On 25th January 2018, the London FP&A Circle gathered for the fifth time to discuss what new challenges and trends are there in the FP&A field. In one room, 60 finance practitioners exchanged their expertise. They represented internationally acknowledged companies, such as Experian, Imperial Tobacco, Sony Pictures Television, Thomas Cook and many others.

As the year slowly draws to a close, CFOs also start their annual haggling over costly budget items. Various challenges force companies to dismantle old, cost-inefficient structures. In looking for new budgeting options, a well-known but controversial method is moving back into the limelight: zero-based budgeting (ZBB).

The San Francisco FP&A Board was established on the 5th of April 2018 as an educational and networking platform for the local FP&A community.

Since then, a diverse group of members, representing leading global and local companies such as Google, HP, Amazon, Visa, Flex, Genentech, Siemens, Gensler, Kaiser Permanent, Hitachi, Uber, Adobe, SeatGeek, and many others joined this think-tank. Together, we explore the best way to address the challenges in the FP&A community in the 21st century.

During the meetings, we guide the development and promotion of best practices in global FP&A, identify and support new trends, skillsets and innovations. The speakers from Mobileum, Autodesk, Synaptics, Roche Pharmaceuticals, UCSF Medical Center, Gensler, and others presented their insights and case studies.
 

The International FP&A Board will open its 16th global chapter in San Francisco on 5 April 2018. The first professional debate will be devoted to the global trends in modern Financial Planning and Analytics (FP&A). 

The Board was established in London, UK in 2013 and now successfully operates in 11 countries of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and the USA. This is a leading professional think-tank that gathers expertise of many senior finance practitioners. Its mission is to identify and support new global trends, skill sets and thought leadership in modern corporate financial planning and analysis (FP&A).

The FP&A Board meetings are exclusive to senior finance practitioners in active employment (CFO, FD and Head of Finance level) at large local and international organisations. They are complimentary, vendor-agnostic and by invitation only.

At this stage, we are inviting only 25 members to join the SF FP&A Board. 

I like to think of the various EPM/CPM methods as an analogy of musical instruments in an orchestra. An orchestra’s conductor seeks balance and guides the symphony composer’s fluctuations in harmony, rhythm and tone. 

You will be considered a great FP&A professional only if you can communicate clearly, effectively, and eloquently. The most basic of those choices is whether a use a table or a graph. To make that choice intelligently, it’s critical that you answer four questions that are described in this article. 

 What does it take to become a good or even great FP&A professional?

The article describes those QUALITIES that I have found in people who I have worked with, worked for and who have worked for me in an FP&A domain that I found to be particularly effective in driving the FP&A agenda forward within their responsibility domain.

We are continually working to improve the quality of the FP&A Board meetings and would appreciate your feedback.

Please answer the questions below:

It is commonly agreed that the traditional budgeting process is time-consuming and costly, rarely focuses on strategy and adds little value. Although traditional budgets have evolved over the years, they can hardly meet the challenges of the modern economic and business environment. Join our global discussion on whether Beyond Budgeting is the best alternative, whether it is realistic to abandon the budget and transform the whole process.

The information age is forcing the office of the CFO into a more data-driven, strategic role away from the back-office accounting role of the past. For CFO’s to be successful, they need their FP&A teams to step out of the data collection and validation and play a larger more strategic, customer facing role.