How FP&A Teams can Influence CEOs and CFOs and drive the business forward with Glenn Snyder

I got a call from one of the board members who told me, we think the company is going to go bankrupt. The cash flow forecasts are all over the map. We need to get a handle on what's going on. And all of a sudden everything that I thought I would be working on just got derailed because now I got to go.

Glenn Snyder has spent over 20 years mastering FP&A, working with industry giants like.

Visa, Charles Schwab and Franklin Templeton.

From driving strategic finance transformations to leading high impact teams, his insights are reshaping.

The way businesses plan for the future. Great FP&A. It's about engagement with the business, being able to influence executive decisions. When I've seen great FP&A, it's when the FP&A team sits on the leadership teams of all the different executives around the company. FP&A has its core functions. You do budgets, you do forecasts, you do various reporting, you do business partnering. But you also have to be flexible because the business is constantly changing. Just be aware of what's going on around you. Listen to the people who work for you. You got to do the things that the corporation's asking you to do because they're the ones who are paying you, after all. But your employees are going to leave you if they don't feel like they're growing their career the way they want to. And that's why I always like to say, what do you want to.

A brief message from this week's title sponsor. Being an operator isn't for the faint of heart. It's like building a parachute while free falling. I found my solution in Operators Guild, home to over 1000 elite high growth leaders, the special forces of business scaling. With 150 plus events across 25 global chapters, I've found my personal board of Directors and instant answers to critical challenges. Ready to join the Navy Seals of business scaling? Visit operatorsguild.com and tell them the FP&A guy sent you. 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'm 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're joined by thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners who share their insights and experiences and helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your journey in fpa, this show has something for Everyone, this week, I'm thrilled to welcome Glenn Snyder on the show. Glenn, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Paul. Great to be here.

Yeah. Really excited to have you. I think last time we talked, I was doing a different show. I was doing the one with Data Rails. So glad to have you back on.

Thank you. I love being back, love the conversation we had before and looking forward to today's topics.

Yeah. And just so everybody knows, Glenn and I had a good 15 minute conversation about FPA before we even started. And I joked with them. I should have recorded it so it could be a behind the scenes of, you know, what happens before the interview. But let me give a little bit of background about Glenn and we'll jump into the conversation. So Glenn is currently a senior director with Riverin Consulting. In the interim management practice, Glenn has worked across seven industries. Financial Services, FinTech, Data Center, REITs, Private Equity, Consumer Goods, E Commerce, Telecom, SaaS, Hospitality, and E Commerce. So he's covered just about everything. He has over 20 years of FPA experience and 8 years in corporate strategy at firms like Franklin, Templeton, Visa, Charles Schwab, Digital Realty, Mobilium, and Vacasa. Additionally, Glenn has published a novel, One Moment in Time. He's taught at San Francisco State University and UCLA and has been on the board of Redwood City Child Development Program, a nonprofit preschool for underprivileged children. He earned his bachelor's degree in International economics from UCLA and an MBA from the University of San Francisco. How did that sound for you, Glenn? Was that a good bio?

Yeah. Makes you feel old.

You know, people, either they say it makes me feel old or it makes me feel more accomplished than I realized. Right. It's usually one of the two.

Yeah. I never, never realized how long my bio actually was.

All good. I've had longer and I've had shorter. Totally fine.

All right.

What does Great FP and A look like? You know, we like to start there.

So, you know, to me, at Great FP and A, it's about engagement with the business, being able to influence executive decisions. And when I've seen great FP&A, it's when the FP&A team sits on the leadership teams of all the different executives around the company that they have engagement with business leaders that where it's not just FP and A providing information to the business, but it's a true partnership. And the business is providing data back to FPA and information back to FP&A. And when you bring those two together, the FP and A team can really help Ensure that the company is making the best decisions possible.

I love at the end you said making sure you know, the company makes the best decision possible. And I really like how you mentioned it's a two way partnership. It's not just us giving them information but it's them returning and also giving us information. It's a true partnership, not a, a one way street. Can you maybe share an example from your career of what happened when you, when you had great FP and A going maybe you know, somewhere really benefited the company?

Yeah, you know I think best example is probably when I was a digital realty. So I was the vice president corporate FP&A. I had a very small team in digital realties in the S&P 500, one of the largest data center REITs in the world. And what we were able to do with a small team and when I say small team with me two and two other people, we were on every executive's leadership team meetings. We went over and met with every cost center manager every month to go through their budgets and variances but also to learn about what they were doing. But the impact that we had on the business, I think about my three and a half years there and we completely changed the way the company budget and forecasted. We helped the company manage to within their corporate expenses for the first time in company history. And they were public for 414 years before I joined. We were able to automate things in such a way that we were only spending two to three days a month on monthly reporting which meant the rest of the time we were out there in the business and engaging and you know, making an impact. And to me when you go over and you're able to put all that stuff together and you look back and you could say wow, I really could see where the company was when I first started and how we're doing things. And I'm like better, more efficient, more effective way now. I, I, I love that. So to me that's probably the best example of it's really outstanding at PNA team.

I, I appreciate that. Great example and I love the focus on hey, we only spent three days on reporting. We spent the time with the business because as you said, it's partnership. That's where the great FP&A comes from. I mean nobody says hey, I want you to spend more time on reporting. They may ask for more reports but, but nobody says spend more time on reporting.

No, that's absolutely right. And in fact when I first started it was probably, we were probably spending five to six days a month doing reporting. But as we were working with the systems that we went over and implemented, our focus was to get that down. And by the way, it wasn't just the system generating reports that two to three days a month include a full bullet point analysis of understanding what's going on and, and writing that up for the, you know, for the cost center managers and executives, whoever we're giving the reports to. But the idea being minimize the amount of time you're doing repetitive functions so you could maximize the time where you're going over and you're really making, giving that value added impact. And whether that's engaging with the business and just meeting with them and learning about them, or it's about going working on a project or cleaning up data so that the data connects in a better way so that you could do better job forecasting. Whatever it happens to be. The more you focus on things that are not repetitive, the bigger the impact I think you're going to have.

I'd agree with that. I like that. So you recently started a new role. You got a new opportunity coming. Tell us about that.

Yeah, two weeks ago. I'm on day 10 right now. I think if you're, you know, you're still a newbie when you could count all your days on your fingers. Right. But I started two weeks ago at Riveron Consulting. It's a financial consulting and advisory firm. I'm part of the interim management practice and that is a group where if you happen to need a CFO or head of FP&A, or corporate controller because either you, you know, the old one left and you have, you know, it's going to take a while before you fill that role or you want to go over and make changes and you need someone to come in and manage that process. That's kind of what interim management does. So I've been here 10 days, haven't got my first project yet. I'm certainly looking forward to it, but I'm very excited to be with Riverlong.

Well, great. Sounds like it'll be a great opportunity for you. I know you and I touched base on that a little bit before we started recording and you were sharing some of the things you'll be doing. So again, congratulations on that. Love to hear how that goes in the future. Next question I want to ask is new role. How do you approach a new role when you're going into a new company, especially in leader leadership positions? How do you think about that yourself, Glenn? Like, what do you do?

Well, the first thing to Recognize is you have a lot to learn, right? No matter what you come in with, whatever your experiences are, you don't know that company, you don't know its processes, you don't know its people, you don't know its systems, you don't know its data. So to me, I always like to go over and start learning and asking questions and you know, you get that, that grace period of, you know, maybe the first month or so that you get to ask any question because I'm new, I can, I'm trying to figure this out, right? And take advantage of that. One of the things that I always like whenever I go into a company is to meet with all the top executives, all your key business partners for a 30 minute meeting and go over and I like to ask three questions. Number one, what are we doing that you absolutely love and say, don't touch this, I love it. Right. Number two, what are we producing or giving to you that you don't use at all? Maybe those things you can get rid of. And then number three, what are we not doing at all that you would like to see? And when you go over and you have those meetings with 15, 20 different people around the company, all of a sudden certain things start to bubble up. And now you know how you can make that impact, where that low hanging fruit is or where the biggest demand is. So you're able to focus a little bit more in your first 90 days on, hey, look, this seems really to be the issue. Let's go over and solve some of those things. And oftentimes it's something very simple. I've gone into companies where I was told, you know, chief legal officer said, I don't even know where I stand with the budget. No one showed me a report. And you're like, in April. And so I was like, well, okay, that's something we could resolve really quick, right? And now all of a sudden that chief legal officer says, wow, this guy came in and solved the problem for me pretty quick. And you start building up that trust. And so to me, that's really what it's about, is going over, having those discussions, figuring out where that low hanging fruit is and start getting some early wins so you can start building the confidence of both the team and the trust from the business partner.

Got it. I love the trust. Early wins. I have a question. If you run us across a business partner that's kind of adversarial, you can tell I don't really want to deal with finance. They give you a very kind of short answers. Or no real value. Any recommendations of how you break through? What do you typically do when you run into those where you're just like, okay, this is not what I expected. There's. There's something going on here.

You know, the funny thing is, when I first started at Charles Schwab, the one person I was supporting, he was the senior VP of product management. And I go over, you know, first week there I was introducing myself to him, I said, you know, I'd like to set up a monthly one on one with you just to make sure we're connected. And he says to me, no, I think I'm good. And that's all. He said, well, okay. I'm like, you know, I do think that there's value. I kept on trying to get in there. He absolutely refused. So I was like, okay, something is up. And what I learned was he was one of those people. It's like his inner circle was very special to him. He trusted those people implicitly. So I had to figure out, how else can I get in there? And what I started to do was I went out and had one on ones with each of his direct reports. And then I started helping his direct reports manage their businesses in a better way. And within probably first four or five months, his direct reports were all saying to him, oh, my God, Glenn's coming in, helping out with this and doing these different things. And then all of a sudden, on his own, he comes back to me and says, hey, you know what? I hear you've been doing a great job with the team. Yeah, why don't we set up a one on one? And that was the way. So sometimes you get somebody who's very, very resistant because you're new. They don't trust you, they don't know anything about you. So the way you could go over and earn trust is to get the trust of the people that they trust. And when you could do that, then you could start finding your way into that inner circle.

I. I love that idea of getting the trust of the people they trust, right? It's like, you know, your significant other, spouse, whatever. If they trust someone, you're much more likely to implicitly trust them. Right? They say, hey, this a good friend, your parents, whatever people you value, and they tell you, hey, this is a good person, you can trust them. You put your guard down to a certain level and it's easier to have that relationship. So I, I love that approach. Totally makes sense to work. Go to those people that are important to them and find out how to add value and they'll go back and talk about you, and it will break down that barrier over time.

That's right. And you have to also remember that it's not just about the head of the group. I mean, if you're an fpa, you're supporting the entire group. You should have a relationship with their direct reports anyway, and maybe even one level below that, because maybe they're going to help give you context or information that will allow you to do a better job forecasting or analyzing whatever it happens to be be. So you should have those relationships regardless. The difference is if you had someone at the top who's really hard to, to get in with, you got to be thinking, well, how do you get in there? And the best way to do is to talk to the people who are in that inner circle. And, you know, they all told me and said, yeah, you know what? He, unless he really trusts you, he doesn't really let you in, and he's got to trust his direct reports. Right. And so that's, that's kind of the approach that I took. And it worked out. Worked out really well.

Yeah, I really appreciate that. So kind of building on this whole of starting a new role, you mentioned, you know, kind of that first month asking a lot of questions, but what other things do you do to try to make an impact? Right. We all want to come in and feel like we're adding value as quick as we can, but we also don't want to rock the boat. I think we've all been there where someone comes in and you're all walking on eggshells because they start disrupting everything without knowing what's going on. So how do you kind of balance and manage that?

You know, it's. It's a fine line, and it's one that I've tripped over eight times in my career, to be honest with you. But what I try and do is identify the areas where the team can start getting some good wins. And this is one of the things that you have to recognize if you're coming in as a director or VP or SVP of fp and a. A lot of attention is going to be on you. You lead the group, but it's the people who are working for you who are going to make you successful. So don't go in there and try and say, I'm going to show them what I can do. Go over and say, let's go and get the team to start making a bigger impact. So as I mentioned, you go out, you have those conversations with people, and they say, you know what? We'd really like to start seeing more metrics being incorporated into our reports. Let's just say that's one of the themes that comes up. Go back to your team and, hey, guys, you know what? Let's figure out, how do we source some of this stuff? What are those key metrics? And you work with them, and you let your team put the solution together and give them credit. So those executives who might have said, I want to see more metrics in those reports, they know that conversation was with you. But the result is coming from the people who are supporting them on your team. They know that you had that influence because they see that change. But it's your team that is hearing directly from the business, say, wow, this is great. I love this. Great job. And now your team is feeling a lot better. So to me, it's about removing your ego. It's not about you taking credit and letting you know, moving your team to a higher level so that they are feeling that success, and that will naturally come back to you as well.

Really like that. So focusing on kind of helping that team get to a higher level, getting those wins, those success based on the things you learn that, you know need to be done, changes you need to make. Do it in such a way that they get the credit and everybody looks better at the end of the day.

Right. The way that you would trip over yourself here is you go over and let's say you're meeting with, you know, your chief operations officer, and they say, yeah, you know what? I get my financial data, but I get my business metrics somewhere else. I'd love to have it incorporated. Well, okay. I know I have the skill set. I could go back to my office and go pull it together and send it over to them. But they have a finance business partner within the P and a team. Why would I want to step in between them? Instead, go back to that finance business partner and say, hey, here's some of the feedback. Let's talk and work together so that you could be more successful with that business partner.

I like that. It's about empowering your employees to be successful.

Yeah. And showing them the path that they can go on. And to say, look, you're doing a great job today, but here's what's really going to be expected of you. Let's get you moving in that direction so that you could go and look even better to your business partners.

I like that. So, you know, we've talked a lot about what to do. Kind of how to, how to handle that early period work with your team. Can you talk about maybe an experience where in the early days you mentioned you've tripped over yourself a few times where it didn't go well? Well, where you're like, wow, I. That wasn't what I expected. And maybe what you learned from that experience.

Yeah. So I'm going to give you two examples. One where it was completely on me, where I screwed up, and the other where it was more of a business thing. The one that was on me. I went into a company very clear. I had to go over and change processes around and get the FPA team to be much more efficient. And in doing so, without even thinking, I was doing a little kind of comparing to, hey, here's where we are, here's what we're really trying to do. And in that process I was told, because again, this was not what I was trying to do at all, but I was told I was coming off as saying, these guys aren't doing a good job today because this is much better. And that was not at all what I wanted to do. And it was one of those things that I had to go over and you know, just take my foot out of my mouth with my team and say, guys, this was a mistake. I didn't mean to do it like this, you know, and so on. So you kind of, you know, initially people felt like I was coming in and just putting them down, saying they weren't doing a good job, which is not what I wanted to do. So as I said, it's very easy to trip over that when you go and say, well, here's what we're doing today, but we're going to move over to this because, you know, you have that mandate, but you got to go over and not. I wasn't trashing what they were doing, but I was going over and showing how the new stuff was going to be significantly better. And people felt like it was like, oh, so what we're doing isn't good. And so that was one area that I needed to improve on it. So now I'm much more aware of that. The other situation was I came into a company, the FP and a team. They had lost a ton of people. There were, there were a lot of really good processes. And I was told, okay, hey, you need to go and fix this. You need to start putting together a more stable FP and a team that can make an impact. And within my first week, it was a private equity owned company. I got a call from one of the board members who told me we think the company is going to go bankrupt. The cash flow forecasts are all over the map, we need to get a handle on what's going on. And all of a sudden everything that I thought I would be working on just got derailed because now I got to go figure out how the company is earning and spending cash and put together a forecast to this way we could really understand, hey, wait a second, are we going to need to go and borrow money on the line of credit? Are we going to be okay with our cash position? And all of a sudden, within my first week, all my priorities got thrown up in the air. And the, the lesson there is just to understand when you go in, you're going to naturally be thinking about okay, what am I going to be working on, what am I going to be doing? But you have to recognize that there could be other things going on in the business that you're not aware of and you're going to have to pivot to make sure you're prioritizing things in the right way.

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Absolutely. And the One thing about FP&A is you might have, you know, FP&A has its core functions. You do budgets, you do forecast, you variance reporting, you do business partnering. But you also have to be flexible because the business is constantly changing. And for all you know, there could be an M and A project that's out there. It could be a cash forecasting thing, it could be a debt refinancing thing. Who knows what? It could be going into a new market and you could be pulled into something, and now your priorities shift. So you always want to try and be as flexible as possible and recognize that. That sometimes you just need to pivot. The other thing I would say is if you're managing a team, make sure that your team can go and cover for you. If you're being pulled onto a big project that might be confidential and you can't bring them along, you might need that support from your team to make sure they're covering the stuff you were doing. So don't go over and try and say, nope, I do this over here and you do that over there. Instead, you want to go and make sure that people are well informed of what's going on so that they can operate when you might be pulled somewhere else.

Yeah, I know. That's so common in FPA, right? An M&A, a fear of bankruptcy, whatever. There's those big, huge things. And all of a sudden you're like, all your time is spent on this and your team has to figure out how to make sure other things don't drop while you're spending all your time on that priority that the CEO or CFO or whoever just dropped in your lap.

That's right. That's right. And, you know, there's the expression of you know, hey, I'm trying to change the wheel while we're driving 60 miles an hour down the freeway. And you know, because the business is still moving. Yep. But you have to recognize that there are some times that you need to step back and that's why you want to make sure that you are, you're training and informing your team to be able to cover that. You know, there used to be, and I knew a lot of people and I saw this more early in my career that people would say, well, I want to show the company they need to know how valuable I am. So when I take my two week vacation, they really feel my absence. Why would you want to do that? Right. It's the idea is to help the company and so make sure that you know what, you have some good people who you're training. And you know what, sometimes you can't always go and promote people and get them to where they want to be and you lose people, fine, that happens. But your job is to go over and maintain that level of excellence for the company, whether you are there or not. And so you've got to make sure that again, it comes back to making sure you're setting your teams up for success.

Yeah, I've never understood the territory and this is mine and I want to make it difficult. So if they fire me, nobody will be able to figure it out or they'll have to suffer the pain. Like, that's no way to live life for one, but two, just to advance into a career. I mean, the whole idea is you're there, you're there to serve the business, they're paying you for it. And you know, as long as you're there, you should be doing everything you can to make sure it's a smooth process for when you're gone. Whether that's because you got laid off, you found a new job, whatever the reason.

That's right. 100% agree.

So I, I'm with you. I, I've never understood that mentality. I've seen it a lot and it's always frustrates me. So any other advice or anything you'd like to say that you'd give to someone when they're starting a new role? You shared a few things, the questions and other stuff. But anything else you want to add to that before we move on?

You know, I just like to say play sponge. You know, think of if you go over into the puddle of water, you drop a sponge into it, it just absorbs what's around it and that's the Thing is, don't go in there with your own ego and saying, well, this is. I've done this before and I was really good at it. So we're going to do this again. Just listen and absorb what's going on around you. Because the more you could connect dots, and not only connect dots with people, but sometimes also data, the more you could be thinking about, hey, wait a second, maybe we should be getting access to this data warehouse over here or pulling in different kinds of metrics, because now we could tell a different type of story. You never know where that's going to come from. So just be aware of what's going on around you. Listen to the people who work for you, who you know you are supporting, but also who support your team. That's another. That's a constituency that most people forget about. Everyone thinks about, okay, hey, I support these business leaders, or, yep, within finance. This is our group. But you know what? HR provides data to you. It provides data to you. The accounting team provides data to you so that you can do your job well. Listen to them as well. Understand what's going on with them, because they might give you insights into that data of what's going on and how it's moving that will really help you structure where you need to go. So that's like, just play Sponge.

I like it.

SpongeBob or Sponge Fred or Sponge Paul or whoever.

Sponge. I like it. All right, so I want to move a little bit more toward managing people and some questions around there. I know you've had a lot of leadership roles. You know, as a people leader, the first question I said, how do you manage individual goals of employees versus company goals? Because they're not always aligned. Ideally, they should be. In an ideal world, they'd all be aligned to be easy. But how do you. How do you manage that and ensure you're keeping that balance? Right.

So a couple things. First of all, you have to remember, even though you might be leading the team, you have been in, in those positions where you were the analyst or the manager or the senior director, whatever it happens to be, and you had your own things that you wanted to achieve. So make sure that you are giving that opportunity to your employees. And so to me, if you have, let's say, four or five goals from the company that says, here are the things you need to do. I always tell my team, I want an additional goal in there that's all about you as a person. Where do you personally want build and grow? Because I want that insight to help you achieve what you need to do in your career. I had a boss early on in my career and he said he knows he's successful when the people who report it to him are higher level than he is. And that's, you know, I love that idea. So I would go over and just make sure that there's a personal goal and that you, as their, that as their manager is aware of it. I'll give you a really good example. I was managing this woman who she said she, she would love. She's an Asian woman, she would love to work in Asia. At some point in her career, her role was supporting the back office functions of the company. So hr, finance, legal, the IT executives and so so on, you know, but the, the back office functions. And so, you know, she came to me and she said, you know, I'd really love the opportunity to work in Asia someday. Well, the company did have operations in Asia. It was in a different area. So I knew, okay, if that's what she wanted to do, if I had a project that came over that touched Asia and allowed her to engage with some of those people, that she could start building that relationship, she would really appreciate it. So that gave me better insight on how to manage her, to help her get to where she wanted to be. And in doing so, she appreciated that because now she was getting the exposure she wanted. So now I had a happier, more engaged, more productive employee. And so to me, that's the way you want to look at it, is you want to say yes. You got to do the things that the corporations asking to do because they're the ones who are paying you, after all. But your employees are going to leave you if they don't feel like they're, they're growing their career the way they want to. So if you don't know how they want to grow their career, you got to ask them. And that's why I always like to say, what do you want to achieve in the next year? Do you want to learn more about a particular line of business? Do you want to get better at creating PowerPoint presentations or public speaking, whatever it is. And now you understand how you can coach them going forward.

And I'm curious, let's say their goal is just something that's not realistic in that role or for the business. Right. Some of them will be very, I want this. And you know, that's probably not something you can help them achieve, at least in the short term. How do you manage that conversation?

Honesty. You gotta be honest and you gotta say, look, I hear what you're saying, and yeah, that would be great, but that's not something that is within my control. And you gotta let them know. There's also sometimes you gotta level set with people. I was interviewing, I was at Charles Schwab, and I had a position that was like a senior analyst role. So it was relatively junior on the scale. And one of the questions I always like to ask in an interview is, what are your top three goals for the next five years? And this guy I'm interviewing says, I want to be cfo. And I get to kind of pause this of Charles Schwab. And he said, yeah. I said, do you understand that there's, like 18,000 people at this company? The CFO is about 12 levels above where you are, and you're saying you want to be there in five years. And you just said, yeah. Now, I didn't hire the guy because he clearly didn't understand how corporations worked. He thought he'd be getting promoted every three months, which doesn't happen. But you got to go over and be direct and honest. And I did tell him. I said, look, realistically, the first time you're really going to be looked at for a promotion is probably 18 months to two years, because you got to show you can do your job first. So there's no way you're going up 12 levels in five years. It's just not going to happen. And so I was honest with it, but I think that's what you need to know. So you need to make sure that you're direct and make sure that they have the right level setting for what's actually achievable. But there are times I had one of the best conversations I ever had, which was one that didn't go my way. I was a Visa and I was a director, and I said I wanted to get up to the senior director level. And I was talking to my senior vp, and he said, glenn, you do a great job. We love what you're doing. But I don't see the role that you're in being a senior director. So that means if you really want to be a senior director, we got to help you find a job somewhere else in the company. And that wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear, but I really appreciated the honesty. And so then, you know, now I knew where I stood so I could make the choice, do I want to stay here as a director, or do I want to try and find something somewhere else as a senior director? And now it's my option, because I knew were My boss.

Yeah. I still remember one of the early in my career, some advice I got from a boss that was very unvarnished as he looked at me and he goes, paul, you're doing yourself a disservice if you're not always taking those calls and looking at those opportunities for different reasons. The company could let go of you tomorrow. You're doing great work right now, and I don't want to lose you. But that's the reality is something could happen. You could be let go tomorrow. So make sure you're always looking beyond just the company to protect yourself. And I just appreciate that honesty. It wasn't like, hey, I want to lose you, or you know, that I'm planning on let you go. But let me just tell you the reality, how the corporate world works today so you can make the best decisions for you.

100% agree. In fact, I always, I, I, I've been mentoring students at UCLA since 2007. And one of the things I always tell them when they're looking for an internship or a job, you want to give yourself as many options as possible. Because if you have the options, you get to choose if you only have one. If, if you are not looking for a job, for example, and the company says, well, we're going to eliminate your role, but we can move you into this other role. You have one option. Well, technically up to you could be unemployed, or you could say, fine, I'm going to take that role, even if it's something that you don't want to do. So if you're out there and you're, you know, you're doing a good job, it's not a bad idea to just understand and network with people because you never know what could come up that could be even better and help you really get to your ultimate goals, where you want to be. So I'm not saying go, go, you know, constantly be job hunting and you know, go out and reach out to a bunch of recruiters, but have an open mind to it. Don't, don't turn it away. I mean, it's a conversation, right? So give yourself the option because you never know where that next great opportunity could come from.

FP and a guy here today. I'm super excited to talk to you about the FPA 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 FPA 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 a 1100 people in the community and it's absolutely free. That's the best thing. So please go ahead and join today. The fpahub.com you can join for free at the FPA hub.com and the FPA guy looks forward to seeing you in this free community. Join today. Well, that's just it. That's a huge part of network. Just have the conversation. Doesn't mean you have to take the job ever does. Unless you're 100% positive. Maybe you've heard horrible things about the company and you know there's zero chance I get that. But most of the time, you know, talk is cheap, so to speak. Have the conversation.

That's right. Even if the company goes, you go all the way to get an offer, it's an offer. Doesn't mean you have to accept it.

Exactly. I'm totally with you. So I, I'm curious talking about people and you've mentioned how you really focus on their goals and making sure you're doing what you can to help align them. Maybe can you share a favorite experience with somebody? You imagine where you feel like wow, just they came so far, you really watched them advanced or just being able to play that role where you're like that was rewarding. I know you really love managing people.

I do. It's actually one of my favorite things. You know, I think about I hired a woman to come to FP&A as a. At a manager level she never really worked in true corporate FP&A. She had background in, in accounting and in private equity. And when she came in she had such a fantastic attitude and she was super sharp and had great technical skills. I had to teach her how FPA worked. I did, hey, here's how we do a budget, here's why. And we had a lot of our one on ones that it was more about basic stuff that people would work in FPA for. Most of the career would be like, ah, we know the second nature, right. So to me what I, what really made me proud and watching her develop was how not only did she embrace these concepts, but she took them and ran with them and she constantly was challenging me, well, could I go over and do this. What if I did this? What if I did that? And there are times as her manager, I would tell her, I'm like, well, I'm not sure if that's really the direction we want to go or. Or if that's really going to work out. And she's like, no, no, no. I really think we should do this. So I would tell her, okay, you go put that together. Come back to me in a week and tell me what you think. When I knew there was a flaw in what she was doing, but it helped her learn. When she made the mistake on her own, she learned a lot better. She came back, like, a week later, she's like, oh, now I understand. She's like, you knew that beforehand. Yeah. And so, you know, but it was one of those things that, you know, seeing her connect those dots and, you know, not only did she do a fantastic job working for me after I left the firm, she left shortly after. And, you know, and she'd been incredibly successful in her new role in FP&A. So I kind of, you know, I.1. I'm still good friends with her. She's fantastic. But I love the idea that got somebody who was interested and had the right makeup for FP&A, but never had that experience. And just to see her blossom and. And, you know, really make an impact and see her career grow has been fantastic.

Yeah. I hired someone, and it turned out she had very little experience in budgeting. She got in and she said she'd done a little bit. She's like, what we were doing at our company wasn't really budgeting, but she was just a fabulous employee that worked very hard, you know, very dedicated, and it was very rewarding to watch her grow. I can. I can appreciate that.

It's.

You love seeing somebody develop.

Yeah. And, you know, I would also just add to that, that I think when you have that kind of impact on somebody, I mean, think about people in your own career that have had that kind of impact on you. Right. And how much you value them. One of the things that I am most proud of in my career is since 2016, I have hired 14 people. I am, I think, still in touch with at least 10 of them, and almost every single one was internally promoted, not always by me. And so I love that. The fact that I not only feel like I've been hiring outstanding people, but they appreciate the relationship that. That we've had, that we've become friends, and it's continued on beyond after. After the company. We both worked At.

I love that. Thank, thank you for sharing that. And so I, I want to ask a question around that. How do you adjust your management style to meet the needs of different employees? Because obviously if you're developing that type of relationship, you have to be able to connect with each of them individually and that requires different approaches with everybody. So how do you think about that?

You know, I think it comes down to what the person's actually doing. Because if you are an expert at something as a manager, you should say, hey, look, you know what, you know, you got it. I'm just going to point you in a direction and let you go. But if they're new, they're going to need more hands on, you know, more kind of a heavy, heavy touch where you can say, let me walk you through this process. Okay, now you try. Right? So you gotta, you gotta adjust. It could be the exact same person, but they might be, for example, a finance business partner and they really know the IT organization. But now you're asking them to go over and support marketing as well. They might not know marketing, so they might be the expert on the IT side, but you need to go over and manage them a little differently when it comes to marketing. You need to be a little more, you know, handholding in the process. But then once they get up and they start showing that they've got a better sense of it, you start letting go a little bit more. So to me, it's you, you adjust your style based on the experience and knowledge that the employee has in that area. If they're an expert, your hands off, you get to kind of point them to where you want to go and say, come back to me with questions. If they are new, you can be more hands on. And then there's always that in between spot where it's okay, why don't you take a shot at it before you send it on to the business partner and it goes outside our group, why don't you send it over to me for review? And once you review a couple of them, it's like, oh yeah, you got it. You say, you know, I don't need to review it anymore. You could kind of let go. So you go over and you have to kind of go through that progression to make sure that not only you're setting your employee up for success, but you're going to make sure that the employee only looks good to people that they're supporting outside the group because they're, that, you know, they're putting that good product out there. And maybe you're just having to review it a little bit more at the beginning.

Thanks. Great, great advice. And I took a leadership course and there was an acronym they used that I think covers what you're talking about. They called it the EDGE Principle. Explain, demonstrate, guide, enable. The goal is on different projects you want to get to the point where they, you enable them. But sometimes you have to explain or sometimes demonstrate are often guide before they're ready. You got to know each situation and where they're at to be able to know how you adjust your style.

That's right. And I've worked for manager and I'm sure most people have as well. Where my manager just dropped me into a situation, gave me no context, no idea what's going on. And it was like, hey, you know what, I'm just going to drop you in the water and see if you can swim to shore. Not telling me what direction the shore was or where the sharks are or anything like that. And it's like, wait a second, aren't we on the same team? Shouldn't you be helping me succeed? Because I'm going to help you succeed. Why would you want to go over and do that to an employee? And it was the most frustrating thing for me because it wasn't that I couldn't do the job. It's, it's. I needed a little more guidance to make sure I was going in the direction that I needed to go in because I was either like a new employee or it was a new area or whatever. And so, you know, to me it's, you got to go over and recognize and make sure that you're not dropping your employee out in shark infested water to say, I'm just going to see if you can swim. Because if they can't, that's bad for the employee and it's bad for you and it's bad for the company. Why risk all that?

Yeah, you've set. If they can't, you've set them up for failure and you set yourself up for failure because you're the man. Yeah, I, I agree with you. So one more question before we move into kind of some of the standard questions a little bit that we like to have and get to know you section so if you could go back and give your younger self, say, you know, when you were 20, 25, starting your career, advice about managing people, you give yourself one piece of advice. What would you give yourself?

It's not about you. That's the thing. It is about the team. When I first started out in my career as an analyst. I wanted to be the guy who came up with a great solution and presented it. As you start managing people, you got to give your team that opportunity. As it's been saying, you got to set your team up for success. So it's not about you and you getting credit for your team's work. If your team is great, everyone's going to know that you manage that team and you will naturally get credit. You don't need to go over and put yourself in that spot. So I would go over and just make sure that I knew, look, you know what, if you do a great job, you will be recognized. You don't need to go over and start going after credit for things, you know, and I probably did that a little bit early on. That's when I was first managing people. And then as I started to develop, I started to recognize that, you know what? Not about me, it's, I want to go over, if I could, if my team makes an impact on the company, I will naturally get good credit for it. And I always tell my people, if they are incredibly successful, I get to ride their coattails. And so that's what, that's what really I would, I would say to my.

My younger self, great advice. It's not about you, so focus on others. All right, so we have a few standard FP&A questions we like, like to ask. If I asked you what's the number one technical skill that FPA professionals need to master, what are you going to say?

I would probably say, and this is fna. People would hate me for saying this, but I'm actually going to say understand accounting. Because I think throughout my career, the times that I've had the biggest impact is when I would go toe to toe with someone in the accounting group saying, wait a second, I don't know if we should be capitalizing it in that way or I don't know if we should go over, recognize the revenue like this and to be able to challenge them. Because sometimes our accounting partners are fantastic. They're great people. We, we can't do FP and A without them. But there are times that they're just going through the motions and not really thinking about the impact on the business. And if you are a finance person, if you're an FPA person and you are trying to go over and create a solution for the business and, and you don't understand how that solution is really put together on the financial side, you end up being a glorified go between because their business is going to ask a question, you can't answer it, you got to go to the accounting group, ask them the question, go back to the business and say, well, here's what the accounting group said and you're going back and forth rather than going over and being proactive. So to me, if you could at least understand the value and how that data that you're using is put together in particular accounting, you are going that will just pay huge dividends down the road.

Got it. I appre. You're, you're not the first that said accounting. Just so you know. So you're at company with a few others. I've heard it three or four times. So it is one that comes up. There's definitely some that have it and I understand the reasoning behind it. But what about. Go ahead.

So I'm going to add one other thing that. So that might be my 1A. Let me give you a quick 1B data visualization. And you might like that one a little bit better because at the end of the day I always like to say 50% of your job in FP&A is to do the analysis and get it right and get the numbers right. The other 50% of your job is to make it look pretty so someone will read it right. I've been in situations where I've seen people take data dumps in Excel and give it to a chief marketing officer and they're like, what am I supposed to do with this? Right. It's how you could go and tell the story with the data. So whether it be in PowerPoint or Excel or Word or whatever you have, well, it's system you happen to be using, that to me is the second most important technical skill. Because if you don't, if you're not able to tell the story with the data, you're not going to get your message across.

I like it. But both very valuable skills. I mean whether they're 1, 2, 3, wherever they fit, you need to understand accounting. You need to know data visualization. What about softer human skill?

By far, not even close for, you know, number two is not even going to be close. Empathy, you got to be able to, to be able to see through someone else's eyes. If you're supporting a business partner, they are. That business partner is trying to manage their business. How are you going to come up with ideas and solutions to help them manage their business if you're not thinking about them and the situation they're in? One of the things I tell my teams all the time, if you're Going to go and have a one on one with, you know, chief operations officer or whoever, you know, VP in Ops or whatever role the person has to be in. You might have things that you need to do. Oh, I need them to fill out this template or I need this information from them at the entire meeting. It's about that. Guess what? They feel like they are now working for finance and you're asking a non finance person to do finance work. Go in there with 15% of the time, for 50% of time saying here's what I need from you. The other 50%, what can I do to help you? How can I help you manage your business better? That's how you create a partnership. And so having that empathy to be able to recognize that you in finance and fka, although what we do is incredibly important to the company, we don't drive revenue and we don't interact with customers and we don't develop products. So if we're supporting the people who are, you got to recognize that your stuff might not be their most important thing and you got to be able to see things through their eyes. So to me, without a doubt, it's empathy.

You know, I've had that answer a number of times and I love that answer because I think it's so important to have that empathy. So I hear you and I love the other thing you said. Look, we don't. Finance does not create revenue. Whenever I hear someone say finance is a revenue center, I say no it's not. We might be a value creation center versus back office where we help create value with the business, but we don't create revenue. If they let us all go tomorrow, they can still get revenue and accounting can recognize it in FBI. Now are they going to get as much? Hopefully not because we were doing a good job in the sense that they'll see the value of us. But we're not a revenue center. So that's one that's always bothered me when I hear people say that I.

Go over and do, you know, other, you know, public events and stuff on webinars, speaking at conferences or whatever. I always tell people the reason why FPA is here, the number one reason, influence decision making that tells you that finance is not the decision maker. You are trying to influence the people who are making those decisions by providing the insight and the analysis and the data. So understand if that's your role, you don't want to have your chief marketing officer filling out budget templates so that they can send back to you. You could do that better than they can. Let's get them focused on what they do best, which is marketing. And you focus on what you do best, which is finance.

Love it. Great. So we're going to move into the get to know you section. I have just a couple questions that we're going to ask and I'm going to guess the first one is about a favorite hobby or passion given all the baseballs behind you in the last conversation we had, I'm going to guess baseball is definitely a passion of yours.

Yeah, just a little bit. You know, what you see behind me is my, my collection of autograph baseballs from hall of Famers. So, you know, that's, that's a big thing. I, I've collected baseball cards most of my life. I've been to a home game of all 30 baseball teams. Is a great way to see the country. And from 1997 to 2022, I was a partial season ticket holder of the Oakland A's, which is a hard thing now because they're no longer in Oakland and like, oh, it's tough. That means if I go to a baseball game, I have to go watch the Giants and I don't like the Giants, so I will. I'm always gonna be rooting for the visitor. But. So, yeah. So baseball is a big thing. Would we.

Yeah, I was gonna say it had to be really hard for you. The Oakland A's moving to, to Vegas. I'm sure that was not, not even Vegas.

Next three years, they're in Sacramento. They're. They're. So my, my buddies and I will probably go up for a game or two. But you know, Sacramento from where we are, it's an hour and a half, two hour drive. So we're certainly not going to be going to the 15 to 20 games like we used to.

Sure, yeah.

Yeah.

You're not going to get season tickets or something like that to go up to Sacramento. Understood. One more because I'm curious. What is your favorite baseball signature you have?

Who.

Who is it?

Oh, that's tough. There are some that are worth more than others and so on, but I would say it was. It would either be Bob Feller or Willie Mays because I got to, I mean, I would say about a third of the balls behind me I got, I would. Had signed in person if I got to meet them. Him. And I got to talk to Bob Feller for like 15 minutes when it was a weird kind of encounter, but it was Bob Feller. It looked and it's so amazing. And then Willie Mays Was one of the most gracious people I've ever met in my life. I got to meet him twice. Once I was in an elevator when I got to go to a luxury box at, you know, at the Giant Stadium. Pac Bell at and T they call it now. They keep on changing neighbor fears. Oh, no, Oracle, Sorry. Now it's Oracle Park. Anyway, but we were in the elevator together coming down from the luxury boxes, so I got to talk to Willie for a few minutes. But also when I just got into sign of baseball for me and just the way he shook my hand and was just so focused on me when he was signing, I'm like, oh, my, you're Willie Mays. You're like the greatest player ever. And even though I haven't been a Giants fan, I'm just a huge Willie Mays fan. Such a wonderful human being. And just a tragic loss last year that we lost him.

Fabulous story. I appreciate you sharing that. There's nothing better than when you meet someone that's an idol and they live up to it, right? When you, they're gracious, you're like, oh, they're so nice to me. I, I don't know what to say.

You know, and that is one of the things. There have been many players that I've gotten a chance to meet. Ricky Henderson, probably, I probably met him about a dozen times throughout my life. Always the nicest guy. Another guy we just lost last year and. But despite his reputation, media, he was always so down to earth and thoughtful and he appreciated when fans would go over and talk to him. And it's memories like that that I got to have. The people who I grew up collecting their cards and rooting for them. And when you get that opportunity and you see God, you know, you're such a nice guy, it really does create that memory you're going to remember for the rest of your life.

Life. Yeah, totally agree. All right, so I think I have a inkling of where you might go with this one, given your hobby. But when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Yeah, it's kind of along the same theme. I grew up actually as a, as a Yankee fan. And so starting picture for the Yankees.

All right, we gotta end the show now. Yankee.

You know, the funny thing is my family is all from the Bronx and they're all die hard Yankee fans. But that had nothing to do with it. It was the first baseball game I ever watched was the 1981 World Series between the Yankees and the Dodgers. So Reggie Jackson Became my favorite player growing up. And the Yankees were my American League team, the Dodgers, my National League team. It's kind of how it worked out.

Yeah. See, I was. I grew up as the Dodgers. Dodgers and Twins are my two teams. I'm in Utah and I can remember listening to the World Series with Oral Hershiser and Kirk Gibson on the radio. I'd sit by the heater in our living room and turn on the radio low. It was like late at night. And I remember listening to, you know, Vince Gully and some of the game and game of Dodgers fan.

Yeah. I mean, Vince Gully was so phenomenal to listen to. And you know, I also Remember in the 88 World Series, you know, because the A's were there. So it was. I grew up here in the Bay Area. Even though I wasn't a big ace fan, I was rooting for the Dodgers. I still remember that, you know, Kirk Gibson home run and the I, you know, the improbable, you know, wing woes at the. Something about being improbable versus impossible or whatever Vin Famous line was. But, you know, it's just again, one of those iconic moments in baseball history.

Yeah. If. If you're a baseball fan, everybody can remember the moment where you hit that home run and limped around. Debate. It's the moment that will live in baseball history forever. So thank you for sharing that. I'm sure some of our guests will love this. Others be like, what's all this baseball talk? But I've enjoyed it.

You could do podcast. I'm all in.

I'll keep that in mind. I would just be facilitating. I'll let you be all over that. One last get to know you question before we wrap up. If you could switch jobs with any person in the world for one week, who are you going to switch with and why?

Okay, so it's going to. I think we're going to continue the baseball theme here.

I was wondering if you'd go baseball again.

I would love to be the general manager of the Dodgers to be able to go over and have that kind of facilities that, you know, you could go out, you could go out and get anyone. But to put the best team possible out there on the field and to just. I'm in a baseball fantasy league and it's all about. I don't care about whether I win or lose. It's. It's. I just want to go over and put the best team I can out there and beat. Beat my friends, of course. But it's, it's More about outsmarting them and, you know, using that strategy aspect. So I get to pull my FPA and strategy experience, but applying it to baseball.

Love it. So let me know if you get that opportunity. And I'm hoping for another Dodgers World Series. I was quite happy last year. I was in New York when they won. I didn't, wasn't at the game, but I was there that week for travel. And so it was quite rewarding to watch them win that World Series.

They are apparently. I've heard they have the best odds of winning the World Series of any team in the last 30 years.

Doesn't shock me. When you spend money and you spend it wisely, which is the key, Right. It's easier to win.

Absolutely. By the way, same thing applies in business. When you, when you spend the money wisely, it is more likely you are going to succeed, right?

No, but nobody cuts their way to success. You need to make cuts to, to fix things and to rebaseline. And we all understand cost cutting, but cost cutting does not lead to success. It's spending the money wisely.

That's right.

The great, great advice there. Great way to bring it all back. So we've had our baseball moment. So let, let's wrap up here. If you could offer our audience advice to be a better business partner, better FPA business partner today, what's the advice you'd give them?

Be proactive. That simple. If you go over and you're just waiting for someone to give you work to do, you're not doing your job. You want to go over. Be thinking about the people that you support. Be thinking about the processes that you run. How do you improve them? How do you go and add greater insight. Bring in additional business metrics. Create ways that can influence people in the way that they're making the decisions. Be proactive and just, you know, don't be afraid of getting it wrong. It's a great way to learn. But I promise you that even if you go over and you propose like a new report or you put some metrics in a, in your existing reports, a certain way, you present it to your business partner and they come back say, well, we don't really look at things in that way. Guess what? You just learned more about the business. But I promise you that business partner is still saying, wow, but you know, I really appreciate the fact that you're thinking about me without me having to ask. And that's how I think you could really succeed and make an impact in that community.

Great advice. So end with that. Be proactive. Glenn, it was a pleasure having you on the show. We'll put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes so if somebody wants to reach out to you, they can do that. And if there's any other links you want us to share, just let me know. But thank you so much for carving out an hour. I really enjoyed chatting with you.

Oh this has been fantastic Paul. Thanks for having me.

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