In the third in our series on finance business partnering we are joined by David Manela, who has had the role of CRO and CMO at Fiverr, Ideei, and Vivre. As managing partner and co-founder of Violet Growth he is in high-demand at some of the hottest scaling companies, designing a growth operating system that “speaks the CFO’s language from day one”. It is tailored to companies spending more than $10m annually on marketing and sales - with digital as the main growth channel. “Spending a dollar in marketing is no different than spending a dollar in infrastructure, on say a forklift that you might need for your warehouse. You need a return on a specific schedule, and you need a percentage of returns on that schedule. Don't start with a campaign, start with a financial goal.”

In this episode on the highlights and lowlights of the FP&A relationship with marketing, David talks:

• His background from audit to marketing and P&L responsibility at companies
• Marketing as an “investment” not a “cost”
• The power of getting a marketing forecast based on cohort behavior
• Payback period and capital constraints at Fiverr
• Disconnected and expensive mistakes in business partnering
• The power of AI in marketing and finance

Swati Bagri, head of FP&A for a major global FMCG company was told early in her career: “Either you are sales or you are helping sales”. In this second in our series of finance business partnership Swati, representing finance, is joined by Stephanie Troy, VP of Sales at Datarails, for a candid conversation with host Glenn Hopper about what sales leaders actually need from FP&A, and what great revenue-producing partnerships look like.

In this special episode:

• The dynamics of sales vs finance needs
• Pipeline communication challenges
• The problems with forecasting
• Where lack of communication hurts sales and finance
• What finance needs from sales leaders in budget season
• Dealing with the Office of No

Today on the show, we're launching a special series on finance business partnering - exploring different facets of modern finance business partnering. Today’s special guest is Tunc Tezel VP group FP&A, Ontax, bringing 30-years of lessons from Ontex, Pladis, British American Tobacco, Procter & Gamble, and Gillette - business partnering with marketing, sales, and operations to reach common goals and bringing some of the most popular CPG products to market.

• From “spy” to “strategist” in business partnering
• Secrets to storytelling
• Embedded vs. centralised FP&A business partnering
• Working capital as a partnering tool
• Breaking bad news in business partnering
• When business partnering breaks down

Tom Hinkle, senior leader in data and analytics at TIAA, has built his career at the intersection of finance, technology, and strategy. He also has a budding YouTube channel (Tom's Data World, which includes instructional videos on Excel, SQL, and AI). He's worked extensively with Excel (is a Microsoft MVP) and SQL, as well as Tableau and Power BI, and has worked with major financial institutions, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and TIAA.

"Nobody really gets excited about spending money on data governance. They get excited about machine learning, about AI, about data storytelling — everybody wants seminars on that. But data governance? At the end of the day, you're coming up with something you thought was right anyway, and then you're asking someone to spend more money just to make sure it's right."

• Why data governance is the foundation of AI
• Trust but verify challenges
• The two sides of data governance: master data management vs. data quality and controls
• How FP&A teams should think about their role as downstream consumers of data
• Why domain expertise is still non-negotiable in the age of vibe coding
• Tom's Minesweeper-in-Excel story, and what it taught him about prompting

What does it actually take to move FP&A activities into a shared service organization at Coca-Cola— and then transform how a global marketing giant manages billions in spend? Sébastien Privel, Senior Director Financial Services FP&A, has done both.

Sébastien Privel career spans pharma controllership in late-'90s Beijing to country CFO for France, being involved in the implementation Coca-Cola's global FP&A shared services from scratch, before leading a multi-year marketing finance transformation

In this episode

Building finance infrastructure from scratch in 1990s China — from rice paper ledgers to SAP, with floppy disks in between.

Business partnering and being the finance voice in multi functions projects (including Coca-Cola buying Tropico an iconic French brand)

Driving transformation in the FP&A area standardizing processes and moving key activities to a shared service organisation

Experimenting with AI including baseline forecasting and the real impact

Cindy Vindasius is the founder and CEO of Vindasius Advisory, and former Corporate Controller, and has spent more than 30 years helping high growth and enterprise companies build scalable finance systems. She's led more than a dozen ERP implementations across platforms like NetSuite, SAP, and Oracle, and has supported multiple IPOs, M&A transactions, and global compliance efforts. Her interview provides a wealth of information for FP&A professionals

• Why FP&A need to be involved in ERP implementation for enhanced reporting
• New wave of AI-driven ERPs: what I really think
• The ROI of an ERP Implementation

ERP Mastery Program 6 video course: https://www.vindasius.com/mastery-program

Mykola is Finance Business Partner at Merlin Entertainments – offering some of the most popular attractions in the world including LEGOLAND Resorts, Thorpe Park and Alton Towers. Merlin welcomes more than 62 million guests annually to its diverse global estate in over 20 countries. Before Merlin, Mykola spent several years as a finance director at a fast-growing law firm, where the business tripled in size in just a few years.

In this episode:

• Finance in a law firm - getting from technical finance to business partnering
• Reducing risk as the Ukraine war started
• The business of Merlin Entertainment - from forecasting to cost control
• Working with procurement on validation of costs
• key metrics including attendance, guest spends and promotion
• The power of business partnering: consistency, curiosity and understanding your business

Adam Hibbs has pretty non-linear paths into finance:New Zealand telecom regulator, OfCom, Vodafone, Cable & Wireless, UK Ministry of Defense, and now Global Director of Commercial Strategy at AICPA & CIMA. Financial modeling, commercial contracts, cloud infrastructure, and leadership across blue-chip organizations was preparation for building Josie, that is AICPA & CIMA's generative AI tool for accounting and auditing.

In this episode:

• What makes Josie genuinely different from ChatGPT or Claude for technical accounting work
• Curated dataset of 40,000 pieces of proprietary IP, real-time updates to FASB, PCAOB, and auditing standards
• Josie ($550 per subscriber) named after Josiah Wedgwood and a new form of cost accounting
• CGMA vs CPA
• Where AI and finance intersect in the next 12-24 months