FP&A Today

Emily Feinstone is an accounting manager at Eventus Advisory Group and unusually tech-forward in how she works. Emily spends her days building better processes, automating repetitive finance workflows, and making high volume operational data usable. And instead of opting for a  traditional CPA first route after 20 years of experience, she is pursuing a degree in data science: “ I want to be the one that teaches the AI and not the one that is replaced by AI. I want to be the one that knows how to use it the best to my advantage.”

Emily also talks about accounting vs FP&A: You don't even see overhead. It's allocated…but you don't know that it took me two, two and a half hours to prepare that entry and another two hours to key it in.”

In this episode: 

Blurring of lines between data analysts and accountants 

The future of the accounting profession in an AI era 

Transforming an Excel based invoice and commission process 

Keeping raceability and controls + automation 

Why I wont trust AI to do my accounting journal entries

The history-making USA Hockey won golds (and millions of fans in the process) at Milan’s Olympic Games. But behind the on-ice glory is a $75 million organization with a finance function as disciplined as its players. Kelly Mahncke , CFO of USA Hockey, joins Glenn Hopper and FP&A Today to pull back the curtain on what it takes to fund the gold-winning national hockey program — with business interests from memberships and sponsorships to restaurants and insurance. Kelly traces her own journey from center ice to chasing the bottom line, explaining how a hockey career shaped her instincts as a finance leader. She walks us through four-year "quad budgets" and the typical annual cycle, and what it took to weather COVID's financial shock, from cash management to the logistical nightmare of paused travel programs. She also gets into the digital transformation underway at USA Hockey. And why she believes curiosity is the defining trait of great FP&A professionals. Catch this fascinating look at finance leadership — at the peak of Hockey USA's Olympic moment.

Sahil Kamani, is a Berlin-based senior finance leader and FP&A professional at Ellie (Volkswagen Group), Starting at a credit rating agency in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis — inspired, fittingly, by a fascination with the documentary Inside Job — Sahil moved through regulation, capital markets, and an MBA before pivoting into operational finance 

In this episode: 

Being the person handing out credit ratings 

Cash burn and the KPIs that matter most in a turnaround

What bankers and regulators instinctively look for 

How the CFO you work influences your storytelling

Being CFO of Berlin's fastest-growing pickleball club.

 

Sahil R Kamani on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahilrkamani/

John Glasgow, is the founder, CEO and CFO of Campfire AI native ERP with more than $100m in funding, built to help high growth companies close faster, get richer visibility from their accounting data, and scale. John brings his insights as an operator who has spent time in FP&A and strategic finance, including at Adobe and an executive at Invoice To Go, leading that finance company to a $625 million sale to bill.com. Campfire came out of firsthand frustration with legacy ERPs and a need to rebuild the general ledger for the AI era.

In this episode:

My years in FP&A and strategic finance at Adobe before becoming a founder 

CFA Certification 

Invoice to Go acquisition what I learned  

The frustration and origin story of frustration and why Campfire was set up

Why building our own AI model makes sense 

Key quote: “If you slap AI on top of an ERP with summarized revenue data, then you’re essentially gonna get no insights that are of any value.”

Marko Horvat has been a public accountant, Controller, head of FP&A and CFO, as well as VP in Gartner's research and advisory practice, specializing in topics most relevant to CFOs and finance transformation.



In this episode he talks: 



Interplay IT and CISO and organizational politics (“if it runs on electricity, it’s ours”)
CFO skillsets gap


Real change in CFO’s Office with AI (audit pattern recognition to forecasting)


Last mile transformation in finance 


Mindset, skillset, toolset transformation 


Treating forecast as in perpetual beta 


The power of the subtotal function 



Recommended books:



There's Got to Be a Better Way: How to Deliver Results and Get Rid of the Stuff That Gets in the Way of Real Work



Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction