The Secret To Fast Tracking Your FP&A Career

CFO TRENDS EPISODE 7

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Read the full episode transcript here.

Bryan Lapidus, FPAC is the Director of FP&A Practice at the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP). His previous work includes roles with Fannie Mae , Nasdaq , The Teaching Company, Ameritox , and Allegiance Advisory Group .

This week, he joins CFO TRENDS host Chris Ortega to talk about the changing role of the CFO and what skillsets FP&A professionals should focus on to level up.

Key Takeaways

The New CFO ?? ??

FP&A is evolving with the changing role of the CFO; the new CFO is someone who can:

• unlock value
• be a steward of capital
• Get the most out of every dollar?

Talent Beyond the Finance World ??

40 percent of CFOs are bringing in non-finance people into the finance team to deal with an emerging data problem: “The problem is that you’ve got this archipelago. You’ve got all these islands of automation scattered around your organization and when it comes time to connect them, there are no good connectors.”

Not Just About the Numbers ??

So, the top skills an FP&A professional should develop go beyond just dealing with numbers. Bryan considers the top three skill sets employees should have to be:

• Finance acumen
• Data fluency
• Communication

Investing in Tech ???

New tech is an investment, but “when you can do more, you do more.” Without technology advancements, your team will be stuck with high-IQ people doing low-IQ work — a recipe for talent to leave. As Bryan says, “Put in the time, put in the money and the returns will be there in the analysis.”

The Future of AI ??

Bryan gives us this scenario: There’s only two beverages in the entire world. There’s coffee and there’s tea. Some people prefer coffee, others prefer tea. But imagine that coffee is free. It becomes very hard to compete with free. As AI makes computing power more accessible and affordable to everyone, Bryan says it doesn’t make sense to try to compete with it.?

“Don’t be the tea to the coffee because you’re going to get trounced. Instead, be the cream and sugar,” he says. Learn how to harness that computing power and do the things it can’t do — the communication, sophistication, and seeing beyond the data set.

Want to know more?

For the resources mentioned in this episode or to dive deeper into the topics we covered, check out the list below:?

AI in Finance

Would You Take Financial Advice From A.I.? (The New York Times)

Artificial Intelligence Opens Up The World Of Financial Services (Forbes)

The Evolution of the CFO

The new CFO: Championing growth, prioritizing people and embracing new technologies (The Globe and Mail)

In conversation: The CFO’s critical role in innovation (McKinsey)

3 CFOs explain how the role has evolved and what it takes to succeed (Fortune)

“Batman didn’t have superhuman strength like Superman. What he had was great tools to compliment him.” — Chris Ortega

Want to be more like Batman? Mesh Payments CEO Oded Zehavi recently spoke to Fast Company about what CFOs should look for when it comes to tools in their tech stack.

CFO TRENDS is brought to you by Mesh Payments

Mesh is the fastest-growing?spend management platform in the US and uniquely meets the needs of global companies. Finance teams rely on Mesh to power global spend, automate manual accounting tasks, and optimize finance workflows.