I speak with Anna Talerico, the CEO of CFI, a powerhouse provider of training and productivity tools for finance and banking professionals (serving 2m finance professionals, offering 5,000 on-demand lessons and 200 courses) including the famous – including the famous Certified Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA®) accreditation. She is also CEO of Macabacus, a top  enterprise productivity add-in on for finance teams. 

In this episode:

• why anyone can be a world class financial analyst 
• leveraging technology to democratize education at CFI. 
• Giving finance leaders “Desk Ready Skills” from financial modelling to AI cryptocurrency and risk management (and what’s hot right now)
• CFI acquiring Macabacus and the opportunities and challenges of being a dual CEO over 2 companie
• How Excel remains the backbone of finance 
• Are you losing sleep over the AI revolution in finance?
• Basics of coding in finance 
• Best courses to stay relevant in finance and ride the wave of AI

“I transitioned into FP&A when I realized that it wasn’t just about crunching the numbers, it was more about telling a story and trying to influence the future. Working with Fortune 100 companies has given me the fantastic platform to leave transformative projects in finance, procurement, and supply chain. I saw firsthand how FP&A acts as the strategic backbone of any type of organization”

– Enrique Rodriguez, Finance Director, Walgreens Boots Alliance  

Enrique Rodriguez is a multilingual finance director and business leader. With more than 15 years of experience in Fortune 100 companies, he has worked collaboratively with global functions directing FP&A, accounting and treasury teams. He’s headed finance departments overseeing $7 billion in annual spend and managing operational budgets of up to $750 million in billion dollar business units and is a passionate believer in Zero Based Budgeting revealing how he implemented this – despite challenges.

• My background in Guatemala 
• When I realized it is not just about crunching the numbers 
• FP&A as the backbone of the institution 
• Main financial metrics bio biopharmaceutical companies, medical devices, and healthcare companies
• How FP&A departments are set up at the companies you worked for – and the philosophy and the outputs expected from FP&A
• producing outputs like dynamic scenario planning and  specific KPI dashboards  guiding decisions at the highest level.
• Zero based budgeting – the why and how of our experience 
• Biggest challenges I have seen in budgeting in my career – managing budgets during a turnaround
• How finance business partnering has changed in my career 
• The problem solving aspect of FP&A
• The opportunities and challenges of fast-growing technology 
• Saving $8million on inventory write-off in a country on a health product 
• Financial Executives International (Chicago)
• The power of a great mentor and books: Hit Refresh Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and Shoe Dog (Joe Knight)
• supporting a procurement organization in, in an early level of maturity – my toughest challenge 
• Index Match – more flexible and scalable for complex analysis 

Connect with Enrique Rodriguez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enrique-a-rodriguez/

Lindsey Martens, VP Finance at fintech company, Valera (Formerly PSCU/Co-op Solutions) talks about her transition from accounting to finance- and how she manages a remote FP&A team that has business partnering and storytelling at its heart. “Business partnering is my favorite thing about FP&A” Martens says, “I love being the translator. I think of myself as taking all this data, accounting data, and then all these other sources that come into it, and I’m packaging it up in a way that is very digestible by the rest of the organization, especially the leaders who are making decisions.”

In this episode:

• Making the pivot to FP&A – why and how 
• Starting off in coding and the link to FP&A 
• My career at Valera (ex Co-Op solutions)- a fintech leader with clients that are credit unions 
• Opps and Challenges of managing a remote FP&A Team 
• Small talk at the beginning of meetings (not so small) 
• Using rolling forecasts at Valera 
• Challenging budget experiences 
• Why business partnering is my favorite part of FP&A
• My biggest FP&A success: rooting out the source of at “rise” in profits
• Storytelling in finance 
• My biggest mentors and what they taught me about management
• My biggest mistake and how it still leaves me shaking 
• Favorite Excel Function

Connect with Lindsey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseymartens/

In more than 12 years at PepsiCo Tariq Munir, has held roles including FP&A Manager, Head of Integrated Business Planning, Head of Finance Supply Chain, and more recently APAC Finance Transformation Lead (based in Australia) delivering Financial Planning process simplification. This included founding the first-ever APAC Finance Digital Academy to build a digital mindset and culture. Tariq is sought out as an international keynote speaker and is a regular columnist for CFO Magazine ANZ, sharing insights on digital trends, strategies for digital resilience.

In this episode:

• Running digital transformation at large companies
• The opportunities and challenges in your data
• Core problems faced by finance teams including transactions
• The big headache AI is causing for finance teams
• M&A and AI Transformation
• retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and plugging into external data source for your organization
• Framework and governance for digital transformation