This is a great episode! I have a first time CFO and I was seeking information to help him grow into this role! This video is going to be so effective for him.

Gonzalez Donald Taylor Eric Hernandez Elizabeth

Thank you for the insights. I’m currently awaiting final feedback for a CFO role interview with a startup company. One of my concerns is their expectation for the CFO to handle everything single-handedly. For example, they tasked me with developing a financial model and an executive summary, which I completed successfully and received positive feedback on. However, as an experienced Controller, I believe that expecting a CFO to manage every aspect personally can limit their ability to think strategically and focus on the future. The role of a CFO should be about guiding the company towards future growth and better results, rather than being bogged down by routine tasks. While I am eager to contribute to the startup’s growth in line with the founders’ aspirations, I believe a CFO should be empowered to think, execute, and drive business growth, rather than being confined to routine functions. Automation is a crucial step in achieving this. Thank you again for the piece, and best wishes to all CFOs out there.

I love it! Well said!!

Totally agree. Excellent videos!Thank you very much for your hard work..

This was outstanding! I am so far from a CFO that it isn't even funny, but I learned so much watching this!

I wish I could give this conversation 5 stars. The problems and management of solutions are apparently not local to any particular industry or location.

Thank you so much for validating so many notions, in particular 10:52 and 11:26

Awesome content! Thank you for sharing!

Very insightful, thanks 👍

John Baule and Brian McGrath are awesome people! I am in awe whenever I listen to them. I would love to spend a day or two with them! 🏆

In other words, the accountant handles the transactions and records the information accurately. The CFO then analyzes , interpets, and strategizes based on that information.

Thank you, gentlemen, for this engaging and interesting discussion! This was exactly what I needed! I sought for top management point of view (CFO and CEO point of view in particular) on the expected outcome of these financial reports. I participate in the preparation of monthly forecasts for the company and budgeting on the part of HR (preparing personnel costs). Now I'm inspired because I know that this is not just a mathematical exercise but a way of measuring the puls of a company. Thanks to your perspective, I began to better understand the purpose of regular forecasting. This gives a lot of room for developing better hypotheses in forecasts. Thank you! If you have the opportunity to touch upon the issue of interaction between the HR department and the financial team from your perspective, I would be simply happy! What is the difference in the points of view of these departments, how can finance and HR better understand each other? What is your opinion about the role of the HR department in this planning and analysis process? After all, personnel costs are a significant part of expenses.

Smart dude. Glad to hear the shoutout to the amazing book by the late Sir Dr Hans Rosling.

Thank you😊

AI Meeting summary: The Fireside chat featured Brad Schomber, the CFO of Spoonflower. He discussed his career journey, detailing his involvement in several IPOs and the recent successful acquisition of Spoonflower by Shutterfly. Describing the CFO role as a problem-solving partnership, he highlighted its importance in managing business wealth and driving strategic conversations. Brad emphasized understanding each team member's goals and motivations for effective teamwork. Upon joining an organization, he recommends getting acquainted with both management teams and board members while ensuring legal, insurance, accounting details are appropriately managed. He also spoke about balancing between Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) versus Accounting roles within finance departments. While favoring FP&A due to its forward-looking nature and strategic relevance to business growth, he acknowledged that solid accounting practices were fundamental 'table stakes'. Furthermore, Brad stressed automation's vital role in freeing up time for more strategic work across all financial roles from senior accountants to CFOs. He believes automating repetitive tasks allows more room for strategy development. Discussing how one improves communication with boards or investors when assuming a new position was another focal point during the conversation - emphasizing understanding their information intake style is crucial for effective interaction. Action Items: 1. Follow-up: Brad Schomber expresses excitement about the acquisition of Spoonflower with Shutterfly. It would be beneficial to further explore the details of this acquisition and understand the potential impact on both companies. 2. Action item: Brad mentions the importance of the CFO role in driving strategic conversations. It would be valuable to delve deeper into how CFOs contribute to these discussions and what specific strategies they employ. 3. Follow-up: Brad mentions the need for alignment and communication within the management team. This highlights the importance of fostering a cohesive and collaborative environment. It would be helpful to explore strategies for building strong relationships and effective communication within a management team. 4. Follow-up: Brad emphasizes the significance of understanding the motivations and goals of different team members. This suggests the need for effective stakeholder management and the ability to tailor communication and decision-making to individual preferences. Further exploration of strategies for understanding and meeting the needs of team members would be beneficial. 5. Action item: Brad mentions the challenging nature of dealing with boards and investors. It would be valuable to discuss effective approaches for engaging with boards, understanding their priorities, and communicating with them in a way that aligns with their preferences and expectations. 6. Action item: Brad highlights the importance of automating processes and moving away from manual Excel-based workflows. It would be beneficial to discuss the advantages of implementing automated systems, the potential challenges, and best practices for successful implementation. 7. Follow-up: Brad emphasizes the significance of accurate accounting and financial reporting as the foundation for effective financial planning and analysis (FP&A). This suggests the need for a strong accounting team and robust financial controls. Exploring strategies for ensuring accuracy in accounting and maintaining high-quality financial reporting would be valuable. 8. Follow-up: Brad discusses the balance between speed and quality in the financial close process. It would be helpful to explore how organizations can strike the right balance, ensuring timely financial close without compromising accuracy or overwhelming team members. 9. Action item: Brad mentions the importance of a well-functioning forecasting process. It would be useful to delve deeper into effective forecasting techniques, the role of the CFO in forecasting, and how forecasting contributes to decision-making and strategic planning.

Great insights, Thanks!

So when acquiring a new business how far back into financial reports do you dive and do you just adapt that compant to your company's existing financial structure or do you take that information and create a new structure?

Do you ever think of it as preventive maintenance? Do you feel like you have to foresee problems and even sucesses?

Amazing, love it 👏👌

Boredom is definitely an issue, but making finance more strategic is the key to keeping finance exciting. Being engaged fully in the strategic operations.

So agree looking at the financial concentration of efforts in a few key areas are critical to correctly assessing what to do next. Just looking at revenue wont tell you much about the stability and sustainability of the organization.

Great discussion. Thank you

Great insight here! Could you please do a tech stack for the finance function? What would you recommend for a sales lead B2B business?

“If you are not going to make a decision on the data” “stop investigating it” - quote in this. So focus you kpi around things early that drive a change and metric is the next step.

Excellent videos! Thank you very much for your hard work.

Amazing insights, lots of value in this conversation. New subscriber here.

Great conversation

❤

Really enjoyed this conversation! Very insightful.

Great insight and thought on the future roadmap of AI in Financial planning and Strategy formulation for the businesses 👍

Amazing video. Information was very useful. Benchmark numbers don't necessarily tell the whole picture about the health of some companies.

Thank you so much! I enjoy watching and learning from your knowledge.

So knowledgeable. good insights of Both Budgets and Forecasts.

What are some Finance dept KPIs?

Thanks for this gentlemen. A loy of great perspectives here.

Thanks for the walkthrough - really helped me understand cubes!

Great analogies.

Really great conversation John. I'm learning a lot from your channel. Keep the content coming!

waw

Extremely like the video, man. Very helpful and informative. Thank you very much. It is presented so well too. Great, positive work.

When does this add-in go live?

Thank you brother

Great conversation. Thanks for sharing your views about this important subject

I enjoyed your video with Brad Schomber and his tips for CFOs to be successful and know it is useful for new CFOs. I am building a KZbin platform to assist entrepreneurs in growing their businesses by evaluating strengths and weaknesses across the "Three Pillars of Success" - 1. Vision/Strategic Planning; 2. Financial Strength/Accounting Systems; and, 3. Operations Efficiency. While I offer a 3-In-1 fractional CFO, COO & CEO advisory service to Charlotte-based businesses, my goal is to assist all entrepreneurs to understand the importance of these three executive functions, evaluate their business across the three pillars, and strengthen all three. I'll be adding detailed and instructional videos on this topic and hope to build a useful platform for entrepreneurs in the KZbin community. If you would watch my 2 minute video, I would love to get your feedback regarding the message and its usefulness to growing companies. Keep up the good work!

Thoughts on the new xlookup feature vs "traditional" vlookup

Another awesome video. I'd love to get your take on some approaches to establishing an effective FP&A practrice from scratch. Clearly step one is what I like to call FP&C or Financial Planning & Controls focused on ensuring clean accounting data and working towards a database (Data Lake from your other video) as the single source of truth. Beyond that, I'd love to get your take from evangelizing and building the FP&A constituency across the organization to introducing proper budgeting processes, etc.

This is a really great channel thank you. There isn't much out there on FP&A that isn't overly (or overtly) focused on systems rather than FP&A best practices. Having spent nearly a decade absorbing best FP&A practices from a blue chip company then becoming the last FP&A staff at a fledgling retail fashion house and now ultimately finding myself establishing FP&A best practices from the ground up at a startup environment, this content is invaluable to me. I would be curious to get your take on proper shared services allocation methodologies from a budgeting perspective. As an example, we have a dept that is responsible for maintaining our pool of online influencers. Other departments tap this department's pool of influencers for various marketing activations thereby earning the company advertising revenue. These departments are given the revenue credit for these activations. But how would the department actually responsible for maintaining the talent assets (shared resource) be credited for this revenue to determine what an appropriate budget ought to be? Keep up the great work!!

Totally agree

Having a consistent LTV stake in the ground is definitely beneficial for trends in both early stage SaaS firms and for investors. Unfortunately, like valuations, metrics are most often self-serving and guide perception; which with enough marketing can become reality. What to do? An independent arbitrator?