:25:45 --> 00:25:47 just about any business, certainly in manufacturing,
00:25:47 --> 00:25:49 one of the main things we're looking at is variable
00:25:49 --> 00:25:51 margin. And for an FPA professional, being able
00:25:51 --> 00:25:55 to truly split your P &L that comes into lines
00:25:55 --> 00:25:58 into drivers and really get it a P &L that has
00:25:58 --> 00:26:01 fixed cost and variable cost. So taking that
00:26:01 --> 00:26:04 P &L and saying, okay, on every case we sell,
00:26:04 --> 00:26:07 How much money do we make on that case on a variable
00:26:07 --> 00:26:09 basis? And then we will make a different action
00:26:09 --> 00:26:12 on that versus how we tackle our fixed costs.
00:26:12 --> 00:26:15 So it's back to management accounting 101, splitting
00:26:15 --> 00:26:17 your variable fixed costs. We spend a lot of
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 time looking at variable margin and we do that
00:26:20 --> 00:26:22 total company. What's our variable margin? How's
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 that trending? And then what is it by customer?
00:26:25 --> 00:26:28 And what is it by business unit or brand? And
00:26:28 --> 00:26:29 then that comes obviously with trending and the
00:26:29 --> 00:26:31 ups and downs and a lot of analytics that comes
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 with that. In distribution specifically, you're
00:26:34 --> 00:26:36 doing a lot. I mean, the value added we bring
00:26:36 --> 00:26:39 is ultimately the distribution element of it.
00:26:39 --> 00:26:42 So the transportation. So we have a lot of metrics
00:26:42 --> 00:26:44 that look at truck utilization. I mean, in a
00:26:44 --> 00:26:47 day we want our truck to be full. A half -filled
00:26:47 --> 00:26:50 truck is no good. So we look at truck utilization.
00:26:50 --> 00:26:52 Labor obviously is a big one. So labor per case
00:26:52 --> 00:26:55 sold would be a big one. And then our industry
00:26:55 --> 00:26:57 too. I mean, we've got to keep our fixed costs
00:26:57 --> 00:27:00 as low as possible. So SG &A is a percentage
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 of sales. One thing I'll bring up on that just
00:27:03 --> 00:27:05 from an FP &A perspective where you can add value
00:27:05 --> 00:27:08 is it's easy to do your fixed cost as a percent
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10 and compare versus history. What I always like
00:27:10 --> 00:27:13 to bring up as a good FP &A professional is you
00:27:13 --> 00:27:16 should be looking for benchmarks. So the fact
00:27:16 --> 00:27:19 that our SG &A percent is up or down is nice,
00:27:19 --> 00:27:22 but what does good look like? What are our competitors
00:27:22 --> 00:27:23 like? There's usually public information out
00:27:23 --> 00:27:27 there on that. What's industry benchmarks? A
00:27:27 --> 00:27:29 lot of tools out there to give you industry benchmarks.
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 So when you bring forward, You know, finance
00:27:31 --> 00:27:34 is a percentage of total revenue and you say
00:27:34 --> 00:27:37 it's X percent. Is that good? Is that bad? Is
00:27:37 --> 00:27:38 that sideways? How does the industry compare?
00:27:39 --> 00:27:40 What are our peers compared to that? What do
00:27:40 --> 00:27:42 you hear in the industry? So it's great to provide
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 that point of comparison and managing as well
00:27:44 --> 00:27:47 to help assess and bring a record for it on what
00:27:47 --> 00:27:48 we should be doing. I agree with you. I think
00:27:48 --> 00:27:52 it's a great point of benchmark and it's so much
00:27:52 --> 00:27:56 easier to get analysis of competitors. I mean,
00:27:56 --> 00:27:59 Generative AI is great at summarizing a 10Q or
00:27:59 --> 00:28:03 10K. You know, use it to ask some questions and
00:28:03 --> 00:28:04 get yourself started. It may not get you 100
00:28:04 --> 00:28:06 % of the way there, but what if it gets you 80
00:28:06 --> 00:28:10 % and saves you a day? Have you started using
00:28:10 --> 00:28:14 ChatGBT and these other AI platforms? Like the
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 last year, I can't tell you how often I use them.
00:28:17 --> 00:28:19 They're so powerful. I mean, a little bit of
00:28:19 --> 00:28:21 personal stuff. I use it at work stuff all the
00:28:21 --> 00:28:25 time. Incredibly powerful for saving time. Basic
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 stuff like take this email and make it more professional.
00:28:28 --> 00:28:30 Simple stuff like that. Competitive analysis.
00:28:31 --> 00:28:33 And I don't know about you, but I'm finding 98
00:28:33 --> 00:28:36 % accuracy. I asked the questions and I read
00:28:36 --> 00:28:39 through it. Say, okay, I just saved myself 10
00:28:39 --> 00:28:40 hours and it probably has one little mistake
00:28:40 --> 00:28:43 in it I could fix. So what about you and your
00:28:43 --> 00:28:45 site? Are you using it a lot? Yeah, I definitely
00:28:45 --> 00:28:47 use it quite a bit. I mean, I have a subscription
00:28:47 --> 00:28:51 to Copilot, to ChatGPT and to Claude. So yeah,
00:28:51 --> 00:28:54 I'm definitely using all three. I use Claude
00:28:54 --> 00:28:57 a lot for summarizing my podcasts, because I
00:28:57 --> 00:29:00 used to go back and rewatch him to write my post
00:29:00 --> 00:29:02 and to come up with things, and now I just get
00:29:02 --> 00:29:05 the summary. I have him give me key quotes, give
00:29:05 --> 00:29:07 me the key takeaways, write the article, and
00:29:07 --> 00:29:10 then I just go through and edit it. I rarely
00:29:10 --> 00:29:12 have to go back to the transcript. Occasionally
00:29:12 --> 00:29:13 I will, because I know they said something about
00:29:13 --> 00:29:16 this or I don't like that. What exactly did they
00:29:16 --> 00:29:18 say? But it saves me. I mean, it reduces it.
00:29:19 --> 00:29:21 Probably from an hour, hour and a half I would
00:29:21 --> 00:29:24 spend into 15, 20 minutes. It's a great time
00:29:24 --> 00:29:26 saver. So that's one area I use it a lot. I've
00:29:26 --> 00:29:30 used it in analysis. Today, I was using AI to
00:29:30 --> 00:29:32 try to see how it did on creating clips from
00:29:32 --> 00:29:35 a podcast. There's a lot of tools out there.
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37 And I was just kind of testing it this morning.
00:29:37 --> 00:29:40 So definitely use it quite a bit. Excel formulas,
00:29:40 --> 00:29:42 it's great. If you can't remember the syntax
00:29:42 --> 00:29:45 for something, just ask it. As long as it's not
00:29:45 --> 00:29:47 a brand new formula, it will tell you exactly
00:29:47 --> 00:29:50 how to write it. I will not be using it for Excel
00:29:50 --> 00:29:53 formulas, but I use it for so many other things.
00:29:54 --> 00:29:57 My team would laugh at me if I pulled out chat
00:29:57 --> 00:29:59 GBT and started asking it Excel formulas, but.
00:29:59 --> 00:30:00 Well, you know, you should do that just to see
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 what they do. You know, wait, is it April 1st?
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 Now you say it, maybe I'll wow them and get some
00:30:05 --> 00:30:08 new funky formula and say, hey, your H lookup
00:30:08 --> 00:30:10 looks like you forgot to put the index formula
00:30:10 --> 00:30:12 inside it. So. Well, good luck. Let me know how
00:30:12 --> 00:30:14 that treats you. I'll be curious to see what
00:30:14 --> 00:30:18 you end up with. Probably not well. So you had
00:30:18 --> 00:30:21 mentioned in your LinkedIn bio that you love
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 setting visions and strategy, but those are two
00:30:24 --> 00:30:27 things you love doing. What is it you love about
00:30:27 --> 00:30:32 that? Why those, those elements? The heart of
00:30:32 --> 00:30:35 it, it's, it's fun is the simple word. It's super
00:30:35 --> 00:30:37 enjoyable getting involved in strategy and vision.
00:30:37 --> 00:30:40 I think part of it, after doing my MBA, I got
00:30:40 --> 00:30:42 a lot more exposure, a lot more readings to that
00:30:42 --> 00:30:45 side. And you, you just, it's incredible to see
00:30:45 --> 00:30:48 something come together. Uh, and it's need an
00:30:48 --> 00:30:50 FPA, usually doing analytics, bringing recommendation
00:30:50 --> 00:30:52 on certain parts of a business. But if you could
00:30:52 --> 00:30:56 start with setting the vision strategy or as
00:30:56 --> 00:30:58 maybe you're more junior in your career, maybe
00:30:58 --> 00:31:00 it's just a brand, maybe it's a division of business,
00:31:00 --> 00:31:03 you get more senior, the whole company. If you
00:31:03 --> 00:31:05 can set a strategy and a corporate direction,
00:31:06 --> 00:31:08 have the leadership to have your team follow
00:31:08 --> 00:31:10 you and then bring analytics to back it up and
00:31:10 --> 00:31:13 make recommendations on the way. So powerful.
00:31:13 --> 00:31:15 I was using a Delicio example before a little
00:31:15 --> 00:31:18 bit of setting strategies along the way and bringing
00:31:18 --> 00:31:21 analysis and bringing it together. So it's fun.
00:31:21 --> 00:31:24 It brings together. I find a lot of my education
00:31:24 --> 00:31:27 from school because you can bring in marketing,
00:31:27 --> 00:31:30 HR, sales, finance, bring it all together, bring
00:31:30 --> 00:31:33 a corporate strategy in. I always to challenge
00:31:33 --> 00:31:36 my teams, even if they had a team of two or three
00:31:36 --> 00:31:38 people, I'm like, build a strategy for your team.
00:31:39 --> 00:31:40 Like, why would I do that? I'm like, cause you're
00:31:40 --> 00:31:42 practicing. Cause one day you're going to have
00:31:42 --> 00:31:45 to build a vision for a team of 40, a team of
00:31:45 --> 00:31:46 a hundred. And then one day you're going to have
00:31:46 --> 00:31:49 to bring a corporate strategy forward for a whole
00:31:49 --> 00:31:53 organization. So practice it on smaller things
00:31:53 --> 00:31:56 wherever you can. So ultimately it's super fun.
00:31:56 --> 00:31:59 I love the fundamental SWOT and past and Porter
00:31:59 --> 00:32:02 whiteboarding it, getting thoughts down and then
00:32:02 --> 00:32:03 taking all these thoughts and saying, how do
00:32:03 --> 00:32:06 I get this down into two or three sentences that
00:32:06 --> 00:32:09 we're going to get out to organization in a simple
00:32:09 --> 00:32:11 message. Well, I love that and I love the examples
00:32:11 --> 00:32:14 you gave for young employees of hey set a strategy
00:32:14 --> 00:32:16 for your team think about a vision Because if
00:32:16 --> 00:32:19 you learn to do that early in your career It's
00:32:19 --> 00:32:21 gonna benefit is you move up the chain Like you
00:32:21 --> 00:32:24 said now the more senior you get the more you're
00:32:24 --> 00:32:26 gonna have opportunities to work on vision and
00:32:26 --> 00:32:28 strategy and the more important It's gonna become
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I challenge people all
00:32:31 --> 00:32:34 the time practice on junior stuff I mean anything
00:32:34 --> 00:32:37 I talked to people a lot about is One way to
00:32:37 --> 00:32:40 practice that is let's say you're in a bank or
00:32:40 --> 00:32:42 big multinational company or food industry and
00:32:42 --> 00:32:44 you're more junior, so it's a little hard to
00:32:44 --> 00:32:46 get involved. What I did early in my career was
00:32:46 --> 00:32:50 I got on boards, board work outside of my company,
00:32:50 --> 00:32:52 generally a non -for -profit when you're starting
00:32:52 --> 00:32:54 out. What's amazing, and that could be anything
00:32:54 --> 00:32:57 from your daycare, your church or sports organization
00:32:57 --> 00:33:00 or volunteer, other sort of volunteer organization,
00:33:01 --> 00:33:04 is you go from being a junior analyst on a massive
00:33:04 --> 00:33:07 company to being a board chair, a treasurer on
00:33:07 --> 00:33:09 maybe a hundred thousand dollar business. But
00:33:09 --> 00:33:11 what's amazing about that is you can set the
00:33:11 --> 00:33:13 strategy for that company and you can practice
00:33:13 --> 00:33:16 those skills. You can give back. And even though
00:33:16 --> 00:33:18 it might be your daycare and maybe the budgets,
00:33:18 --> 00:33:20 you know, a million dollars, you're like, but
00:33:20 --> 00:33:23 I'm setting the corporate strategy. I'm building
00:33:23 --> 00:33:27 the exec, the CEO's compensation plan, all the
00:33:27 --> 00:33:29 stuff that might take you 30 years later to get
00:33:29 --> 00:33:31 to when you're running Coke one day. But It's
00:33:31 --> 00:33:34 one advice I like to give people is is get volunteer
00:33:34 --> 00:33:36 board work because you're doing this in your
00:33:36 --> 00:33:38 day job when you're in your career and find a
00:33:38 --> 00:33:40 way to practice this. So as you move up, you
00:33:40 --> 00:33:42 can steal those experiences along the way. That
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 is really good advice. I like the idea of board
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 work. You know, when I was in grad school, I
00:33:47 --> 00:33:50 competed in some strategy case competitions and
00:33:50 --> 00:33:52 it was a lot of fun as a team. I love doing that.
00:33:53 --> 00:33:55 Although I remember, you know, you didn't get
00:33:55 --> 00:33:57 to bed till three, four in the morning and you're
00:33:57 --> 00:33:59 back up at seven and you're just. Like, okay,
00:33:59 --> 00:34:01 can I do a good presentation on two hours of
00:34:01 --> 00:34:04 sleep? Love case competitions. I mean, that's
00:34:04 --> 00:34:07 the other advice I give people is around education.
00:34:07 --> 00:34:09 How do you keep your education going? I found
00:34:09 --> 00:34:14 my MBA super valuable just from a strategic landscape,
00:34:14 --> 00:34:17 more courses, more theories, deeper into porters
00:34:17 --> 00:34:19 and pests and all that sort of stuff and tools
00:34:19 --> 00:34:21 you could bring forward. So how do you bring
00:34:21 --> 00:34:24 your job experience, your education, and hopefully
00:34:24 --> 00:34:26 some outside work as well? Case competitions.
00:34:27 --> 00:34:29 That was amazing experience, team building and
00:34:29 --> 00:34:32 everything. So love that. And now a brief message
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00:35:50 --> 00:35:54 That's Campfire. Yeah, no, they were a lot of
00:35:54 --> 00:35:56 fun. I love, I love doing them and agree the
00:35:56 --> 00:35:59 team aspect of the collaboration, the learning,
00:35:59 --> 00:36:01 but you're in a real kind of, you know, pressure,
00:36:01 --> 00:36:04 low risk pressure environment, like right. What's
00:36:04 --> 00:36:05 the worst happens from a risk standpoint? The
00:36:05 --> 00:36:08 judge doesn't like what you presented. You move
00:36:08 --> 00:36:11 on. It's not like you actually have to guide
00:36:11 --> 00:36:13 a company. And if you do the wrong thing, you
00:36:13 --> 00:36:14 could, you know, a bunch of people could be laid
00:36:14 --> 00:36:18 off. Yeah. Yeah. Love those experiences. So I'm
00:36:18 --> 00:36:22 going to kind of go back here a little bit. You
00:36:22 --> 00:36:24 know, you talked about how we need to reduce
00:36:24 --> 00:36:26 the amount of time we send on planning, right?
00:36:26 --> 00:36:28 The 80 should be on the analytics. So as you
00:36:28 --> 00:36:31 look back over your career, any advice on how
00:36:31 --> 00:36:34 we can better manage the budget process? What
00:36:34 --> 00:36:37 should companies be doing in your, in your opinion
00:36:37 --> 00:36:40 to shorten that timeframe? You get to be able
00:36:40 --> 00:36:43 to spend more time on analytics. Great question.
00:36:43 --> 00:36:46 I, I, um, I asked so many of my industry peers
00:36:46 --> 00:36:49 that question and there's just no gold standard
00:36:49 --> 00:36:52 model. I found all my years, Pepsi seemed to
00:36:52 --> 00:36:54 do it the best. A couple examples of some stuff
00:36:54 --> 00:36:56 they did, but some concrete advice. So things
00:36:56 --> 00:36:59 I like saying to people is, and this is, I don't
00:36:59 --> 00:37:01 want to say controversial, but not everyone agrees.
00:37:01 --> 00:37:04 I love really condensing the timeframe. Cause
00:37:04 --> 00:37:06 I find you use the example earlier, a six month
00:37:06 --> 00:37:09 budget cycle. The problem when you plan budgets
00:37:09 --> 00:37:11 over six months is the base change. So many things
00:37:11 --> 00:37:14 change and you got to reset everything. How do
00:37:14 --> 00:37:16 you say, listen, we're locking ourselves down
00:37:16 --> 00:37:18 for two months. We're going to go hard, set a
00:37:18 --> 00:37:20 budget, come out. So I like compressed timelines.
00:37:21 --> 00:37:24 I really like doing a budget once, doing a really
00:37:24 --> 00:37:27 good job once a year. Nestle kind of ran often
00:37:27 --> 00:37:29 more of a rolling forecast. So you're updating
00:37:29 --> 00:37:32 it frequently, frequently, frequently. I really
00:37:32 --> 00:37:35 like that one time, try and do it right, as right
00:37:35 --> 00:37:37 as possible in the 80 -20 rule and then move
00:37:37 --> 00:37:40 on. I love and i've done this so many different
00:37:40 --> 00:37:43 ways and there's no perfect way but you need
00:37:43 --> 00:37:46 that mix of top down and bottom up so you need
00:37:46 --> 00:37:49 your executive team doing a really good job of
00:37:49 --> 00:37:51 a top down budget so listen guys we're trying
00:37:51 --> 00:37:55 to grow sales at three percent profit 2x cash
00:37:55 --> 00:37:58 flow at y here's the constraints a couple key
00:37:58 --> 00:38:00 assumptions we want inflation played here this
00:38:00 --> 00:38:02 plan here this plan there and then you need to
00:38:02 --> 00:38:05 drive empowerment in your team to build the bottom
00:38:05 --> 00:38:08 up budget because you want ultimately the empowerment
00:38:08 --> 00:38:10 that comes through the team. Now, ideally the
00:38:10 --> 00:38:12 two of them match and then you have all your
00:38:12 --> 00:38:14 cost centers that tie to your top down, your
00:38:14 --> 00:38:16 bottom up and they built the bottom up, you built
00:38:16 --> 00:38:18 the top down and everything works and it never
00:38:18 --> 00:38:21 works out perfectly. But that would be the perfect
00:38:21 --> 00:38:24 budget. A bottom up where everyone's involved,
00:38:24 --> 00:38:25 their power to set their own things, building
00:38:25 --> 00:38:28 their own assumptions and it matches to a top
00:38:28 --> 00:38:31 down. Shareholders are asking for X or corporate
00:38:31 --> 00:38:33 strategies Y and they all match up. but invariably
00:38:33 --> 00:38:35 you've got a couple tough meetings in the middle
00:38:35 --> 00:38:37 where you've got to push some teams a little
00:38:37 --> 00:38:39 more do things a little differently but those
00:38:39 --> 00:38:41 are probably some of the big things compress
00:38:41 --> 00:38:45 timelines use your planning system i like using
00:38:45 --> 00:38:48 it once maybe twice max and then get into excel
00:38:48 --> 00:38:52 so i really like excel for high level rno's your
00:38:52 --> 00:38:55 three months into your year go into excel do
00:38:55 --> 00:38:57 an rno or you know we have five million upside
00:38:57 --> 00:38:59 on sales two million upside on profit here's
00:38:59 --> 00:39:01 the couple drivers make sure everyone agrees
00:39:01 --> 00:39:04 don't go back and put that in your planning system
00:39:04 --> 00:39:07 again don't do a bottom -up by skew keep everyone
00:39:07 --> 00:39:10 out of that think about that fa and p and it's
00:39:10 --> 00:39:12 always a trade -off when you're a non -finance
00:39:12 --> 00:39:14 professional it's easy to say okay finance team
00:39:14 --> 00:39:16 go do another bottom -up build i want to get
00:39:16 --> 00:39:19 that to the exact dollar the trade -off is you're
00:39:19 --> 00:39:22 taking all those resources away from people that
00:39:22 --> 00:39:24 could be doing analytics to drive the business.
00:39:24 --> 00:39:26 So have faith. You've got a good budget. You
00:39:26 --> 00:39:29 can do an R and O and get it plus or minus in
00:39:29 --> 00:39:32 Excel and then free up everyone's time to do
00:39:32 --> 00:39:34 analytics to drive the business. So that's a
00:39:34 --> 00:39:38 couple ideas on budgeting. Yeah, I appreciate
00:39:38 --> 00:39:39 the advice. Yeah, everybody's going to have a
00:39:39 --> 00:39:41 different opinion, but I can understand the compressed.
00:39:41 --> 00:39:44 I often think it's too long. You know, bottoms
00:39:44 --> 00:39:47 up is great. I love when you said the ideal is
00:39:47 --> 00:39:50 when they match. I can't say I've experienced
00:39:50 --> 00:39:54 them matching. That's the dream for all of us,
00:39:54 --> 00:39:57 right? To get that, that bottoms up done and
00:39:57 --> 00:40:01 the board looks good. All done. I don't think
00:40:01 --> 00:40:03 it's ever matched for me. I've certainly had
00:40:03 --> 00:40:05 examples where it's close enough and you tweak.
00:40:05 --> 00:40:08 I always find you, you got to do the top down
00:40:08 --> 00:40:10 first and you let the organization know, listen,
00:40:10 --> 00:40:12 we're trying to get back to shareholders with
00:40:12 --> 00:40:15 this plan. If you're in this range, we're talking.
00:40:15 --> 00:40:17 If you're planning something completely different,
00:40:17 --> 00:40:19 we have a big problem here. And then come tell
00:40:19 --> 00:40:22 me early in the process. Okay. You set a 5 %
00:40:22 --> 00:40:24 sales growth target. I'm looking at minus two.
00:40:24 --> 00:40:26 We need a meeting right away. Not at the end
00:40:26 --> 00:40:30 of planning to say we have a big gap. Early conversations
00:40:30 --> 00:40:32 back and forth. So hopefully you get to a 5 %
00:40:32 --> 00:40:35 top down, a 4 % bottom up, and then you can,
00:40:35 --> 00:40:39 you know, tweet. Couldn't agree more with those
00:40:39 --> 00:40:42 conversations, bring issues early, have an idea
00:40:42 --> 00:40:45 of what's expected when you start. I had one
00:40:45 --> 00:40:47 year with the business where they wouldn't give
00:40:47 --> 00:40:49 us any numbers, like just build it all up and
00:40:49 --> 00:40:51 then see if it comes back at the end. And we
00:40:51 --> 00:40:54 had to cut everything across everybody, you know,
00:40:54 --> 00:40:57 based on a top -down approach and nobody recognized
00:40:57 --> 00:40:59 their numbers. And it was just, it was just a
00:40:59 --> 00:41:02 nightmare. It always is when that happens. Everyone's
00:41:02 --> 00:41:04 lived through that. They go build it and come
00:41:04 --> 00:41:06 back and show me. And someone says, I don't agree.
00:41:06 --> 00:41:09 You got to give some guardrails at least play.
00:41:09 --> 00:41:12 This is the sandbox you can play in. The other
00:41:12 --> 00:41:15 thing I really like doing is portfolio management.
00:41:15 --> 00:41:18 So it works in the food industry or works everywhere
00:41:18 --> 00:41:20 to say, OK, let's let's put all of our brands
00:41:20 --> 00:41:22 or if you're in the banking industry or banking
00:41:22 --> 00:41:25 products in a grid of what's growing and what's
00:41:25 --> 00:41:27 making the most money and therefore what do we
00:41:27 --> 00:41:30 want to promote? So if you have brands in this
00:41:30 --> 00:41:32 category, you're more likely to get more marketing
00:41:32 --> 00:41:35 budget, more capex spending. If you're a divest
00:41:35 --> 00:41:38 brand or a hold onto brand, you know, don't bring
00:41:38 --> 00:41:40 a record or bring your advertising up. We're
00:41:40 --> 00:41:42 not going to give it to you. Don't ask for CapEx
00:41:42 --> 00:41:44 to build an innovation on a new skew. It's not
00:41:44 --> 00:41:46 going to happen. So I think your strategy team's
00:41:46 --> 00:41:49 got to do a good job of saying to all the business
00:41:49 --> 00:41:52 units, here's where you fit into the master story.
00:41:53 --> 00:41:55 You know, you guys are a hold, you're a grow,
00:41:55 --> 00:41:58 you're a divest, you know, you're an invest brand.
00:41:58 --> 00:42:01 Yep. No, I hear you. I think that's great. great
00:42:01 --> 00:42:04 advice for every brand to kind of understand
00:42:04 --> 00:42:06 here's how we're thinking about you strategically
00:42:06 --> 00:42:09 here's your framework you need to operate in
00:42:09 --> 00:42:12 because it saves you so much time if you know
00:42:12 --> 00:42:15 up front versus guessing yeah that should be
00:42:15 --> 00:42:18 strategy fp and a along with the strategy department
00:42:18 --> 00:42:21 and marketing putting that together agreed all
00:42:21 --> 00:42:22 right so we're going to move into our fp and
00:42:22 --> 00:42:24 a section this we have a couple questions around
00:42:24 --> 00:42:27 fp and a kind of looking for some kind of quick
00:42:27 --> 00:42:30 short answers we'll start with the ones we ask
00:42:30 --> 00:42:33 everybody What is the number one technical skill
00:42:33 --> 00:42:37 that FP &A professionals should master? I love
00:42:37 --> 00:42:40 to hear your answer. It's gotta be Excel. I don't
00:42:40 --> 00:42:44 know how it's not. If you go back and ask people
00:42:44 --> 00:42:46 20 years ago, let's get rid of Excel, let's get
00:42:46 --> 00:42:49 into all these other systems. I've watched it
00:42:49 --> 00:42:51 the last 20 years and everyone comes back to
00:42:51 --> 00:42:53 Excel. There's a couple neat systems out there,
00:42:53 --> 00:42:56 Power BI looks really good, but I don't know
00:42:56 --> 00:42:59 how you don't have amazing Excel skills. We'll
00:42:59 --> 00:43:01 talk about the soft side and probably storytelling
00:43:01 --> 00:43:04 other stuff, but you have to start with Excel.
00:43:04 --> 00:43:06 Tell me what, what are other people saying? Is
00:43:06 --> 00:43:08 there a dream system that's going to replace
00:43:08 --> 00:43:11 Excel? I mean, spreadsheets are going, aren't
00:43:11 --> 00:43:13 going anywhere. Obviously, you know, a lot of
00:43:13 --> 00:43:15 startups use Google Sheets, which is very similar
00:43:15 --> 00:43:18 to Excel. I mean, I think every FPNA professional
00:43:18 --> 00:43:21 has done have spreadsheet skills and those are
00:43:21 --> 00:43:23 preferably going to be Excel. No question. I
00:43:23 --> 00:43:25 think some of the other answers, I guess, sometimes
00:43:25 --> 00:43:29 you hear financial modeling. I've heard simplicity.
00:43:30 --> 00:43:32 I've even heard one say anticipation, a couple
00:43:32 --> 00:43:35 say accounting, but definitely the most common
00:43:35 --> 00:43:39 answers for sure are some combination of spreadsheets
00:43:39 --> 00:43:41 and modeling. I don't know how it's not. I mean,
00:43:41 --> 00:43:44 I'm sure everyone's met at a genius Excel modeler
00:43:44 --> 00:43:46 that can't get themselves out of it and present
00:43:46 --> 00:43:48 it. That's where the soft skills come in. But
00:43:48 --> 00:43:50 you have to start with that. Like if I didn't
00:43:50 --> 00:43:52 have those skills back in the day, I don't now,
00:43:52 --> 00:43:55 but I wouldn't be where I am. Yeah. As I've often
00:43:55 --> 00:43:57 heard it said, your technical skills get you
00:43:57 --> 00:44:00 your first job. Generally your soft skills get
00:44:00 --> 00:44:02 you promoted. It's good. Yep. It's good analogy
00:44:02 --> 00:44:06 for sure. What's the number one soft, softer
00:44:06 --> 00:44:09 human skill we need? I mean, I don't know how
00:44:09 --> 00:44:11 it's not storytelling. We talked a little bit
00:44:11 --> 00:44:14 of a four, but ultimately your technical skills
00:44:14 --> 00:44:17 generally have a oodles and oodles of data and
00:44:17 --> 00:44:19 it's your job because management doesn't have
00:44:19 --> 00:44:22 the time to get through it all, conceptualize
00:44:22 --> 00:44:24 it up. and make it simple. And you're asking
00:44:24 --> 00:44:26 for advice on presenting before. How do you get
00:44:26 --> 00:44:29 that onto one page? I have done this analysis
00:44:29 --> 00:44:32 on this scope. I've looked at all this. My conclusions
00:44:32 --> 00:44:35 are A, B and C. And based on that, my recommendation
00:44:35 --> 00:44:38 is to do D. And here's potentially a visual of
00:44:38 --> 00:44:41 what that looks like. You have to be able to
00:44:41 --> 00:44:44 tell it in English to tell it simply without
00:44:44 --> 00:44:46 an Excel formula. You're never going to say I
00:44:46 --> 00:44:49 did a V lookup to get no one cares how you got
00:44:49 --> 00:44:51 it. I pivoted this and put no, I don't care.
00:44:51 --> 00:44:55 How do you bring simple answers in for management
00:44:55 --> 00:44:56 to take action? I was talking about that earlier.
00:44:57 --> 00:45:00 Then beyond the storytell, bring a recommendation
00:45:00 --> 00:45:03 and bring it that ties back to the corporate
00:45:03 --> 00:45:05 strategy. So the corporate person you're presenting
00:45:05 --> 00:45:07 to says, my strategy is X. They're listening
00:45:07 --> 00:45:09 to me. I can see how it links to our corporate
00:45:09 --> 00:45:12 strategy. It makes money. It's solid Reco. It's,
00:45:12 --> 00:45:15 you know, it's doable. So it'd have to be storytelling
00:45:15 --> 00:45:18 with a, you know, a bias for action. I really,
00:45:18 --> 00:45:20 I love the bias fraction and yeah, storytelling
00:45:20 --> 00:45:23 is one we hear a ton, uh, communication. I've
00:45:23 --> 00:45:25 heard active listening, sometimes, uh, business
00:45:25 --> 00:45:27 partnering, you know, there's a lot of interaction
00:45:27 --> 00:45:31 between them, uh, persuasion, but you know, it's
00:45:31 --> 00:45:35 usually almost always some form of communication
00:45:35 --> 00:45:39 is generally the answer I hear that by far the
00:45:39 --> 00:45:41 most often. There are some others, but those
00:45:41 --> 00:45:43 will be the most common persuasion is a good
00:45:43 --> 00:45:46 one. You have the insights and the knowledge.
00:45:46 --> 00:45:50 How do you persuade your leaders to take action?
00:45:51 --> 00:45:52 Yeah. I really honor my career. I thought, but
00:45:52 --> 00:45:54 it's just a good idea. Everybody will follow
00:45:54 --> 00:45:57 along. Yeah. I quickly realized that's not how
00:45:57 --> 00:46:01 life works. I, you're young and egotistical,
00:46:02 --> 00:46:03 maybe a little, and you've done the analysis
00:46:03 --> 00:46:05 and you know, you're right. And I used to say
00:46:05 --> 00:46:07 to people, but I know I'm right. Why aren't they
00:46:07 --> 00:46:09 going along with me? Well, I didn't tie it into
00:46:09 --> 00:46:12 corporate strategy. I didn't make it simple.
00:46:12 --> 00:46:15 I just said I'm right and go with me. Um, and
00:46:15 --> 00:46:16 you really learn it's important to bring people
00:46:16 --> 00:46:19 along and give them context, but keep it simple.
00:46:20 --> 00:46:23 The facts without the story really often don't
00:46:23 --> 00:46:26 speak for themselves to the broader group. They
00:46:26 --> 00:46:29 may to you who did the analysis, uh, without
00:46:29 --> 00:46:31 that persuasion and that story telling a lot
00:46:31 --> 00:46:32 of times it's just like, well, no, but then here's
00:46:32 --> 00:46:35 what I always believed in. I don't buy your numbers.
00:46:35 --> 00:46:37 All right. This is a fun one. I like gas cause
00:46:37 --> 00:46:39 I just love to see the different answers you
00:46:39 --> 00:46:42 get. If you could wave a magic wand. and change
00:46:42 --> 00:46:46 one thing about FP &A, what would you change?
00:46:47 --> 00:46:51 I mean, I think it's back to that FP &A, FA &P.
00:46:51 --> 00:46:53 I mean, I could... I figured you were gonna go
00:46:53 --> 00:46:55 there. That's what I was expecting. I mean, the
00:46:55 --> 00:46:58 backup one would be AI to build an amazing budgeting
00:46:58 --> 00:47:01 system that saves all of us hours and hours of
00:47:01 --> 00:47:04 work, and that'll happen one day, but... I think
00:47:04 --> 00:47:06 the main one is really just getting people mentally
00:47:06 --> 00:47:08 focused on how do I get myself out of trying
00:47:08 --> 00:47:11 to do 100 % perfect forecast. Cause if you six
00:47:11 --> 00:47:13 month of forecast, by the time you get to the
00:47:13 --> 00:47:15 end, you've got all this new information, your
00:47:15 --> 00:47:17 budget's wrong. Like how do you get your mindset
00:47:17 --> 00:47:20 of one day a week, I'm doing budgeting and forecasting
00:47:20 --> 00:47:23 and four days a week I'm doing analytics. And
00:47:23 --> 00:47:26 even if my budget, I did a B, B plus, I got the
00:47:26 --> 00:47:28 company going the right direction. I'd much rather
00:47:28 --> 00:47:30 have someone who has a couple of errors and doesn't
00:47:30 --> 00:47:33 have a perfect budget. Who brings five analysis
00:47:33 --> 00:47:35 where we take pricing, change, mix, discontinue
00:47:35 --> 00:47:38 this, invest over here, bring a strategic analysis
00:47:38 --> 00:47:41 on asset allocation. I take that any day over,
00:47:41 --> 00:47:45 you know, a perfect budget. Um, so I think a
00:47:45 --> 00:47:49 F A and P mentality. I like it so that we're
00:47:49 --> 00:47:52 going to change it to F A and P. And, uh, you
00:47:52 --> 00:47:54 know, when it comes to shortening the budget
00:47:54 --> 00:47:56 and be able to focus on analytics, being a business
00:47:56 --> 00:47:58 of one, it's great now. Yeah, my budget spend
00:47:58 --> 00:48:01 a few hours. I got good enough. Let's just start
00:48:01 --> 00:48:03 doing stuff. It's probably a lot easier without
00:48:03 --> 00:48:06 a boss, eh, who wants a, you know, doesn't always
00:48:06 --> 00:48:08 agree with not wanting a perfect budget, but.
00:48:08 --> 00:48:10 Yep. I just got to go. Is there enough cash flow
00:48:10 --> 00:48:14 to pay all my bills this month? The timing. Okay.
00:48:14 --> 00:48:17 Is this idea working? Nah, let's try something
00:48:17 --> 00:48:20 else. It's a pretty, pretty simple budget process.
00:48:20 --> 00:48:23 All right. So this is a question I haven't asked
00:48:23 --> 00:48:25 this one before. Wanted to get your thought.
00:48:25 --> 00:48:27 As you know, as you look out at the business
00:48:27 --> 00:48:29 and look at your career, do you believe the FP
00:48:29 --> 00:48:31 &A profession gets the credit it deserves from
00:48:31 --> 00:48:34 the business? Kind of the respect that it should
00:48:34 --> 00:48:38 have. That's interesting. I mean, I'd say it
00:48:38 --> 00:48:41 all depends on the group. I mean, I'm being part
00:48:41 --> 00:48:43 of some really strong FP &A functions and some
00:48:43 --> 00:48:45 not so strong. Obviously, you get more credit
00:48:45 --> 00:48:48 with better functions. I use Kraft as an example.
00:48:48 --> 00:48:51 Kraft had FP &A at the heart of what it was doing.
00:48:51 --> 00:48:53 I mean, philosophically, you were a business
00:48:53 --> 00:48:55 partner. You're involved in everything. And what
00:48:55 --> 00:48:59 I drove from a finance function is we said, okay,
00:48:59 --> 00:49:00 we've got to hire the best people out there.
00:49:00 --> 00:49:03 So we were at the best universities in Canada
00:49:03 --> 00:49:06 and Ontario, the best MBA schools, hiring the
00:49:06 --> 00:49:09 best and brightest. So that built the best people
00:49:09 --> 00:49:12 in. We invested in technology and tools. So when
00:49:12 --> 00:49:14 we were made the center, we brought everything
00:49:14 --> 00:49:16 and got with it, got the right people. So I would
00:49:16 --> 00:49:19 say a hundred percent, there were awards for
00:49:19 --> 00:49:22 finance professionals. There was always cross
00:49:22 --> 00:49:24 -functionals, one together, finance was included.
00:49:25 --> 00:49:27 I really like that culture of putting finance,
00:49:28 --> 00:49:30 not at the center, but an integral part of the
00:49:30 --> 00:49:32 business. You know, I've been in a couple other
00:49:32 --> 00:49:35 places where FPD is more of an afterthought and
00:49:35 --> 00:49:38 a little more, you know, reporting and back shop.
00:49:38 --> 00:49:41 And so did they get credit? No. Um, now this
00:49:41 --> 00:49:43 is that a circular reference that because you're
00:49:43 --> 00:49:45 doing reporting, maybe you don't get the best
00:49:45 --> 00:49:47 people in and you're going to get the best people
00:49:47 --> 00:49:50 and they're not bringing analysis and recos forward.
00:49:50 --> 00:49:52 So it's kind of a circular reference. So I'd
00:49:52 --> 00:49:55 say that. Places where I've been, where we have
00:49:55 --> 00:49:58 really good at the 18, I got a great at P and
00:49:58 --> 00:50:00 18. Now I think they get credit for some of the
00:50:00 --> 00:50:02 great work they do, but I think it's a little
00:50:02 --> 00:50:05 bit. What's the business asking for? If you set
00:50:05 --> 00:50:07 up a finance function, if the president say sets
00:50:07 --> 00:50:10 up it to be a reporting function, then you're
00:50:10 --> 00:50:11 probably not going to get credit because you
00:50:11 --> 00:50:13 might not deserve credit because you're doing
00:50:13 --> 00:50:15 reporting. If the president leadership team sets
00:50:15 --> 00:50:18 it up as an analytic function that we want value
00:50:18 --> 00:50:21 added up. Um, so you need to bring good governance,
00:50:21 --> 00:50:24 good controls, but Analysis is a big part of
00:50:24 --> 00:50:26 it. I'm sure you get the credit you deserve.
00:50:27 --> 00:50:29 It makes a lot of sense. And I'd agree with that
00:50:29 --> 00:50:32 as I look back at my career is it's really, are
00:50:32 --> 00:50:34 you doing analytics? Are you asking to be strategic?
00:50:34 --> 00:50:37 If you're just doing reporting, it's hard for
00:50:37 --> 00:50:39 people to really be like, Oh, wow, that's a great
00:50:39 --> 00:50:43 report. You added so much value. And so some,
00:50:43 --> 00:50:46 there's a cultural aspect to it, but there's
00:50:46 --> 00:50:49 also that. How do you, when you get into that
00:50:49 --> 00:50:50 role, if they're just asking for reporting, how
00:50:50 --> 00:50:52 do you build a relationship so you can go beyond
00:50:52 --> 00:50:55 that? Right? How do you try to help the business
00:50:55 --> 00:50:58 realize that you can add value and sometimes
00:50:58 --> 00:51:00 you can do that in some companies and sometimes
00:51:00 --> 00:51:01 you're not going to do it until you go to a new
00:51:01 --> 00:51:04 company. I think some of the best people that
00:51:04 --> 00:51:07 worked in FP &A for me, usually some form of
00:51:07 --> 00:51:09 self -starter and really junior, you might give
00:51:09 --> 00:51:12 them a report and they do find a way to simplify,
00:51:13 --> 00:51:15 automate, and they come back and say, Hey, that
00:51:15 --> 00:51:17 last person took a week to do that. I do it in
00:51:17 --> 00:51:20 a day now. What can you give me these other four
00:51:20 --> 00:51:22 days? And I'd like to take on this project and
00:51:22 --> 00:51:24 can I go look at this and then, you know, someone
00:51:24 --> 00:51:26 like that's always going to get the credit they
00:51:26 --> 00:51:28 deserve. So, you know, how can you be a self
00:51:28 --> 00:51:30 starter and look at simplifying your reports
00:51:30 --> 00:51:34 yourself to free up time to do the 80 % on the
00:51:34 --> 00:51:37 eight? I love that. Yeah. So nothing is better
00:51:37 --> 00:51:39 than having a self starter with strong technical
00:51:39 --> 00:51:42 skills that can take things and automate them
00:51:42 --> 00:51:44 and then come ask you, what else can I do? I
00:51:44 --> 00:51:46 mean, I've had a few like that and make your
00:51:46 --> 00:51:49 life so much easier as a manager. All right,
00:51:49 --> 00:51:50 we're going to move into the get to know you
00:51:50 --> 00:51:52 section. Have just a couple of questions here
00:51:52 --> 00:51:54 to get to know you a little more personally.
00:51:54 --> 00:51:57 What's your favorite hobby or passion when you're
00:51:57 --> 00:52:00 not at work? What do you like to do? I love to
00:52:00 --> 00:52:02 golf, but I'll say on an FP &A podcast, one of
00:52:02 --> 00:52:06 my favorite things is to play poker and poker
00:52:06 --> 00:52:10 is such an amazing game to hone. You're not doing
00:52:10 --> 00:52:13 calculus and trigonometry. but you're doing math
00:52:13 --> 00:52:16 probability. I love that part, but I love people
00:52:16 --> 00:52:20 watching storytelling. So poker is about telling
00:52:20 --> 00:52:22 a story. I'm telling you what hand I have, and
00:52:22 --> 00:52:24 I want you to make a mistake on your betting,
00:52:24 --> 00:52:25 because I'm telling you I have this hand, even
00:52:25 --> 00:52:29 though I don't. So I love the aspect of that.
00:52:29 --> 00:52:31 I love the competitive part of it. You know,
00:52:31 --> 00:52:33 being with friends and having a good time and
00:52:33 --> 00:52:36 being competitive. But I love that poker brings
00:52:36 --> 00:52:38 an element of math, but an element of psychology
00:52:38 --> 00:52:42 as well. So I would. You'll see me out playing
00:52:42 --> 00:52:47 golf or playing poker with my friends. So favorite
00:52:47 --> 00:52:49 type of poker? Do you have a certain game you
00:52:49 --> 00:52:53 like to play? Texas Hold 'em. I don't think we
00:52:53 --> 00:52:55 used to play goofy games years ago. It's all
00:52:55 --> 00:53:00 we play now. Got it. I like it. All right. If
00:53:00 --> 00:53:02 you could recommend one book to our audience
00:53:02 --> 00:53:04 to read, what's the book you're going to recommend?
00:53:04 --> 00:53:08 I'll give you two quick ones. If you're looking
00:53:08 --> 00:53:12 for strategy books, this is my favorite. It's
00:53:12 --> 00:53:14 always on my desk playing to win. It was written
00:53:14 --> 00:53:18 by one of the old executives of Procter & Gamble
00:53:18 --> 00:53:22 and it's kind of a must read. So if your manager
00:53:22 --> 00:53:24 or boss says to you, I want you to build a strategy
00:53:24 --> 00:53:26 for this brand, this whatever, this division,
00:53:27 --> 00:53:29 this unit, this brand, you got to read that book.
00:53:30 --> 00:53:33 It's not a huge read. It dumps it down, explains
00:53:33 --> 00:53:36 corporate strategy and it's really about congruence.
00:53:36 --> 00:53:39 So it really focuses, focuses you and make sure
00:53:39 --> 00:53:41 that you're thinking through the whole value
00:53:41 --> 00:53:43 stream. You're being congruent on your strategies
00:53:43 --> 00:53:46 all the way through. So it's a lot of fun. A
00:53:46 --> 00:53:49 great book on a personal level. If, if someone's
00:53:49 --> 00:53:51 looking more for development, one of my favorite
00:53:51 --> 00:53:54 books is one called strength finder. Um, I'll
00:53:54 --> 00:53:57 give you the 32nd behind that. One thing in my
00:53:57 --> 00:53:59 career, really big in a sort of development planning,
00:53:59 --> 00:54:02 I really used to emphasize a lot. These are the
00:54:02 --> 00:54:03 things you got to get better. These are the things
00:54:03 --> 00:54:06 I got to get better at. I had this one employee
00:54:06 --> 00:54:09 who was so amazing at one thing and I didn't
00:54:09 --> 00:54:11 understand why we were spending so much time
00:54:11 --> 00:54:13 on his little tiny development needs and holding
00:54:13 --> 00:54:15 it back because he was so good at this other
00:54:15 --> 00:54:18 stuff. And what strength binder talks about is
00:54:18 --> 00:54:20 you got to where you are in your life because
00:54:20 --> 00:54:24 you have strengths. And so why not double down
00:54:24 --> 00:54:26 on those strengths? You can still improve your
00:54:26 --> 00:54:28 weaknesses, but take your strengths. Maybe it's
00:54:28 --> 00:54:30 your presentation skills, your analytics, storytelling,
00:54:30 --> 00:54:33 whatever it is, but double down on your strengths
00:54:33 --> 00:54:36 rather than Spending all this time trying to
00:54:36 --> 00:54:38 fix development needs and weaknesses. Of course,
00:54:38 --> 00:54:40 there's a mix of both of them, but if, if you
00:54:40 --> 00:54:42 look up strength finder, it's a really short
00:54:42 --> 00:54:45 book. It also comes with an exercise on how you
00:54:45 --> 00:54:47 determine what your strengths are. But I think
00:54:47 --> 00:54:49 about stars I work with, like our friend Ron
00:54:49 --> 00:54:52 in his career, you know, you see strengths that
00:54:52 --> 00:54:56 they have, and I'd rather see Ron double down
00:54:56 --> 00:54:58 on his strengths and grow through the company
00:54:58 --> 00:55:02 with that. Then spend all this time doing development
00:55:02 --> 00:55:05 plans on small things, you know, So development
00:55:05 --> 00:55:07 plans are important, but I just love Strength
00:55:07 --> 00:55:09 Miner. It really changed my mindset on, I'm going
00:55:09 --> 00:55:12 to really double down on what I'm good at. That's
00:55:12 --> 00:55:14 great. And I've seen some other things about
00:55:14 --> 00:55:16 that. You're going to get more benefit over the
00:55:16 --> 00:55:19 long run by focusing on your strengths and making
00:55:19 --> 00:55:22 them just excellent. Make sure you really stand
00:55:22 --> 00:55:25 out than trying to get all your deficiencies
00:55:25 --> 00:55:28 to good. Get them to the level you have to, to
00:55:28 --> 00:55:32 move up, but don't try to make them great. Really.
00:55:32 --> 00:55:36 focus on your strengths to really set yourself
00:55:36 --> 00:55:39 apart. I think it's - Perfect analogy. I never
00:55:39 --> 00:55:40 really thought of it that way, but yeah, if you
00:55:40 --> 00:55:42 get your development needs, at least they're
00:55:42 --> 00:55:43 at the good level. Maybe they're not going to
00:55:43 --> 00:55:45 become overarching strength, but once you get
00:55:45 --> 00:55:47 them there and you got to make sure you don't
00:55:47 --> 00:55:49 have a career staller. I like to talk to employees
00:55:49 --> 00:55:52 about like, listen, this is not only a development
00:55:52 --> 00:55:54 needs, a career staller. Like you have a big
00:55:54 --> 00:55:55 problem. We got to address that, but you don't
00:55:55 --> 00:55:57 have career stallers and they're just development
00:55:57 --> 00:55:59 needs. You keep working on it, but you really
00:55:59 --> 00:56:02 say, okay, what I'm amazing at Is presenting
00:56:02 --> 00:56:04 in front of audiences and that's what's going
00:56:04 --> 00:56:07 to make me a CEO one day. How do I keep working
00:56:07 --> 00:56:09 that keep getting in front of people keep showing
00:56:09 --> 00:56:11 what I'm good at. I could go work on my technical
00:56:11 --> 00:56:14 skills, but that's what's going to make me, you
00:56:14 --> 00:56:16 know, the CEO one day, not being a technical
00:56:16 --> 00:56:19 expert because your development needs now. As
00:56:19 --> 00:56:21 an analyst, as a manager, as a director, as a
00:56:21 --> 00:56:24 VP, they all evolve. You know what my development
00:56:24 --> 00:56:27 plan as now as a VP is much different than when
00:56:27 --> 00:56:31 I was a, you know, junior analyst. Oh, I'm sure
00:56:31 --> 00:56:33 it's changed a lot. All right. So we'll do one
00:56:33 --> 00:56:35 more question. Then we're going to go ahead and
00:56:35 --> 00:56:39 wrap up. If you could be any superhero, who would
00:56:39 --> 00:56:43 you be and why? I'm not really a superhero guy.
00:56:43 --> 00:56:45 I don't like the not a big Marvel comic and all
00:56:45 --> 00:56:48 that sort of stuff. So I'm going to say a kind
00:56:48 --> 00:56:51 of goofy one. And I love Sherlock Holmes. I love
00:56:51 --> 00:56:54 detective and analyzing and problem solving.
00:56:54 --> 00:56:57 And I just used to love the British Sherlock
00:56:57 --> 00:57:00 Holmes TV series. And they've done different
00:57:00 --> 00:57:03 iterations of them, but I, I, I would be that
00:57:03 --> 00:57:06 I'd want my brain to be even more powerful to
00:57:06 --> 00:57:09 solve problems and, you know, called not necessarily
00:57:09 --> 00:57:11 the business world called bad people out, but
00:57:11 --> 00:57:13 find problems. And, you know, and the, I guess
00:57:13 --> 00:57:16 it would be solving crimes on that side in the
00:57:16 --> 00:57:17 business world, you know, solving problems. So
00:57:17 --> 00:57:19 I, you know, I always joke about why I'm a Sherlock
00:57:19 --> 00:57:23 Holmes and I love an Excel being a Sherlock Holmes.
00:57:23 --> 00:57:25 I can't do the formulas. with all these uh this
00:57:25 --> 00:57:28 new generation out but what I can do is look
00:57:28 --> 00:57:30 at a spreadsheet and say that doesn't make sense
00:57:30 --> 00:57:32 I don't know what form I don't even understand
00:57:32 --> 00:57:35 that formula but that number coming out is not
00:57:35 --> 00:57:37 right so go back and look at that and that they'll
00:57:37 --> 00:57:40 sometimes say oh the Sherlock Holmes of my Excel
00:57:40 --> 00:57:43 templates yes being able to pass that sniff test
00:57:43 --> 00:57:44 and look at something and just say it's wrong
00:57:44 --> 00:57:46 you don't need to understand the formula you
00:57:46 --> 00:57:48 don't need to understand all the inputs but you
00:57:48 --> 00:57:51 can just look at an output and be like That doesn't
00:57:51 --> 00:57:54 100%. That's need to figure out why. Definitely
00:57:54 --> 00:57:58 one of my strengths. Love it. And I love the
00:57:58 --> 00:57:59 Sherlock Holmes example because my wife loves
00:57:59 --> 00:58:02 Sherlock Holmes. Oh, there you go. British. So
00:58:02 --> 00:58:05 what a whether he other things Superman or Batman
00:58:05 --> 00:58:08 or the Hulk. You know, I haven't asked that question
00:58:08 --> 00:58:11 very many times, right? I kind of mix it up.
00:58:11 --> 00:58:13 I've been trying some new ones lately, so I can't
00:58:13 --> 00:58:16 think of any good answers to that one yet, but.
00:58:16 --> 00:58:18 I would imagine if I started asking it more,
00:58:18 --> 00:58:21 yeah, the Batman, the Superman, you know, the
00:58:21 --> 00:58:25 normal ones we get. Like somebody one time, you
00:58:25 --> 00:58:27 know, wanted to be able to be invisible. Yep.
00:58:27 --> 00:58:30 Might be nice. Yeah, I wouldn't mind that one.
00:58:30 --> 00:58:32 Sometimes be a fly on the wall of some of those
00:58:32 --> 00:58:35 mediums. Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you so much
00:58:35 --> 00:58:37 for joining me today. I've thoroughly enjoyed
00:58:37 --> 00:58:39 the conversation. You know, and if somebody wants
00:58:39 --> 00:58:42 to learn more about you or possibly get in touch,
00:58:42 --> 00:58:45 what's the best way for them to do that? I mean,
00:58:45 --> 00:58:47 definitely through LinkedIn. Uh, I mean, I'm
00:58:47 --> 00:58:51 on LinkedIn every day looking at stuff. I, you
00:58:51 --> 00:58:52 know, I love now. I don't know if you play it.
00:58:52 --> 00:58:54 LinkedIn has added a bunch of games on there
00:58:54 --> 00:58:56 now, which are really fun little puzzles and
00:58:56 --> 00:58:58 games. Oh, I love it. Such a great brand strategy.
00:58:58 --> 00:59:01 Cause it pulls me into LinkedIn. Then I see what's
00:59:01 --> 00:59:03 going on with my contacts. I just love LinkedIn
00:59:03 --> 00:59:05 to keep up with the industry and everything's
00:59:05 --> 00:59:07 going on. So that would be a way to reach me.
00:59:07 --> 00:59:10 My emails on that and all my contact information.
00:59:10 --> 00:59:12 So anyone's ever interested in talking or whatever,
00:59:13 --> 00:59:15 um, that would place be the place to get a hold
00:59:15 --> 00:59:17 of me. Well, perfect. Yeah, no, I have played
00:59:17 --> 00:59:19 the games and obviously I spent a lot of time
00:59:19 --> 00:59:21 on LinkedIn as well. So I understand that one.
00:59:21 --> 00:59:23 So thank you, Andrew. I really enjoyed chatting
00:59:23 --> 00:59:25 with you and I'm sure my audience will enjoy
00:59:25 --> 00:59:27 this as well. So thanks again. Thanks a lot.
00:59:28 --> 00:59:31 It was amazing. I appreciate it. That's it for
00:59:31 --> 00:59:34 today's episode of FPNA Unlocked. If you enjoy
00:59:34 --> 00:59:37 FPNA Unlocked, please take a moment to leave
00:59:37 --> 00:59:40 a five star rating and review. It's the best
00:59:40 --> 00:59:43 way to support the FPNA guy. and help more FP
00:59:43 --> 00:59:46 &A professionals discover the show. Remember,
00:59:47 --> 00:59:50 you can earn CPE credit for this episode by visiting
00:59:50 --> 00:59:56 EarmarkCPE .com, downloading the app, and completing
00:59:56 --> 00:59:59 the quiz. If you need continuing education credits
00:59:59 --> 01:00:02 for the FPAC certification, complete the quiz
01:00:02 --> 01:00:05 and reach out to me directly. Thanks for listening.
01:00:05 --> 01:00:09 I'm Paul Barnhurst, the FP &A guy, and I'll see
01:00:09 --> 01:00:10 you next time.