CGFPA Certification Overview & How It Helps FP&A Professionals Become Leaders - Alfredo & Jihane

This week we have a special treat for you as we're going to talk about one of the great certificates out there, the Certified Global FP and a program with two graduates from the program. Alfredo Kananga is a finance expert with 14 years of experience in accounting, business planning and commercial finance. A Certified Global FP and a graduate, he excels in sales, marketing and profitability strategies. Gihanian is a CPA from Canada with 10 years of experience in financial accounting, payroll and forecasting. A Certified Global FP and a graduate, she specializes in data driven financial planning.

As a financial professional, we tend to be so critical, especially with the sales people, with other operations. The spirit of this course was we are partners, so we have to read between the teams and business teams.

The most important soft skill for FPA is stakeholder relationship. We need to understand how to relate to other people with different backgrounds and to understand their aspirations, their needs. Maybe we don't understand and work together.

It's really hard to say what's the most important because there's a lot of important just shows how many different things we have to be good at. But at the core we can see. We want to thank this week's title sponsor, the FPA Hub. The FPA Hub is the premier FP and A community. It's where you can go and learn from your fellow FP&A professionals. With over 1000 people in the community, you can get answers to the questions you have. Join us for free today@the fpahub.com Again, that's the fpahub.com Join us today. Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A tomorrow where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, AKA the FP and A Guy and I'll be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. Each week we are joined by thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners who share their insights and experiences, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. This week we have a special treat for you as we're going to talk about one of the great certificates out there, the Certified Global FP and a program with two graduates from the program. So I have here with me Alfredo and Jahin. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Why don't we go ahead and give each of you just a minute to introduce yourself to the audience. We'll start with you, Alfredo, if you could introduce yourself, let everybody know who you are, just a little bit about yourself.

Yes, thank you. My Name is Alfredo Kinanga. Actually I have a degree in accounting and finance plus 14 years of work experience experience mainly in finance. Now I'm doing also trade, marketing and sales. Basically I'm focused on commercial finance, business planning, the business planning and development, sales and marketing. I'm really passionate about growth and profitability.

Great. Sounds like you got a little bit of everything. You don't very often get sales and marketing and planning altogether.

Yes.

All right, and now we'll give. Jihan, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience.

My name is Jihan Muhammad. I am a chartered professional accountant and PC from Canada. And then right now I currently I work as a payroll accountant for a company that manage senior home living. So my specialty is in payroll, financial accounting and reporting and also budgeting and forecasting. So I have 10 years of experience. I was a controller senior accountant back before this role in 2024.

Cool. You know, I always appreciate the payroll people because I've seen payroll get messed up and nobody likes when their pay gets messed with as you know. So they're always one of my friends in the company. And unfortunately I've been one of those that have messed up payroll sales commissions before. I used to calculate them and we had a few issues from time to time, but for the most part it worked well. All right. Alfredo, can I ask you from, from your view, when you think of FP&A, what do you think makes great FP&A? Like what is great FP&A in your mind?

Yes, basically for me, as actually went through this program, FNPNA is a combination of many technical financial skills and actually comes also with soft skills. But for me it's a bridge between business teams and is the bridge between the business teams and the top team or leadership also top management. FNPNA actually makes this connection and bridges between the two. So it boils down to business partnering, supporting the business as actually the business go forward in terms of growth and profitability. So that's basically my take and what actually makes FNPNA a very interesting function.

Thank you, Appreciate that. Johan, any thoughts from you on that? When you think of great FP and A, anything else you would add to that?

I think great FNA person is a person who understand not only the technical skills but also like the strategic picture, like the goals of the company, the impact of their function to the company as a whole. And the most importantly is understanding people. So a great femp person will know how to communicate with like a lot of people with different background and have A like well rounded picture, how to solve problems.

Agreed. I think you made, you know, great points both of you brought up. It's not just technical. There's the communication, there's bridging the gap. You know, FP&A is one of those careers that requires a lot of communication skills and a lot of technical skills. Right. Some tend to lean more heavily one way or the other. But really if you want to move up and be successful long term, you have to have both in FP and A. Obviously the more you move up, like in any role, communication becomes more important as a leader. But they're both, you know, very important. So what I'd like to start with next is we just love to know why both of you took the certified global FP and A program. Kind of. What was your reasoning for taking the program? Jahan, we'll start with you on that. I'd love to know how you found out about the program and how you decided to take it.

So I was introduced with FPNA back in 2022 when my employer at that time needed to have Bank Covenant reporting that require us to create from the scratch financial modeling for three financial statements and also forecasting. And then at that time I started to search like certification that I like to enroll. I also already enrolled cfi. It's like more kind of tactical things. And then I saw Asif and Dawas program. So what I like about it is because the students are from around the world, so it means I will learn different things because I'm in Canada. And then also the class is on weekend so it's easy for me to attend it and it will not interrupt with my daily work. And also like the interactive portions of the course. And then the modules are comprehensive from strategy to technical skills, even AI, which is like. I think it's wonderful.

Yeah. So it sounds like a few things. One, you really enjoyed the fact the weekend. So the flexibility there.

Yes.

The live instruction people all around the world and then a comprehensive program. Those were some of the things that attracted you to it.

Yes.

Alfredo, what. What attracted you to the program? You know, as you were. What were kind of your main reasons for taking it?

And yes, first of all, I was. I normally work on my development plan. Basically I was almost three years without actually a form, a proper formal training or proper formal education at the time, you know, when I was looking at my development plan so I needed to be certified. And then also because I was, I'm doing basically mainly sales and how do you call it, trade marketing. I needed to reposition myself as a, as a financial professional, as a. Having a degree and not having the financial jargons and actually felt being put away in terms of finance, I had to reposition myself in terms of financial profession. So which is basically one of my core and where I actually gravitate to. And then I saw the Saturday's flexibility that would not really impact on my daily work as I went through the program from the Internet and then the live sessions actually is what actually took me there. And once I saw that there are certain modules that actually would resonate with me, especially the strategy bit and then the data analytics actually that moved me into this, into this program. So. Which I really found very, very, very. I call it as a nuggets of gold that I really. That I actually had a chance to, to. To grasp them and to grab them.

Great. So thank you for sharing. I appreciate that. What I'd love to know from both of you is, you know, before you enrolled in the, in the program, were there other programs you looked at? I think John, from what you mentioned, you had previously done some stuff with Corporate Finance Institute, it sounds like, which you found mostly technical and I'm going to assume all on demand. But did you look at any other programs when you enrolled in this one?

I look at Wharton and also Finance. Finance Circle from Nicholas Boucher, I think.

Yeah, yeah. And so what was the kind of. If there was one deciding factor as you looked at each of those, what was kind of the deciding factor for you that led you towards, you know, the CGFP and A program?

For me it's like flexibility on. On weekend. And I, I like the way Dawal and Ashif present FP&A topic because FP&A is complex topic, but they make it easy to understand in simple language. And the way they, you know, and when expert usually they will explain things in complicated ways, but they explain it in simple language now. I love that.

Yeah. So it seems like flexibility was really a key and just connecting with the instructors and the way they teach. I appreciate that. What about you, Alfredo? Were there other programs you looked at, other things you considered before you enrolled?

Yes, yes, yes. That basically was the same as Chihan. Actually I had some experience. It's surprised now that actually we are following the same path and we found out in the same spot. So basically I was looking mainly at financial modeling. I think also cfi, if I'm not mistaken, also offered that. But once I actually got. Before deciding I got the programs, I was browsing mostly on the Internet and The key factor factors basically to pick up CGFPNA was basically as I mentioned, the modules when it comes to data storytelling, the analytics and because they were also. I was indulging myself in learning more in terms of Power bi. But I think that the key factors there is because the way they presented the model break down into the weekends, into the months. They presented very detailed program to me so that I could really put it in schedule and plan properly checking these models like repeating it. Power BI and data storytelling strategy actually came as a compound that this is the right thing for me. And then once we're also in the training or in the sessions, actually the context was actually talking to me. The programs were really, were really live and they were really engaging. So it was not really a bad decision to take this course. It was really a good decision. But these are actually the factors that made me go forward into attending this course or this program.

Thank you. I appreciate you both sharing that. Yeah. So this next question, you know, Alfredo, as you took the program, was there a key takeaway from. From the program you something that you took away and maybe started implementing or using in your day to day work immediately? Is there something that really stuck out to you?

Yeah, there are many things that I did stuck out. You know, there are many things. It's like I could not really pick one. You know, I cannot really, really touch touch point in one because that was so intensive. That was so. It was a game changer and transforming. But you know, for this, for some, as a summary, you know, it's like I would resemble so much, I'll resonate so much in business partnering. So I think that FNPNA is really is about partnership bringing and bridging and supporting the department also departments people with the strategic goals comes as a bridge. So what I took really from this program was that is business partnering. Let me just give you a little bit of story here. Financial professional, we tend to be so critical, especially with the salespeople with other operations. But you know, the spirit of this course was or this program was that, you know, we are partners so we have to breathe, you know, between the teams and the business teams and the dealership, so that we can come along in the ultimate strategic goal, which is company moving forward. So that's the key takeaway. Even in my approach now with finance team, as I'm not really into that finance spot, you know, with my colleagues, I try to bridge so much so that, you know, we can really move forward in terms with profitability and growth. So I know I Became kind of a bridge and I stood this concept well. So business partnering is my key takeaway from these, from this program.

Great. That's a great example. And I know when you talk business partnering, I mentioned communication and sometimes, you know, how we don't understand there can be difficult relationships between finances and the business. I saw John nodding her head. She's like, I probably dealt with that some over the career. So what's kind of your thoughts around the business partnering and just some of the things Alfredo mentioned there, because I could tell you were relating to that as he was talking.

Yeah, I used to work in a company where I'm part of accounting department, but the way their mindset is different than mine, it's just like everything is known for them, even the business owner, like asking something. No, no, no and no. I just thought like, this is not good for the whole company. So for me, being in the program and understanding how FPA works is just to understand that we are here to be one, to achieve goal together and to be successful, we need to work together.

That's what I, I think 100 agree. It's really about working together. You know, interesting enough. I, and we'll ask you guys this question later. But one of the questions I ask people is what's the number one soft skill FPA professionals? You know, and I often hear business partnering, relationship building, but with that, people will often say empathy. And I love that because, you know, you guys both brought it up. Learning to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the business makes it much easier to get a to to work well with them. It's easy sometimes to be like, well, why didn't the person give me the purchase order? Or why didn't they fill out this form right? Or why didn't they put the information in the CRM on the sell side, whatever it might be. And when you really start to step out and put yourself in their shoes, it makes it much easier. But, oh, they're doing all this other stuff as well. And maybe it's not as easy as I thought. I'm not their priority.

Yes. And actually that in this course there was some concept that I actually still stuck in my head. You know, it's like Asif was talking about co creation. It's not really about one person, one department. You know, if we go into a budget meeting also we can talk about, you know, co creation. And I found it very interesting, you know, that changed my perspective in terms of, you know, how can I really impact the business, you know, is like, it's not only your comments. So let's comment together, let's put the narratives together. It's not only about, you know, the finance person putting it in the presentation. So what is your take on this one? So you merge and you bridge and then you, you present it together. So co creation is something, you know that, that came along and then this concept is really changed my perspective and my attitude towards, you know, my, my.

My team, especially FP and a guy here today. I'm super excited to talk to you about the FP and A Hub community. The online community that you can go to to get answers. Early in my career, I wish I had a place I could have went to where I didn't have to talk to somebody in the company, go to my boss again or Google that I knew I could get answers from. That's what you can get at the FP and A Hub. You can make friends, you can learn from others, you can attend events, put discussions and posts out there. You don't have to worry about all the selling and cheat sheets and stuff you get on LinkedIn. This is real conversations by real FP and A professionals. We have over 1100 people in the community and it's absolutely free. That's the best thing. So please go ahead and join today. The FPA hub you can join for free at the fpahub.com and the FPA guy looks forward to seeing you in this free community join today. Thank you for sharing that. I really like that idea. What you called co creation. Right. Budgeting is not a finance function. It's a company function and we should be creating things together. So I really appreciate that. Johan, I'm curious, are you, you know, with taking the FPA program? I know you're doing payroll right now. You've done some FP and a, a lot of accounting for. Are you wanting to move more into an FP and a role like kind of full time or what's kind of the goal of having taken the program?

Okay, yeah. Right now I'm in payroll. Accountant is like position that breach finance with payroll. So that's why like it is interesting at this moment, at this stage, my employer is starting to build the system and then what I've been doing now is to automate the transaction processing. That's what is interesting for me. And then after that I predict that after this the task will evolve so it's not processing anymore because everything mostly can be done by AI in the future and then sure. And the next they need the people or employee who can analyze things instead of just doing stuff that can be automated in the future.

Makes sense. So really kind of helping prepare yourself. As you know, there's changes coming. You know, the systems come in place. AI A lot of the things you do maybe just be done by a system. So it's like, what do I want to do? How do I want to make sure I'm prepared for the future that's coming? Yes, that's great. I think that's wonderful that you were proactive because so often it's easy to just kind of do the job and then we have to react when technology disrupts what we're doing. Right. And, and that that's going to happen. We've all seen it. The Internet, computers, you know, the list goes on and on. Disruption and change is part of life. And so I really appreciate you taking that time. I admire that, that you were proactive and kind of prepared yourself for that.

Thank you.

So here's the kind of moment of truth question. Now, I hear you. Do I think you have about three hours on Saturday that you had your instruction, if I remember right, and the program says you spend about four hours on average a week. I'm curious, how much time did you really spend? Right. There's always the marketing and there's reality. And I'm kind of just curious to just get an idea of, you know, how close the two are. So we'll start with you, Alfredo. What? How much time did you find yourself spending on average a week?

Yeah. Excluding the two hours live sessions on Saturday? Yes. My average time spent for. For reading the pre reads and studying it, indulging myself on putting myself into readings. It was basically two to three hours, you know, averaging, no average. But you know, I spent, I'll spend this two to three hours before the classes, but I still was not really enough, to be honest, because the contacts were really engaging. Going back to the videos recorded sessions actually was something engaging. But you have to balance your work and balance your learnings and your studies. So two to three hours was the maximum that I would give into the learnings or into the. Into the program for myself as well.

So it sounds like overall, counting the Saturday thing, you're spending about five hours a week and you limited yourself to that. You easily could have spent more.

Yes, yeah, yeah, I could really spend more. But the issue was basically balancing, you know, your daily, daily stuff, your daily work, which I. Which is really also intense. But this also for me was very serious. You know, I took it very, very serious. I took it to the Heart, you know, part of my development plan. So I needed to do something. And that also came as a recap especially to the fact that most of the concepts actually I learned at university and I need. I applied them quite long time ago or a few back years back planning something like budgeting on my daily, daily activities. So it was really something that I put it at the heart so that you know, I could really not grasp the new knowledge. But as well as recapping what actually is being done in the program. So three hours most time, you know, I used to. To put no for. For myself.

Thanks, appreciate that. How about yourself, John? What did you find? How much time did you find yourself spending?

I think it's one hour a day because I listen to the. The recording when I. I'm commuting.

Got it. So you would listen to all the recordings again when you were commuting and so you're spending about five hours again. About five hours a week.

Yeah.

Okay. So not, I think they say average four. So an extra an hour so far. Every program tends to be a little bit more than what they tell you. So that's why I, I said it the way I did is I expected you'd probably put in a little more time. Which is, which makes sense because if you're learning a lot of material, it can be time intensive and if you want to take it serious, can often take more time than people think.

Yes.

So I. That. That doesn't surprise me at all that it was a little longer. So now we'll start with you, John. Was there a favorite module, you know, maybe a framework from the program that you enjoyed most, like a certain session or area that you were. That just really resonated with you.

Strategy module is because like when I work as an accountant, I'm in only one department. Right. So if I can't see a big picture of the company, it's like some kind of motivating for me. It's just that's the highest achievement, like achievement that I can go. Whatever I am in what stage I am in my career, I can always be like motivated because of that.

Yeah. So really enjoyed the strategy section. I love that. Was there any kind of frameworks or anything particular that they taught you that really kind of resonated around strategy Power metric? Why that?

It helped me to understand how to manage the power and politics in the office? Because of that?

I.

Yes, because I used to have that issue in my previous work and then it's really like I. An eye opening. It's not something Technical, but it is really important.

That's huge to managing relationships, you know, and the strategy company. There's going to be power and politics involved in setting it and all the way throughout and all your communication. So I could see where that would be really beneficial to get a matrix and some thoughts on how to manage all that. Because we've all been caught up in it. I know I've mismanaged it in my career more than once and you know, it's. It's just a nature of things we deal with. What about you, Alfredo? Was there a kind of favorite module for you?

No, actually, let me. Let me try to these to explain this. I believe that the story is as a commercial finance, I used to do most of these things that actually were in the module, but I did not really know that was fnpna, you know, as a commercial finance because that was something else. So when I got into program, everything was connected, every module was connected. I could not, I could not really pick up, you know, one. One thing, you know, there are many. But one of the things that actually resonated with me so much it was financial modeling. I've done financial modeling, you know, in a course, you know, I think 2018, but did not go, you know, as such. And I bought some books in like Business Model Canvas. I could not really understand that. You know, I was reading, but I could not understand that. But once actually I merged or I married, if I may say that word. You know, the Business Model Canvas and the financial modeling, that was it. And I couldn't really now understand business. I could, I can re. I actually went to ChatGPT as I understand the Business Model Canvas now trying to analyze some companies, you know, in my country understand some companies outside, you know, this in the world. I could really sense, you know, and then the key thing that I got from these financial modeling was also the fact that, you know, as a commercial person there was this side of the like clients, you know, the client is. Which is one of the, you know, the most important element in the business. But out of it, you know, I think one of the most important thing before the client is the client relationship. That's why I could now understand, you know, the CRM, which is client relationship management. I can really now apply in the future. I'm going to apply it in the future just to understand and be part of this financial modeling. So that really resonates with me. That really was massive and was really for me something that changed, you know, in my commercial career. It's going to change in my commercial career. And then I really I'm keen to apply this and I apply it almost every time when I'm analyzing business and I'm analyzing even route to market sometimes.

Great, thank you. So take that away. The obviously the financial modeling section you really appreciated. It was easy to understand. You liked how all the modules built on each other and were interconnected. So it didn't feel like a disconnect between them. And then also kind of all that.

The client relationship side adding to that was in terms of framework which was the data storytelling framework which was really impactful for me which is data storytelling is equal to data narrative and effective visuals. That was something that really because I like to present, I like presentation but I would struggle in my narratives. Like you are presenting an impact and then you showing it as a negative but is a good impact. So how you present, how do you narrate your data? How do you narrate your story? As well as the teachers or the lectures they told us about effective visuals. Sometimes the way you present as an accountant is for yourself. But you know, putting the very effective visuals like you know, I used to. I like the waterfall. Waterfall graphs. So if you have, you know, a proper, let's say right the right graph, you can really, really present and make people understand. It's not really about you showing the numbers, but how do you form, how do you present the numbers to the people. So we also learned that you know, for the operational you can be too detailed as well as to the top. You also have to be top line. So was really something that in terms of framework that I'm using so much and changed my presentation skills although that I'm actually still evolving and developing this in my daily activities.

Thank you. And when you mentioned the storytelling data storytelling as you mentioned data narrative visuals. There's a great graph. That concept is talked a lot by Brent Dykes. He wrote a book called Effective Data Storytelling. I've interviewed him before and I've got to know him as a person and it's so true. Bringing all three of those together can really improve our framework. And I'm glad they taught that because we have to learn how to especially that narrative. How do we bring the narrative in with the visuals and with the data to make sure we're influencing the business. We're making recommendations. We're not just doing a bunch of analysis and then nothing happens with it. We've all seen. I I would love to know. You both mentioned one things you liked about the course think earlier on was that it Taught AI. So I'd love to know just maybe one takeaway from each of you from the AI section, since that seems to be all anyone talks about nowadays, right? Yeah, it's kind of the big buzzword. John, what was one of your takeaways from the AI section or something that kind of stuck out to you?

That taught me how to utilize AI to analyze financial information. So now I'm constantly using ChatGPT to get the formula or just to have some kind of idea for like make my work better and also even office politics. So I asked those questions to chat GPA too, and then the answer is really good.

You know, I'd never thought about office politics asking it. That's, that's a good one. I'll have to keep that one in mind. I've definitely used it for formulas analysis, some of those things. But I love your asking it for kind of office politics and how to, you know, manage certain situations. I, I learned so many different use cases from people. So thank you for sharing that. That's. Alfredo, how about you?

Yes, I think we exposed in one real life exercise, one of real life, many of real life examples. And then as I recall, we are talking about reorder leveling, we are talking about capital budgeting. And then the key takeaway was that actually we can place everything into ChatGPT AI, but you have to make sure that you yourself, you understand what you're doing and the expected result. And sometimes you also get to know the calculations and do your, your own analysis to. Not to challenge, but to make sure that you know the results that comes from ChatGPT, especially in that case, you know, that are correct and accurate. So it was really something interesting. I did not know that ChatGPT could do all those things. And then, you know, the formulas that actually they placed, it was the same that actually we have been taught in our guidelines and books as well. That was taught, you know, life. And then, you know, we went to see it in ChatGPT, which is, was really correct. Was the same. Yes. But, you know, the, the key point is that, you know, for me it was the fact that, okay, does not matter if the results are there. You can work with CHAT GPT, but you yourself, you have to understand what you're doing and the results actually are accurate. So that's the key takeaway.

Great. Takeaway is one, as I tell everybody, don't just take what it gives, you assume it's right and use it, review it. You wouldn't take an intern's work and give it to your boss without reviewing it. You shouldn't do that with AI and so. But yeah, I can give some great answers. I appreciate both of you sharing that. I'm glad they covered that because it's such an exciting area that so quickly changing all the time. Next question I'd like to ask, and we'll start with you with this one, Alfredo. If someone's considering taking the program or, you know, they're considering taking a certificate, any advice you would offer them, you know, anything you would say to them as they're looking at, you know, this program and other programs as they're trying to evaluate it. Any advice you could offer FP and A guy here today. I want to talk about something that can help you in your career. That's FP and A certificates. We all want ways to stand out and to validate to our employers that we're serious about our profession and that we understand that a great way to do that is to get a certificate or a credential that demonstrates your ability to do the work. There are several great programs out there in FP and A and Financial Modeling, and I cover those on my website. I've done an episode on FPA tomorrow about them, and I'm doing episodes in the future about all the different programs bringing in customers to talk about them. So if you're interested in showing your employer that you're serious about FP and A and upgrading your skills, look at an FPA certificate. There's ones from fpac, Wharton Online, cfi, FMI offers a great one for advanced financial Modeling. There's the FP and A Professionals Institute and others, and I cover all those on my website. So go to the FP and A guy and check them out. Go to certificates and courses, FP&A certificates. And the best part is, with each of these programs, I have a discount code where you can receive a special discount for taking that program. So check it out today, level up your skills by earning a certificate or credential to demonstrate your seriousness about around fpa.

Yes, for me, or the advice I would really give, you know, is that this is a game changer for someone that is seriously taking his development plan to the, to the next level. It's a game changer. It was a game changer for me. It is a game changer for me. I still go. Go back into the. Into the recording sessions, you know, and then I still still feel, you know, that I'm. I'm in the room again and I'm still life. So it's a Game changer. It's a mix of many cases. You know, it's. There's a lot of cases in case studies, real life examples. You know, one of the things that actually became familiar with me is like it could give me a context. You know, he was talking, the course was talking to me. In my context it can be, you know, global, but it was talking to me in my context, you know, and there was practical discussions, you know, it's like we're talking about, you know, something, as I recall, conglomerate, when you're doing strategies, business conglomerates and mergers and acquisitions as well. So we could connect with people like Gian Roeet as well. You know, we are in the same picture. We could agree on that one. So the mixture of Casey Studs, real life examples and practical discussions, you know, is one of the things that you're going to find in this course. Also, I've mailed many of the concepts that were confusing to me. I've nailed it. Like the cash flow forecasting. I just done it in school. But, you know, once I came to this, I could really understand and put it, you know, in Excel. Understanding practically how it works as well as working capital is one of the things that was my headache. You know, I could not really understand once I got to the books. It's like, how does it work? And then, you know, working capital was something that I really understood. And then the capital budgeting, so the capital budgeting, we've done it again. And a lot of questions and some of my doubts were fated. So also I sharpened my analytical. I think I'm analytical person by nature, but yeah, sharpened me with the good use of Excel, power, BI and storytelling. So it's a game changer.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I'm glad it was a game changer for you. Sounds like it was a great experience. Johan, any advice you'd offer to others as they're looking at this in other programs and they're trying to decide any thoughts you could add for them?

Yeah, I think the factors that needs to be considered is the purpose of enrolling a certificate and the stage of their career and then the content of the modules and the way the instructors explain things, if they relate to you or not. And also the, the type of case studies that the, the certification have.

Yep, great. I think those are all important things, you know, do you relate to the instructor? Why are you doing it? You know, what's the goal in your career? Case studies, all great advice. I'm glad you both really enjoyed your experience. That's what we always hope to hear. You know, we don't want. We would hate to hear that. Oh, yeah, it was terrible. Don't do it. That nobody would. I mean, I guess if it really was, we'd want to know, but we don't want those programs out there. So I'm glad you both had a great experience. We're going to move into the F, what I call the FPA section. This is where I ask some standard questions of every guest. So you're both going to get the same question. You can provide completely different answers. And we'll start with you, Jahan. When you think of FP&A, what do you think is the most important or the number one technical skill that we need to master?

Technical skills. Okay, I think technical skills, financial modeling, forecasting, that's the most important thing. And understanding of tools, especially automation tools and analysis tools.

Okay, yeah, got it. So really it's that modeling, forecasting, and then as we talk about tools. All right, Alfredo, what about you?

Yeah, for me, I think the number one pillar would be data. Data analysis or analysis overall. It's like, yeah, you can, you cannot go to budgeting if you do not know how to analyze. Not, not only in the aspect of finance or financial analysis per se, but, you know, in the point that, you know, you have to understand first of all the basics of analysis now. So not only data analysis, not only financial analysis, but analysis overall, come up with impacts, come up with variances, and then you can recommend, you know, necessary actions. So if you do not know how to come up with impacts, like, and do variance analysis and not talking about financial analysis yet, ratio, any other stuff, but not for me. The number one skill would be data analytics or analysis, first of all.

Got it. So we got the financial modeling, forecasting, the tools, the data analysis. Those are both answers we get a lot. So not, not surprised by either of those. You know, we, I ask every guest this question and it's fun to see the variety of answers we get. So number two, we'll start with you here, Alfredo, on this one. What's the number one softer human skill that we need to master?

Effective communication. Effective communication. I think that's essential for FPA professional to master. So it comes, you know, effective communication is also not only speaking effectively, it's listening actively, effectively as well. It comes with a bit of empathy. And then, yeah, that's basically what I take. Effective communication, especially the empathy part, whereby, you know, I think I've, I've experienced, you know, I've been myself, you know, in Finance faction. At the core, I was really critical most of the time. I've been very critical and put people into process. I categorize people in processes, procedures, so I could not have so much of empathy. And I see, you know, most of the time my accounting people in finance people doing the same. So. But when it comes now with this effective communication, I also put empathy, active listening and speaking also effectively. So that, that would be my soft and human skill that actually FP and a professional could have.

Thank you. Appreciate that, Alfredo. Johan, what about you?

I think the most important soft skills for FPA is stakeholder relationship. So we need to understand how to like, relate to other people with different backgrounds and to understand their, their aspirations, the needs that maybe we don't understand and work together.

Same goal, like that, same goal, stakeholder relationships. So I love that on each one of these, you each gave slightly different answers. And that's what we get from different guests. There's. It's really hard to say what's the most important because there's a lot of important things. It just shows how many different things we have to be good at. But at the core, we can see both have to do with relationships. Right. If you can't communicate well, it's really hard to build relationships. If you're not focusing on building relationships, even if you communicate great, you're going to have problems. So, you know, it's really not either or. Both of them are things we need to develop. So now we're going to go ahead and wrap up here in a minute. We're nearing the end of our time, so we have a just a one for each of you, a get to know you question. Just kind of a fun question, has nothing to do with FP and a going to change, change the subjects here for a minute. So I think we'll start here. We'll go to Johan on this one. If you could have any job in the world or any person's job for one week, whose job you going to take or what job?

I. I think I love my current job, so I'm okay with my existing like my current job and then doing this, but like with more FPNA work, that's all.

So keep doing what you're doing, but with more fpa. Nice. I like it. All right, Alfredo, here's your question. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

That's a question that took me back, you know, very far. But yeah, I think I actually, I called two stages in my life when I actually wanted to be a medical doctor. I wanted to follow my mom's steps, which is a nurse, a medical nurse. And I wanted to be that. But there was a time that, you know, I was. When I wanted to go to the nursing school. I was very, very young and my mom did not accept that. So I closed that. That subject. And then when I was actually 14 years old, I wanted to be a lawyer. And I actually started pursuing that career when I was doing my high school with social sciences, but did not materialize because I actually went to study outside my country, which is Angola. And then what happened to me is that with a translating error, actually I came up, I end up doing accounting and finance. So I thought it was economy, you know, because I've done in high school some principles of economics. But you know, what happened to me is like I mistranslated, you know, accounting, you know, as economics. So and I ended up doing, you know, accounting and finance when I was supposed to do HR because I decided I'm going to change to hr. I'm going to change to public management. When I wake up to change, I actually having my degree and now I actually like the numbers. I like analysis, I like planning. So I think I'm grateful with that translating error.

Perfect. It's funny how life works out. When I was a kid, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer because I liked arguing. Then I realized it was a lot more than that. So there you go. I can't say it was a good reason, but there was my. My reasoning. All right, as we wrap up, just any, any last thoughts, you know, anything you'd like to share with the audience. Any kind of advice or just kind of thoughts in general before we wrap up. So Alfredo, we'll start with you.

Yes. There's this quote that I got when, when I was really starting as, as a professional, which goes that Never delegate your development plan. Own it and execute it. That's basically my advice. Never delegate your development plan. So CGFP and A is a good starting point. And that's basically my advice.

I like that. Never delegate your development plan. Great advice. We'll put that up on a poster. Jahan, what about you? Any last thoughts you want to share?

Based on my experience, I now realize that anything can be taken away from me professionally, but not my knowledge in my development. So now I determined to like to always be thankful for what? My stage in my career, what happened in my career. As long as I keep learning something new, that will be mine forever.

I love that. Right. The knowledge that we've learned can never be taken away. Our job could go away tomorrow, you know, health problems could happen tomorrow, whatever. There's all kinds of things that happen. But we're, we're going to take our learnings with us and those will help us. So, you know, it kind of goes along with don't delegate your development. Be developing. I think both of you gave great advice there, and it feels like takeaway is regardless of what program you choose. You know, you both got great experience from the cg, FP and a program. But more than anything, make sure you're developing, you're learning, you're improving your skills because that's something that will always go with you.

Yes, yes, yes.

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. We'll put your LinkedIn profiles in the show notes in case anyone wants to learn more about you. And I really appreciate you, you know, carving out an hour to chat with me today. So you guys both have a great day.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Bye bye.

Thanks for listening to FP&A tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five star rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmark earmarket cpe.com downloading the app, taking a short quiz, and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the FPAC certification. Take the quiz on Earmark and contact me, the show host, for further details.