If you want to know where FP&A is headed, don’t just look at trends—listen to the people shaping them.
I’ve spent time digging into podcasts, interviews, and articles from some of the sharpest minds in FP&A. What I found isn’t the usual corporate jargon about “data-driven insights” and “leveraging technology.”
Instead, these experts are raising the real questions that finance leaders should be asking today.
Is your FP&A team just reporting numbers, or questioning them? Are you still running budgeting processes like it’s 2015? Has AI actually changed the way you work—or just added another dashboard?
If you’re in FP&A, these six insights from FP&A Professionals should make you think.
1️⃣ Jack Alexander : FP&A Must Own Performance, Not Just Report on It
“Finance functions lose the potential to steer their organizations to success when they defer performance management to other functions. Performance management involves identifying KPIs, building dashboards, and measuring what’s happening that will impact future financial performance. So, it’s vitally important that it be integrated with FP&A.”
🚀 Takeaway: If sales owns revenue growth, and operations owns efficiency—who owns performance? The answer should be FP&A. If your team isn’t tracking, measuring, and driving performance, then you’re reacting instead of leading.
2️⃣ Brian Kalish : FP&A Workloads Are Doubling—But Teams Aren’t Growing
“Today, CFOs expect FP&A to do twice as much analysis than is currently being generated. But I don’t hear anyone talking about adding twice as much staff. So how do you bridge that gap? It’s going to be technology that will enable the capability to collaborate.”
🚀 Takeaway: Doing more with less isn’t just a cliché—it’s the daily reality of FP&A teams. The smartest teams are already making AI and automation their competitive edge. If you’re still manually compiling reports and forecasting in Excel, you’re not just behind—you’re drowning.
3️⃣ Paul Barnhurst : The Best FP&A Professionals Don’t Just Know the Numbers—They Know the Story
“A great FP&A person in my mind is someone who knows what’s behind the numbers.”
🚀 Takeaway: Imagine this—two FP&A analysts present the same report to leadership. One rattles off percentages and variances. The other tells a clear, compelling story about what’s changing in the business and why it matters.
Which one do you think the CFO listens to?
Numbers without context are useless. The best FP&A professionals aren’t just Excel experts—they’re storytellers.
4️⃣ Philip Peck : The Biggest FP&A Skill Gap Isn’t Technical—It’s Soft Skills
“The talent profile and talent development model must evolve as FP&A embraces the digitally enabled modern finance age. FP&A practitioners will need to leverage their core finance and business acumen skills while increasingly focusing on softer skills including customer service orientation, flexibility, and collaboration skills.”
🚀 Takeaway: Knowing SQL, Python, and Power BI is great—but if you can’t influence decisions, communicate insights, and drive action, your technical skills won’t take you far.
The most valuable FP&A professionals don’t just crunch numbers—they drive business conversations.
5️⃣ Gerardo Adame : If FP&A Isn’t Questioning Decisions, It’s Not Doing Its Job
“Finance has to be a partner to the business with the help of data. It’s all about questioning whether the decisions made by the company are making sense both internally and externally.”
🚀 Takeaway: Ever heard “That’s just the way we’ve always done it” in a finance meeting? That’s when FP&A should speak up.
FP&A isn’t just about forecasting trends—it’s about questioning them. Are we investing in the right markets? Are these assumptions still valid? Are these cost savings actually sustainable?
If your team is just reporting numbers without challenging strategy, you’re not in the driver’s seat—you’re a passenger.
6️⃣ Nevine White : Innovation in FP&A Isn’t Just About AI—It’s About Cutting the Waste
“Creating a strong FP&A team comes down to two things: innovation and engagement. FP&A teams have to be staffed by innovative people. Every time the word ‘innovation’ comes up, it evokes significant investment in big systems, but innovation isn’t purely limited to technology. It’s also tied to structure, and how much time is being spent on non-value add activities.”
🚀 Takeaway: Let’s be honest—many FP&A teams waste time on things that don’t move the needle. The most innovative FP&A teams aren’t just adding tools, they’re eliminating inefficiencies. Cutting manual reconciliations, unnecessary reports, and redundant meetings creates more room for what really matters: advising the business.
Final Thought: FP&A is at a Crossroads—Which Path Are You Taking?
These insights make one thing clear—FP&A is no longer just about tracking performance. It’s about:
✅ Owning performance management, not just reporting on it ✅ Automating & optimizing processes, not just adding new tools ✅ Telling the story behind the numbers, not just presenting them ✅ Challenging assumptions, not just accepting them
So, the real question isn’t whether FP&A is evolving—it’s whether your team is keeping up.
What’s the biggest FP&A shift you’ve seen recently?
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