Scaling FP&A with Growth to Build Trusted Processes and Strategic Influence with Noam Sever

YouTube interview (Financial Modelers Corner) hosted by Paul Barnhurst featuring Noam Sever, Head of Global FP&A at Cellebrite. Noam (over 15 years in finance leadership) describes what great FP&A looks like—strong analytics, business understanding and communication—emphasizing building trusted partnerships with management by delivering proactive insights. Key themes: start with basic repeatable processes and map reality; use small, steady improvements (‘tiny gains’); evolve forecasting from ad-hoc Excel to running forecasts, driver-based models and BI/AI; scale FP&A from generalists to specialists as the company grows; prioritize communication, trust and partnership with go-to-market teams; and apply automation selectively after standards are established. Sponsor messages and podcast housekeeping (episode counts, series notes) are also present.
Chapters
The best kind of business partnership is give the management insight they didn't even know they needed. That's when you stop being the supportive of the business and you start a meeting with business.
Tell me what great FP&A looks like.
To you when I think of a great FP&A.
Meet Noam Sever, Head of Global FP&A at Cellebrite. With over 15 years of experience in finance leadership across global tech and manufacturing companies, Noam has led teams at Cornet Digital, Orbotech and Tenuva specializing in financial modeling, strategic planning, operational excellence and business growth.
The success is not just about the accuracy. It's important to be accurate. It's important to drive the 95 98%. But even if you miss a few percent here and then the speed, the insight and the real business impact is what really matters and what really moved a little small steps can make a big difference. Changes doesn't happen in one day. It's about improving every week.
What are the key skills or the key traits for someone to be successful at an early stage company in FP&A.
In an early stage the one that owns the FP and a foreign.
Welcome to another episode of Financial Modelers Corner where we talk all about the art and science of financial modeling. The Financial Modelers Corner is sponsored by Financial Modeling Institute. FMI offers the most respected accreditations in financial modeling and that's why I earned the Advanced Financial Modeler and I plan on earning the Chartered Financial Modeler again. I'm your host Paul Barnhurst and I'm thrilled to be here with you for the special end of year 2026 kickoff episode. It's the end of the year today as I'm recording this will be released in early 2026. You know 2025 has been year for Financial Modelers Corner. A lot of great episodes and a new series that we introduced. So first I just want to talk about a little bit about the year we did roughly 50 new episodes in 2025. We had many grown people from all over the globe. We had many different countries. We had people that were specialists in Excel, specialists in modeling, people talking AI, three statements, real estate, all different areas of modeling. In addition to that we introduced a new series called the Mod Squad. The Mod Squad was a series by is a series it will be ongoing by in Schnorr and Giles. Mel in is the executive director of the Fine Modeling Institute and Giles runs Full Stack Modelers, a Microsoft MVP and Excel esports Affectiono and he's also a master financial Modeler. So the two of them are both global experts in modeling and we talked about and tested different AI tools to give you an idea of what they could do, where they were good, how to think about them. We'll continue to release monthly episodes Mod squad in 2026 as we continue to share our take and our learnings about financial modeling and AI. The key takeaway from that series was Vibe working as it's been coded. Kind of like Vibe coding is early, it's where vibe coding was 18 months ago. And it can make you better Excel, it can help you be faster with your models. But more than anything, it's a magnifier. It's going to magnify if you don't know what you're doing. If you know what you're doing well, it's going to magnify that. So those who will benefit most from AI are those who know Excel and modeling really well. That was our key takeaway from the series and we'll continue to test.
Thank you Paul and again thank you for having me. So hi everyone, my name is Noam and I'm the head of FP and a Celebrite for those who don't know us. Celebrite is a global leader in digital intelligence. We provide technology analytics that helps mainly law enforcement speed up justice and keep communities safe. We do this by helping investigators extract and analyze data from digital devices including mobile phone to find key evidence that helps solve cases and stop criminals. So basically we are working in doing good for the world. In my role currently I oversee global FP&A function partnering with regional and corporate FP&A teams to strengthen planning, insight and business impact. Currently my focus is building on data driven agile FP and a team that connects strategy execution and insight turning financial planning into a real business advantage.
Very unique function in that it's probabilistic and so you can get different answers every time. You have to be very careful where you use it. Something I wouldn't see much used in.
Modeling but so when I think of a great fpna, I don't think about spreadsheets, I don't think about quarter closing or forecasts. I don't even think about AI. I'm looking at the bigger or the bigger picture. I think about a team that drive the decisions, connect timing to strategy and help the business look ahead. To me the best kind of business partnership is give the management insight they didn't even know they needed. That's when you start building, being the supportive of the business and you start leading the business. Now, in order to do that, you need to be very, very intimate with the numbers. Know your data from all around, because only when you know that you will find those blind spots, you can raise the flags in advance and really make a difference. When you know the numbers, when you know the business, when you understand the business, you can ask the right questions before anyone else does, find the problems before they become serious and really shape the future. Now, when you reach to this level of intimacy, the management wants you to be on their speed dials because they know then they can call you before they make big decisions, because they trust your judgment and they know you will help them to see the full picture. So for me, if I'm looking on FP and a individual contributor, or FP and a team, the best mix is basically three things. Strong analytics, business understanding and communication. And I can touch base about communication later on. So the success is not just about the accuracy. I mean, it's important to be accurate. It's important to drive the 95, 98%. But even if you miss a few percent here and then the speed, the insight and the real business impact is much is what really matters and what will move the needles. So guide FP&A is all about people, curiosity, teamwork and the courage to challenge and really understand the way things are done. The system and the process will follow that. But the basics need to be done within the FP and A mindset. And that's exactly the FP and a culture building here in Santa Cruz.
All three rounds, the semifinal, to get through to the final, the two final rounds. He scored a perfect score, a 1250. He finished early, so he had known he had won. Just amazing to watch. He performed at the top of his game. It was really cool to see. And Microsoft has really leaned into the event. The number of people attending, the excitement continues to grow. And so they're doing a better and better job of that of consider the legacy you're leaving behind. Future users will inherit your work and either praise or curse your name, depending on how complex and maintainable you make it. So, right. The less complex and the more maintainable, the more likely they are to praise your name. The more complex and less maintainable, more likely they.
Yes, I agree. I think that the power of tiny games, it's, it's a concept that's relevant for all of us in everything we do, specifically in our professional life, because I really believe that small steps can make a big difference eventually in FP and A. And in general, changing doesn't happen in one day. It's about improving little every week. And this is what I'm keep telling my team over and over again. So I do not expect everyone to block one hour a day in the calendar and think what are we going to do next, what we are going to improve. But I think it's really important and yes, it's technicality to really block your calendar, calendar one hour a week, one hour and two weeks and really think what we can do better, what we can improve. Because those small, small wins build up over time. When I joined Celebrate, forecasting was a completely head off. There were no clear timelines. People reacted to request instead of planning ahead. It was a bit of mess. So after we implemented a new budgeting system, we connected it to the BI which was very visible to the finance management and created a very clear monthly focus with them. Everyone knew the role and deadlines and deliverables by the way, not just FP and a team, everyone, FP and a finance business partners, everyone knew exactly what they need to do. And when the accuracy went up, the process becomes smoother. No surprises. The management could really rely on the numbers to make real decisions. Now it's okay to have, you know, at the end of the day we are, we are very, we grow very fast and things tend to be from time to time surprises, which is okay. But the basic and the foundation and the rhythm was clear. Once a month, once a quarter, once a week. Everything is very, very clear. And everyone knows what to do that what helps changing the whole process. What I learned is that every strong FP and a process start with the basic. First of all, you need to define what you want to achieve. When do you want to do it, who is the owner both inside and outside the finance. Because once you have the rhythm, the story, the process and the structure, everything is aligned and everything is much more clear. Then it's about the consistency of tracking result versus forecast. Because once you have a very clear process every month, every quarter, it's very easy to try and understand what happens, to follow it, to investigate and to improve. So in FP and A progress come from small steady wins that build trust and influence. And this is the foundation. Because once you have the foundation, once you have the bva, the ongoing bva, the simple bva, once a month or once a quarter, once you have the closing process and all the really ongoing process of the fpa, you will have time and the attention to bring the real value and really make a real impact of doing additional things above the ongoing and the usual day to day.
Of the FBA future, especially with AI coming, we'll need to focus more on strategic thinking, interpretation and clear communication. So that was the second most listened episode with Kenny Whitelaw Jones. Number three was how to simplify complex financial models and save time with Scott Powell. Scott Powell is one of the founders of CF Institute and an instructor. And so one of the first key takeaways he kind of shared was start with the end in mind to building models. Immediately think about stakeholders, deliverables and outputs. First draw out your model structure on paper before opening Excel. Then we talked about one of my favorite subjects. I often say simple is hard, complex is easy. But he used the term simplify. Simplify. Simplify over complication.
Yes. I've worked in companies of many sizes and form and each one of has its own charm, its own uniqueness. I assume that helping companies scale up with 30% year over year is amazing and exciting, but also support restructuring when the business is not heading in the right direction. Both are very challenging, very rewarding. I think that if you take the sizes of the company and and we take it from the small mid sized company to the large one, we have many, many differences because in the small ones you move very, very fast. You have one FP and a, maybe two FP and a. You move very, very fast. But often, you know, the resources are limited. The FPA that you have, the team, the tools and the time you have to develop and have really, really interesting analysis behind the basic. But when you are going to large organization you have much more system. The team is growing, but things move very, very slow. You have one dedicated person for each process in the FPA and in the finance and in the business. So things tend to be very, very slow, very, very structured, sometimes too structured. So for me, I like the stage in the middle. This is where celebrity is. When the company is growing quickly and still agile enough to make meaningless changes. That's when FPA can really shape the future and shape the development of the company and and really move the needles. I think this is the best solution.
Not your desire to show off technical skills. All right, so that was a little bit of Scott Pal. You can relisten to that episode how to simplify complex fine models and save time with Scott Pal number four. And this is one of my favorites. And this was an episode, I think we reran this episode. We recorded it previously. But three statement modeling for FPO, FP&A pros to avoid complex builds and forecast errors with.
Yes, listen, I'm Swiss. So you know, I need things to be structured in a way. It's not necessarily to be 100% structured, but 99% is okay.
Understanding and building three statement models we went deep on the whole cash flow and building a three statement model. He mentioned his preference for three statement models is a vertical model where they're stacked on top of each other versus horizontally likes it in one sheet. He talked a lot about the importance of really understanding the corkscrew or as he called the base method where you have a beginning line and then you have your additions, your subtraction and your ending. And in the next column you're ending.
Okay. So basically when company grows, FP and as to grows as well in small teams you have one person that does everything he's done. The budgeting, the forecasting, the business support, everything. When the company gets bigger, you need specialist person, dedicated team, dedicated for forecasting and team which is dedicated to analysis and strategy and top line and expenses and so on and so on. You also need better tools. You need driver based modules, dashboard and scenarios. But keep in mind that when the company grows and the team grows, the leadership accept more. Not just the reports of what happened, but guidance of what to do next. And very very structure not in a high level. So with the burden comes the responsibility. So in large organization, the FPA team itself becomes bigger and the expectation rise. Now when you have the resources, when you have the system, when you have the team, when you have the ownership and we'll talk about it maybe later and the accountability, the basics are still very very important. But it becomes the portion become less. If in a smaller company I know the ongoing, the BVA, the closing is 90% of your time. I expect that in bigger company, when you have more resources and more tools, the day to day maybe shrinks to 60 and 70%. And that shift is used to focus on deeper analysis, complex business questions and high impact projects that really move the needle. So FPA changed from reactive function to proactive partner. That helps really move the needles and not just do in the day to day. And this is what I talked about in my, in the first questions, the proactive approach, the thing that you that you want to do that that the leaders doesn't know they really need. This is when you have the time to do it. When the, when you have this, when the FPA is scaling up, you have no resources and you have more time to do it.
Skills tacking says I'm going to be Excel and data and then maybe business partnering. But you have Two or three skills that you really have honed and stood out. So now you can stack a couple skills on top of each other. Now you might only be people in that area where you skill stats, you're going to stand out. So you've reduced the competition for those areas. And then he mentioned about don't take shortcuts. Even when it's two in the morning you're trying to finish, don't do it, it's going to come back to bite you, it's going to backfire. And he shared some stories about how that happened for him. We like a scenarios. I'm a big, big believer of scenarios and saying hey, scenarios are about situations, not just a bunch of numbers. And so she said scenarios and financial models should be grounded in strategy, not just arbitrary numbers.
It's related obviously to the previous question as well, but budgeting and forecasting, for me it's practically the same because it's the same, you know, the same lady with a different dress. But it evolves as the company mature. At first you have simple Excel, one person, one version, some question from the business. Sometimes you work in a bubble, not necessarily consult the business. But then it becomes more structured when you have a bearded company and more resources. You have running forecast. If at first you forecast once a quarter, the current quarter, then you start focusing the running forecast. You have 4/4 forecast or 8/4 forecast. You have multiple scenarios, you have a very clear ownership. You just, you're not living in a bubble of the fba. You, you're involving everyone, the fpa, the finance and the business. And this is the real changes. In larger or more advanced companies, forecasting become very predictive. We use bi, use AI to look ahead and this is what we are doing in celebrite. The more you improve your data, your ownership and accountability, which is super important, the more accurate and valuable the focus become. At celebrate. This is exactly at the stage, this is exactly the stage that we are now in celebrate when the basics are already behind us. Each analyst owns his own domain. We have someone that in charge of the HR expenses and someone who is in charge of, you know, the, the, the go to market. In apac, everyone knows exactly what he's doing but on top of that everyone has his own project on top of the bva, on top of the ongoing routines. Sometimes it's something that related for the whole group of the fpa but we are trying to do something on top of the basis. AI is starting to take big role in our focus in processes helping us to improve Both speed and accuracy and push the whole function to the next level. Now of course what I'm currently talking in Cellpark we have about I don't know, 13 or 14 FP&A. This kind of progress required a very strong management tension and the right supportive system. Otherwise we cannot scale. So once we had everything and as I said before come the expectation and we really need to tell us and we really need to convince the leadership that we are doing a great job, that we are valuable. So again they will have us in our speed dials. I can tell you that one of the biggest and important connection every company has is the connection between the FPMA and the go to market functions. The sales process. I can say that in Cellebride we had weekly calls with the sales organization, sales operation to review the top line forecast for every region and every opportunity. We use one system and we have a lot of judgments that being done behind the scenes. So once we have the system, the ownership, the partnership between the FP&A and the go to market and the mechanism. Mechanism which means each opportunity is tagged and traded by its likelihood to close within this border. Once you have this mechanism and the rhythm and the experience, everything is much more smoother, much more calmer and much more accurate. I can say that in sellerpart in this domain we are doing a great job. And it's not necessarily just because we have a great FP and A team. Because we have, we have a very great communication and accountability within all the groups. Once everyone knows exactly what they need to do, when they need to do it and they need to do it together, everything is much bigger. And this is part of the scaling up of the organization. Almost every FP and A activity touch the budget or the focus in some way. A weekly basis, a monthly basis, a quarterly basis. So super important to be on top of everything and try to improve from scenario to scenario. So even if you're doing something on a weekly basis, on a quarterly basis or even in a yearly basis, we always need to make sure we improve from process to process. This is what FP and A need to do. Improve from process to process to give the better insights and better accurate number for the management team.
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I think it's very, very different from company to company, from industry to industry, from a CEO to CEO, CFO to cfo. But I think that if you are an FPA individual contributor, it doesn't matter if you have more experience or less experience. You must start with the basics that really matters. First of all, you need to understand the business. You need to understand what moved the needle, what really matters and what need to be investigated by the FP&A for example, you know that labor is 70% of our costs, need to make sure that we are within the boundaries and need to analyze again in a high level. No need to be 100% accurate, but at least 90, 95, we need to keep things very, very simple, build processes you can repeat and improve. Not just something which is very, very difficult and very, very complicated that you cannot repeat, improve and investigate. So once you have something very, very simple, repetitive and something you can improve, it will help you be more accurate and give more insight to the leadership you need to get the business involved because the business must be accountable. Once you have that, first of all they will help you. Especially if you're individual contributor or you have a small tip you need to the business to help you to really be successful in terms of ownership, in terms of accountability, in terms of knowing exactly what goes ahead, in terms of top line expenses and so on and so on for every company. Track your accuracy and learn from the mistakes. And most important, I think one of the best advice I can give is be patient. Because building trust, building accuracy, building processes takes a lot of time. Once you have that, once you start with the foundation and you know exactly where you're heading, what is your end goal, you'll get there. It's a matter of time, it's a matter of resources, it's a matter of team, it's a matter of systems, it's a matter of accountability. Because sometimes it's hard to build accountability once you know where you're heading and everyone around you knows that you'll get there. It can take you a few months. It can take sometimes a few years, but I'm sure you'll get there. You can understand the business, understand the complexity, understand what is the pain points of each industry. For example for I don't know for hardware industry is the other cogs. For software industry it can be the hosting, the transition between ACDA and ARR and so on. But once you understand exactly where you're aiming, what are the pain points I'm sure you'll get there eventually. Once you understand exactly where you're aiming.
Sam.
I think that for every FP and a leader and again it doesn't matter if you're a six single individual contributor or a VP of a major company, I think you need to start with the basic which is map reality by the way. It's for every position, not just FP and a When I joined Celebrate or every other company I joined I had a list of notes and every every appointment I had with with a leader, with a business partner I asked what is working and what is not working. This is for first of all understand what is working and what's need to be approved, what money to be, what need to be improved. Once you know that you know to create the standards you need to create the clear processes, even small processes of a weekly updates or bi weekly update or monthly update. It depends on the complexity. You create a very clear templates and responsibility not just for FP and a for the whole organization because this is part of the engagement when the business is engaged and when the business knows is part of your are in our part of the system, part of the focus part of the whole FPA rhythm they will be very into it and they will help you. You need to set realistic timelines that everyone can manage. Once you have those two main pillar which is map reality and creating the standard you can start and I say start start with automation. Now when I'm saying automation you don't need necessarily need to have the best automated systems in this in the market. You don't need to have all the machines learning helping you but start with the basics again only after the basics are standardized you start using the tool to remove manual work. For me I can tell you that I personally we are using a few tools. We have copilot, we have ChatGPT and we have our budgeting system. But even myself I have a weekly process I need to do in terms of some process and every week there's something that takes me an hour to do it. So I invested three hours in copilot to change the formula and it saved me 20 minutes a week. Again, it's a very small process that everyone can do. But saving those 20 minutes once a week aggregates to a lot of time savings. So start with small things, start with what really kills, do what really painful and start to improving it day by day. So I think the automation can start on an early stage and you go with it as the company thrive and the company grows. Once you have it, I think the next step, and not necessarily by this order, it can be even before, is the partnership. Again, we talked first in the mat reality, we talked about the standards and automation. Once you have the basic and one, the business knows they can rely on you and you have the value to give them. You need to stress the relationship with the business, build trust and make sure FP and A is seen as part of the decision making process. Now this part of being seen is kind of like the chicken and the egg because you need to bring value so you'll be seen, you want to be seen in order to bring value. So it's a mix of both. You need to really, as I said, move the needle, bring the good insights, be valuable and the partnership will go together with you. And obviously the last thing which is super, super important, as I said before, is keep improving. Always review and make small upgrades. Those tiny gains that keeps you moving forward will take you to the next step. And always ask other peers how they do it because I can tell you that from my point of view, at least once or twice a month I get someone from another company asking how you're doing, your focus for top line, what you're doing in your budgeting system, which tool it just took and why are you doing with that? Because I think it's super, super improving. Keep improving in your domain, keeping improving in the company domain and you know, borrow some other insights from other company. At the end of the day we will be super happy to help each other. So I think those five items are the most important one. One more thing I think is very, very important, that at any given time, before the first item, after that third item, every time, you need to make sure you have the right team around you. And it doesn't matter if you have only two members in your team or you have 15 members in your team, you need to have the right team around you because if there is a gap in skills, experience, approach, it can slow you down and the deliverables and it's like a snowball. So I think it's super, super important for the leader of the fp And a to invest time in developing their people and helping them grow. Because once you have them go, they will be engaged with you and together you can go up and really scale up the business. I think this is super, super important in every stage of every company. Scaling FP and a. It's not about system, it's really about the people, the communication and the culture. I think this is, this one is extremely important. Not about system. It's really culture. I think this is, this one is extremely important. Special. Exactly. By the way, I just posted a post on LinkedIn I think a week ago and I said that we have, you know, the last bug words everyone has is AI savvy. You, you write it everywhere. We want AI savvy. This is very, very trendy to write on every JD Job description. Job description. You want an AI set. Enable that for me. AI savvy is the, the curiosity. This is the most important because the tools will follow you. You just need to do. You just need to understand what is bothering you and what you want to improve. And the tools can, can come later. I think it's super, super important before the system, before the processes is the people, the culture and the communication.
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In an early stage. The one that owns devpna. He needs to know that it comes to an early stage FB and A and it doesn't matter if he comes from a big company or from a small company. You need to understand where he stands. You need to Be super hands on, super flexible and agile and very close to the business. Because once you have it, as I said before, this is the foundation of the foundation. When you really understand the business, once you really understand the pain points, you will have more value. Because you know, in some companies in private company, they can say, okay, do a forecast only once a quarter or twice a year because it's not that important. We don't have the guidance to the market, we can do it only, I don't know, once a quarter. But once you understand the pain points of the company before they grow, you understand you have the AWS hosting issues, you understand you have the inventory in hardware company, once you understand it and you dive in, even it's not, even if it's not the most urgent, but it's most important, it will help you and the business scale up. So I think this is the most important and this is the foundation. Because when the company will scale up and become a public and everything, sometimes you will not have the time to do it. So you need to really start with the basic and what really painful for the business, for the management and for you. Once you are getting to a large scale FP and A. I think it's more about influence, the processes, as I said before, the accountability of the business, the communication and working together. Because once you work together and you set the rhythm again for all the FP and A or non FP and a budget owners or you know, business partners, it will help you be successful. At the beginning, you win by doing everything by yourself. But at the company scale you win by helping others do things better and together. So I think this is the advice they can give. It will help you.
Together.
So I think this is. Yes, yes, yes. It's, it's very, I think it's very, very challenging. Not difficult. We don't have difficult, we are challenging. I think it's very, very challenging to change the mindset. Because you are a corporate FPA guy or you are a private or you know, a small company FP and a guy, it's a bit difficult to do the shift between one place to another. You should have some kind of maturity to be able to do this shift. And it's not, it's not for everyone. Everyone sometimes that sometimes everyone want to be in the corporate and have everything structured and organized and sometimes you have someone who loves all, you know, everything keep on changing and evolving and everything is a bit of a mess, a bit of a lagan, as you say in Hebrew. So it depends on the person. It's a matter of skill, it's a matter of mindset. It's. It's a matter of things you prefer to do. You know, it's everything together as you said. Yeah, exactly. I don't think we have one but I think that one of the major one that should have for every FP and a driver based modeling. If you know how to connect the business activity to financial results, you can focus on almost everything and again try to touch the pain points. Try to understand what really move the needles and what really changed the business the you know, the P and L or the forecast. Try start with the basic model it and you can go wherever you want. Each company has its own blind spots and the FP and I need to understand exactly what is the painful and solve it. As I said before, for the software company it can be the converting from ACV to ARR or the metrics of the customer metrics. It can be the hosting and for hardware company it can be the other cos which is a big mystery. It can be the inventory which can have a big impact. It can be either way. So understanding those pain points and closing those gaps is where the FPNA bring the real value Even by the way, as I said, if the, you know the focus can, can jump a quarter can jump a few months but once you deal with the root cause of what bother the CEO and the CFO the most, you're on the highway to do whatever you want. If the you know can jump a quarter can jump a few months. But once you deal what bother this you're on the highway. Can jump a quarter can jump. Yes. If I had to choose one, I would choose two because I think that the most ones are communication and trust which is basically can be transitioned to one thing but it's both people need to believe you can help them trust both you and the number you provide. So it's a matter in time and results. Once you start scaling up your own personality, not necessarily the company, you scale up your own personality. You give value, you give accurate numbers and people know they can trust you. You own the partnership and you'll grow together with the management team, with the company and with your team. So I think communication and trust are the most important and you know, in general communication is super, super important to know how to work with everyone, how to, how to engage everyone. So I think this is it. And trust are the most important. To know how to work with. Patient and trust are the most important. Use plug number. No, I'm kidding. Plug number Is important, just plug it and everything will go, will go away. I think that most important, and I said it before, is keep your model clean, Separate inputs, calculation and outputs. Because once you have a model and it doesn't matter if it's three years model, if it's a consumption model, if it's just travels analysis model, once you have it very, very clean, organized and simple, everyone around you can use it, can challenge it, can add the value from it, you can share it with your peers, you can share it with the team members, you can share it with the leadership. And everyone will really understand and will learn the benefits from it. It will make your life easier and your model stronger. So I think this is super, super important. And I think that for all models, it's always important. And this is something that not everyone is doing. And I think that once you're adding sensitivity analysis to your models, first of all, it presents maturity of you as a business person because it present what you think is the risk and the opportunities. And once you have the model very, very clean, very, very simple, very, very separated with what I said, then you have the sensitive analysis, you have the whole package, you have everything. And you know exactly what is the risk, what are the opportunities and what can really change the numbers if something happens. Excel. What do you mean? Not everyone likes doing study the free time. Wow. Yes, I did. Actually. My hobby is mainly being around family and friends. We love traveling together on weekends, vacation, and I try to stay very connected to my friends as well. Even when during busy times. I think this is the most important thing for me. I'm a big fan of nature. I'm Swiss, so I have a special app for Switzerland. But every place has its own uniqueness and everything. I like to see new places. In the past, I traveled to South America with my wife. It was amazing. The view was amazing. But again, I'm a big fan of just being outside and see nature in its beauty. I've been in Utah about 10 years ago. It was very nice. Yes, I was in the desert area. I was only like about four or five days. It was on. On the way to another place. But about 10 years ago it was very nice. It was about 10 years ago. It was. It's been a while, but. But I love it. I was in the desert. Why only one week? No, I'm kidding. Okay. Years. Okay. I think maybe it's not surprising, but to be honest, I think I would like to be an architect because I love. I was in the desert stretch in FP&A and not in FP&A. And I think this is something I would be good at and I would love doing it. I think the most important and especially when you start your journey, I know it's not easy, but ask questions and add and ask good questions. It's two things that combine to one. First of all, ask questions. There's not a question that cannot be asked because you must understand everything. You must be super, super intimate with the with the numbers and the business. So ask good questions. When you ask good question, you have the ability not just report the number and really explain what they mean. Focus on the insight, not the outputs. Don't be shy, be curious. As I said, it will make your work better. Improve the personal brand of yourself and the FP and A team. And of course, remember that every cycle in FP and A we have so many cycles. Every cycle is a chance to learn and improve. Every forecast, every budget, every process, every model. Get a chance to improve, to do better for the FP and A team, for the company and for your own branding. You're more than welcome to engage me through LinkedIn. Always eager to help, to support. I always answer. Feel free to reach out. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.
That's it for Today's episode of FP&A Unlocked. If you enjoy FP&A Unlocked, please take a moment to leave a five star rating and review. It's the best way to support the FP&A guy and help more FP&A professionals discover the show. Remember, you can earn CPE credit for this episode by visiting earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app and completing the quiz. If you need continuing education credits for the FPAC certification, complete the quiz and reach out to me directly. Thanks for listening. I'm Paul Barnhurst, the FP and A Guy, and I'll see you next time.
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