Chris Reilly: Simplifying Private Equity, FP&A, and Financial Modeling

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Chris Reilly's first finance experience was historic. He worked on the Lehman bankruptcy at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 unwinding the investment bank's portfolio with "sights of empty offices and employees being laid off". This period at management consultancy FTI Consulting occupied days and nights dealing with the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Following his consultancy days, Reilly moved to Hilton Worldwide in a more traditional FP&A treasury senior analyst role. Here he learned to love private equity and ended up pursuing middle market PE in Denver for nearly a decade. In 2020, made his "pipe dream" of setting up his own consultancy business a reality, founding Mission Capital Consulting where he provides custom built M&A and FP&A models. He also runs a successful course Financial Modeling for Private Equity ("I started saying to myself, I wish I could have coached myself or coach an analyst or something like that on how to do this the right way because of all the sleepless nights I spent doing it the wrong way.")
Chris is a leading voice in finance on LinkedIn, providing his more than 25,000 followers with insights and practical advice each day.
In this episode he talks to Paul about:
How he became skilled in finance through “sink or swim” encounters that taught him modeling and FP&A
How mastering the Three Statements changed his career trajectory
The brutal response from a boss that changed his attitude to financial modeling forever
His worst model? (Or why is still haunted by 7,000 rows on multiple tabs)
Why every financial model starts with the end user in mind (and how to do this practically)
Why the model itself should not be considered only a means to a “conversation”.
Why building a model of their own lives” can be the most powerful beginning training
His new courses including financial modeling for private equity which have attracted five-star reviews
How he went from fine arts and Spanish double major to a career in finance
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
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[@christopherreilly4930]

Thanks for having me on the show!!

[@markdepow1903]

Great episode!