Tips for Advancing Your FP&A Career

You can't get promoted in FP&A by just working longer hours FP&A people spend too much time on routine tasks during their standard work week. But the most successful ones find ways to level up their analytical skills and impact. It's about building up the value you deliver. How? Here are 5 key areas to focus on: 1. Data visualization: Start using charts like waterfalls to better visualize and explain your analysis. Move beyond just reporting the numbers to provide clear data storytelling. 2. Driver-based analysis: Don't just report revenues and costs. Dig deeper to identify and track the key drivers behind them, like units, prices, industry factors, etc. 3. Statistical analysis: Pull basic statistics like averages, distributions, etc. to summarize and interpret your data using Excel analysis tools. Compare across segments and time periods. 4. Forecasting techniques: For major forecasting items, apply data science methods like regression and time series analysis. Review historical forecasting errors to identify improvement opportunities. 5. Optimization modeling: Work with data scientists to build optimization models using linear programming for areas like marketing spend allocation that management needs decision support on. The bottom line? Actively upskilling in these areas shows you're going beyond reporting. Set weekly goals, find online courses & resources, and get hands-on practice. In that way, you can create more value than most FP&A professionals do in years. Greater impact leads to career growth.

Advice for FP&A people: 1. Be insight-driven - act as the analytical engine of the company. FP&A professionals must continuously monitor market trends and internal performance to provide insights that drive strategic business decisions. 2. Process vs. outcome - focus on the strategic implications of financial data rather than just the process. All FP&A functions must directly contribute to business objectives and outcomes. 3. Tell a good financial story - Interpret data and craft compelling narratives that influence decision-making. Your ability to present data in a meaningful way is as important as the data itself. 4. Go outside finance - move beyond traditional FP&A boundaries and engage with marketing, sales, HR, and operations to understand their challenges and goals. You'll be shocked at how you can uncover new opportunities for resource optimization and performance enhancement. 5. Skills, skills, skills - build non-FP&A skills and apply them to FP&A tasks. Become a learning machine and enhance your capacity for innovative thinking and problem-solving. Don't go to bed without learning anything new and watch yourself become the best FP&A professional. 🦒 P.S. Before becoming the CEO at Jirav, I spent 10 years working in finance as a controller, finance director, and CFO. I helped multiple businesses grow, from early startups to established corporations and helped raise over $250 million in funding for clients across the globe.

I worked in India only for 1 year & came to the US. → I started here as equity research analyst → and later went on to become FP&A Director. When young FP&A aspirants reach out to me for suggestions to become FP&A leaders, here are 3 key things I tell them. 1/ Learn financial decision making. Learn to provide insights into ↳ Sales trends ↳ Production capacity ↳ Market competition ↳ Resource allocation 2/ Learn financial models to simulate business scenarios. These models help answer important business questions such as ↳ What-if analysis ↳ Break-even analysis ↳ Sensitivity analysis 3/ Don't work in silos Learn to communicate & collaborate ↳ Build relationships with different departments ↳ Understand their priorities ↳ Be open to feedback The more you can work cross functionally, the more effective you will be in your FP&A role. Any other FP&A leaders want to add something?

The FP&A role is changing. Here's what's new: 1. Increased focus on strategic insights: Where FP&A roles were traditionally more focused on reporting historical financial results, there is now a much stronger emphasis on using data analytics and insights to help guide strategic business decisions. FP&A professionals are expected to provide predictive analysis and what-if scenario modeling to inform strategies around investment, M&A activity, and more. 2. Broader business partnering: Along with strategic insights, FP&A professionals spend more time partnering closely with business unit leaders across different functions. This involves understanding operations from an end-to-end perspective and communicating financial tradeoffs in a way that business stakeholders understand. The ability to act as an internal business consultant and trusted advisor has become increasingly important. 3. Advanced analytics and modeling: Leveraging software and tools to pull complex data from various systems, conduct advanced analytics, and build sophisticated models is now standard for FP&A. Professionals need skills in areas like predictive modeling, optimization, data visualization, and translating analysis into actionable recommendations. Traditional accounting knowledge alone is no longer sufficient. 4. Continuous learning mindset: The pace of change means that what used to be suitable for the FP&A role will quickly become outdated. Success requires continual learning to keep skills and knowledge relevant. Professionals must stay on top of the latest analytics techniques, technologies, and best practices to future-proof their careers and maximize value-add to their organizations. ** It's important to carefully evaluate FP&A job opportunities to make sure the role offers opportunities to impact broader strategic decisions rather than just financial reporting. FP&A professionals in strategic roles can steadily increase their compensation over their careers, providing a solid long-term career path and good work-life balance. All the best out there.