In this episode of Financial Modeler’s Corner, Giles Male turns the tables on regular host Paul Barnhurst, also known as The FP&A Guy, to discuss Paul’s journey through FP&A, financial modeling, training, entrepreneurship, and the growing impact of AI on finance. They explore how Paul built his personal brand, transitioned from corporate finance into his own business, and developed a career centered around education, community, and connecting people across the FP&A ecosystem.
Expect to Learn
How Paul built The FP&A Guy brand.
Why entrepreneurship comes with different risks.
What makes financial modeling training effective.
How AI is changing financial modeling.
Why human judgment still matters.
Lessons from rebuilding a difficult model.
Here are a few quotes from the episode:
“What's the point of keeping a goal going for the sake of a goal if it doesn't make sense?” - Paul Barnhurst
“AI is going to change it, but trust still matters, and there will be areas you want a human.” - Paul Barnhurst
Paul explains how his career evolved from corporate FP&A into a business built around training, podcasts, software research, educational content, and professional connections. He also discusses how AI can help financial modelers work more efficiently while emphasizing that judgment, creativity, and an understanding of the business remain essential.
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Disclosure: Portions of this episode (such as the introduction or promotional segments) use AI-generated voice narration produced under human editorial review.
In Today's Episode:
[00:00] - Introduction
[03:03] - A Week in the Life of The FP&A Guy
[07:39] - How Paul Built His FP&A Brand
[12:12] - Lessons From Posting Consistently on LinkedIn
[15:42] - Leaving Corporate Life & Starting a Business
[21:42] - What Makes Financial Training Effective
[31:06] - Human Judgment & Creativity in Financial Modeling
[35:14] - Paul’s Worst Financial Modeling Experience
[42:17] - Rapid-Fire Financial Modeling Questions
[47:37] - What’s Next for The FP&A Guy
Full Show Transcript
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (00:00):
This is the greatest learning, but the worst one. I inherited a business that was the most complex business we had. So I'm going to tell the story because I think everybody will appreciate this. I'm working in FP&A. We get a new CFO. He basically tells all of us, "All your models suck. Everybody's coming to headquarters next week and we're all building new models." And you know him, that's basically the way he said it. He may have even used a few F-bombs in there as he said it, very colorful. And so we had to go to Texas and one of the first things he wants us to do was use this offset to build a ramp. And I had never done it and I couldn't figure out the formula and he could tell I was struggling a little bit. Financial Modelers Corner is the world's premier modeling podcast.
(00:39):
It is brought to you by Financial Modeling Institute, the world's leading financial modeling accreditation organization. Welcome to Financial Modelers Corner. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, AKA the FP&A guy. And every week we talk with distinguished financial modelers from around the globe. And the show is brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. FMI offers the most respected accreditations in financial modeling, and that's why I earned the AFM. This week, I'm thrilled to be joined by my host, Giles Male. Giles, welcome to the show.
Host: Giles Male (01:15):
Thank you. I'm really looking forward to this, having you in the hot seat.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (01:18):
So everybody knows, Giles is going to be interviewing me today. So I'm going to step back from being host and turn it over to him and we'll see how I do. I'm already sweating, Giles. I'm so nervous what questions you might ask me.
Host: Giles Male (01:31):
Have you done this before?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (01:32):
I have. I had someone interview me for FP&A today once.
Host: Giles Male (01:36):
Okay. Okay. But never.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (01:37):
And I've been on a few podcasts where I'm not the host.
Host: Giles Male (01:40):
Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, you gave me a sheet. I was going to say a cheat sheet, but it wasn't a cheat sheet. You gave me a list of questions that you thought I should ask and I've rewritten half of them. So that should be -
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (01:51):
And I told you you could go wherever you want.
Host: Giles Male (01:52):
I just need
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (01:53):
A standard guest format and left it up to you.
Host: Giles Male (01:55):
There's lots of questions that I think you've probably answered in lots of different ways, even as the host of this and on other podcasts. I actually selfishly wanted to ask you a few questions I know I would find really interesting and hopefully other people as well. And then we'll get into some of the things like the quick fire questions that you do to everyone else, which I definitely want to put you through. So first question for me is, I think everybody now knows you as the FP&A guy, but we know you as an expert in your field, host of multiple podcasts. You're known for your beard, now for AI, thought leadership as well. But what does a week in the life of Paul Barnhurst, the FP&A guy, actually look like? What do you do when you get up on a Monday morning? How does your day play out and how does your week play out?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (02:42):
Oh, great question. So one, anyone who knows me knows I'm an early riser. Giles is like, "Wait, isn't he in the US? Why is he messaging me at this time? What's wrong with that guy?" And lots of other people think that. Although you'll laugh, I went to lunch with somebody last week and I sent them a message, I want to say it was like 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning, and they responded a few minutes later and I remember thinking they're in the same time zone. I'm like, "What's wrong with this person? They're up so early." And I thought they go, "Yeah, I get up before my kids and do stuff so I can enjoy the evening with them." And I laugh because someone who is actually like me for a change to one, very early riser. I usually get up, work for a couple hours.
(03:16):
Early morning, that usually involves catching up on email. At least once or twice a week, I'm taking a meeting probably from Europe early before my daughter gets up. That usually involves getting some kind of post ready for the day, maybe working on a presentation. Then I'll get my daughter off to school and then usually I run. That's kind of my time.
Host: Giles Male (03:33):
Oh, nice.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (03:34):
I actually mostly run on the treadmill. I've been recovering from an injury and I'm finally fully back. And so now I'm working on training program to run a sub 20 minute 5K is the goal.
Host: Giles Male (03:42):
That is fast. That's a good challenge.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (03:44):
I got there before about a year ago and I want to get back now that my injury's finally done. So that's on a treadmill. So add a minute to that, but hey, I'll still take it.
Host: Giles Male (03:53):
I've got some funny stories with you because we've done training together and you are a sucker for stitching yourself up and booking training two in the morning your time, which I really appreciate, but you always stitch yourself up.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (04:05):
I always try to be the one that's willing to take the difficult time, especially if I've asked the person as much as I can. But yes, so what Giles is referring to, and I'll get back to the rest of my week, usually there's a training in there. Usually there is a webinar or some kind of speaking event and a couple podcasts. So on average in a week, I'm probably doing some kind of speaking event, podcast training or webinar, 15 times a month, roughly, maybe 17. Sometimes I've done as many as five in a day. And then I'm probably meeting with three or four vendors during the week, either talking about a marketing collaboration or just wanting to see their tool and talk to them, whether it's a spreadsheet software tool, whatever it might be, giving advice. And then the rest of the week I could be working on a digital training.
(04:51):
I could be working on webpage for affiliate. I could be doing something on LinkedIn. But that typically the week for me, I usually finish my work between 2:00 and 5:00 PM, depending on whether I got to go get my daughter from school and what's going on about 2:30 and 5:00, but I'm often starting between 3:00 and 4:00.
Host: Giles Male (05:09):
I think one of the things that I always observe about you is actually you're quite similar to Faye like this. Every time I speak to you, you've got a new idea or there's something else. It's another podcast or a business venture.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (05:20):
Yeah, I got to be careful about that.
Host: Giles Male (05:21):
I know. And I always think to myself, how do you find the hours in the day? So is that just your personality that you are constantly thinking of? What's the next idea?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (05:29):
It is a little bit. I always have ideas going on and I have to step back sometimes. Can't do it all. I love being involved in a lot of things. I've been told by many people, you need to scale back your business. If you look at my business, I have three podcasts, which one people think is crazy in and of itself. Then I have an affiliate business, I have a training business, I have a research and advisory that I do with software vendors, educational content, doing digital and corporate training. And I will admit for a few years it has slowed growth. If I was more focused, I probably could grow faster. But I also, a lot of the stuff I love, I've met with 400 vendors and those meetings, I haven't been paid for any of those initial meetings, but it allows me to build a brand that's unique.
(06:10):
If you look at others, they're usually very focused, which is probably a good thing. But you look at mine, okay, some people are like, oh, he's an expert in modeling. Yeah, I'd debate that. He's an expert in FP&A software. He's an expert in FP&A or he's an expert in podcasting. And so they see a lot of different things and that can be hard from a business standpoint when you're trying to get people into a funnel, but it also is really nice in the sense of one area of revenue goes down. I have multiple other areas and as I continue to grow, it creates to me a unique kind of business. What I've come to the conclusion has nothing to do with modeling, but when people ask what my business is, in many ways I'm a connector. And what I mean by that, having talked to 400 guests on a podcast, having done talked to almost 400 software vendors, I am often contacted and I'm connecting people together and really helping them find the right resource.
(07:06):
So almost like, Hey, if you're in FP&A and you need a resource, even if I can't provide it, I can point you in the right direction. I can connect people.
Host: Giles Male (07:14):
That's awesome. You mentioned the brand and I have a question really going back to the start of this because I know you've been doing this for quite a few years now, but what was the spark? And I ask this because I think everybody that you and I speak to that we know who's started a business, whether it's freelance or they've got people on their team, there's usually a thing that happens where they realize that they can't just sit in a salaried role anymore. So if you go back however many years ago that was, pre-bid by the way, because I know this was... You were clean shaven before you set off on the FP&A guy, but what was the spark and what was the first steps of that journey?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (07:54):
Yeah, so really where it all started, I'll say is 2016, roughly. I decided it was time to look for a new job. I'm working for American Express, and I'll ask you this, Giles, have you ever bought a traveler's check?
Host: Giles Male (08:05):
No, I don't think I have.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (08:06):
Do you even know what it is?
Host: Giles Male (08:08):
I do know what they are, but I don't think I've ever bought one myself.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (08:11):
Okay, so it's 2016, I'm working in FP&A, and the product I'm supporting is the traveler's check. Do you think that's a good opportunity to grow your career, to be supporting that product in 2016?
Host: Giles Male (08:22):
Possibly not.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (08:23):
Yeah, it's not exactly long for this world in 2016. And so I decided I need to find a new job. I reached out to a guy by the name of Ken Fick and I said, "Hey, Ken, I'll give you a $20 Starbucks gift card for 30 minutes of your time." And he responded with, "I'm happy to meet with you. I don't want your gift card. I want you to write an article for my website." And my thought was, "I suck at writing, but okay." So I wrote the first article. He liked it, and he actually offered me $100 to write one a month. I did it for a couple months. I wrote a few and I shared them on LinkedIn. When I shared them on LinkedIn, it was all about trying to get a job. It wasn't, "I'm going to start my own business." And so what happened is that led to FP&A Trends had one of the biggest communities globally at the time on LinkedIn when groups were big, and they asked me to moderate the discussion.
(09:10):
Then she asked me to be on a few webinars. And so I started with a little bit of brand, again, all trying to find a job and I started posting more and more. And then I wanted to work for a software vendor. They'll remain nameless, but an FP&A software tool.
(09:24):
I applied for the job and I shared something on LinkedIn following 2000 in hopes of getting the job. They selected the other guy. I was one of two finalists. And then another FP&A tool came up, and I've always though it'd be a fun area. I've always liked the mix of FP&A and tech, and so I tried to get that job. They talked to me, but they wanted someone that was local. They weren't willing to interview me. So again, I shared something on LinkedIn about that tool. Then all of a sudden all these vendors reached out to me wanting me to see their tool. This was COVID, and so everybody was creating a tool because all of a sudden cashflow and scenario planning were critical. If you worked in FP&A like I did, you were doing one every day going, when is this nightmare going to end?
(10:03):
Because you had no idea what your business was going to look like tomorrow. I mean, I think everybody remembers that. And so that was really the impetus of where it started. And then from there, I had an Excel website at the time that I was just doing reviews of, "Hey, what's the best resources for learning Power Query? What's the best resources for this?" Because I said, "I could share my views on this, but there's already a million people that are better than me at Excel sharing their views." And I remember I paused one day and said, "What's easier? Building a business talking about Excel or building a business talking about FP&A software as far as a brand, not so much a business, the thoughts that entered my mind, but more of a kind of a brand in the sense of helping me with job, helping me with awareness." And as I continued to build, I started to realize, "Hey, this might turn into something." And in one month in December of 21, three vendors reached out to me in a week in the FP&A software space.
(10:55):
Two tried to hire me. One wanted to do a big collaboration. A friend, an acquaintance, I should say at the time, now he's a close friend, asked me if I could build some training on Excel and someone else had a 15-hour part-time job. So one night I went to my wife and I'm like, "I think I can turn this into a business." I might've had 5,000 followers at the time on LinkedIn and I had a commitment for $150 in revenue. That was it. My wife kind of looked at me like, "Wait, you think you could turn this into a business?" I'm like, "Yeah." And I talked about the different things and she was pretty nervous as rightfully so. And so we talked about it. I go, "I'm not doing a business till you're 100% comfortable." And then out of the blue is about six weeks later, it's February one morning, she goes, "I'm comfortable." I go, "Are you sure?" She's like, "Yes, I trust you.
(11:35):
I know you do a great job." I'm like, "So I'm going to put in my notice today." And I did. I put in my notice that morning, got out of there four months later, and here I am today. So that's kind of the backstory. There are other things in there, but that's the one that I think most people kind of enjoy.
Host: Giles Male (11:49):
Yeah. I think one of the things, the stories that you've told me that I really liked as well, bearing in mind in general, I think LinkedIn is a cesspit of nonsense. You posted every day for almost two years, right?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (12:01):
Yes.
Host: Giles Male (12:02):
And again, the observation I have about you is I value what you post, and that's a hell of a commitment to stick to where you are actually sharing things that I think, certainly from what I saw, were useful to people. It wasn't just endless cheat sheets. Why did you stop? Was two years enough? I'm guessing it was.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (12:21):
Well, so what I realized, so I started at 5,000. I ended up at 60 something thousand at the end of the two years. And there were days it was garbage. There were days, really simple post of, I got to get something out there, and I threw out a meme. I can't say all 500 days by any means were great content. They were not. So I'm just going to put that out there. But when I stopped, what happened is I realized I was just continuing to post every day to keep my goal going, not that I needed to. And I said, is this really the best use of my time? Are there days where it'd just be better to take a day off? And I realized, yes. I'm still going to post a lot on LinkedIn. It's still a key part of my business growth, but I realized it wasn't necessary.
(12:59):
So I said, what's the point of keeping a goal going for the sake of a goal if it doesn't make sense? That's really what it came down to. It was just that moment where I was like, it's reached the point where this is kind of dumb to just keep the goal going for the sake of the goal.
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Host: Giles Male (13:50):
Just pivoting slightly, again, I asked you how it started for you, the beginning of the FP&A guy, conscious we're on the financial modeler's corner. So my question to you is, what advice would you have to anyone watching, maybe at the start of their career, but actually maybe for people that were in a similar situation to you or that I was and many other people were, where you're in a job, you know there's something within you that you want to maybe take a bit of a risk on, whether that's freelancing, starting a business. In 2026, do you have any advice for that person now?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (14:24):
So there are a couple things. The biggest thing I'll say is everybody's like, "It's so much riskier. It's really not. You can get laid off by any job tomorrow. At least you control things to a certain extent. You may not be successful, but you're going to learn a lot." So when I started, I looked at it...
Host: Giles Male (14:43):
Oh, your camera's gone. Okay, camera's gone. Is Paul Barnhurst coming back?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (14:47):
I'm going to pause it. All right, we'll be back in a second. We're back after a brief camera malfunction. So we'll see if they leave that in. It wasn't a wardrobe malfunction like some celebrities.
Host: Giles Male (14:59):
Do you want me to re-ask the question?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (15:02):
Sure, go ahead.
Host: Giles Male (15:02):
Does that help?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (15:03):
Yeah, that way they can clean it up however they want.
Host: Giles Male (15:06):
I've got to remember what I said now. So the question -
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (15:09):
Starting business, I think it was.
Host: Giles Male (15:12):
Yeah. So my question post technical camera issue was what advice would you have to anybody that was kind of in the position that you and I and others would've been in where... To me, it's a real gut feeling that you are sat in a job, you just know that there is something you want to try, but you sometimes don't know how to make those steps. Would you have any advice to that person?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (15:35):
So the thing I say to people, I think the most common thing people worry about is they feel like it's a big risk to start your own business. The reality is it's a different risk. I would argue in some ways it's less of a risk than continuing to work for somebody. You can't control whether they lay you off, you can't control what happens when you're in your mid-50s and then there's age discrimination, you can't find another job and you're at a really high level. There's a lot of things you can control when you start your own business. Does that mean you're going to be successful? No. Odds say you won't, but will you learn a lot along the way? For me, I looked at it and said, okay, I'm trying to create this brand of being the FP&A guy, being known as somebody who provides educational content and having connections all over the place in the field.
(16:19):
After doing a bunch of training, having all those connections, if I can't find a job if this fails, the problem's me, is kind of the way I looked at it. And I said, I had a big enough runway with one of the deals I had early and savings and everything. I had at least an 18-month runway, so I'm like, "Yeah, let's go for it." And I would tell people, "Give it a try. Now don't be stupid. You need to think, be smart, have some money saved, think about how long you have, make sure you go into an area that there can be enough of a market to build a business. If it's something that nobody's interested in but you love, keep it as a hobby because you still have to provide for yourself. So be smart about it, but don't fear the idea of," But I won't have a stable paycheck.
(17:05):
"That was the hardest part for me at first was getting used to the idea I could work all day and earn no actual money that day. I was so used to being on a clock. Now there could be a week to go by and I might think about it once for a couple seconds going," Oh, I didn't earn any money this week. I guess I better do something.
Host: Giles Male (17:21):
"So I was agreeing with you that there's that sense when you think about leaving a job and potentially going off on your own that it's risky, as you said. But for me these days, especially in the world of AI, and we'll come on to talk about AI a little bit later, but how much security do you really have at a company? I don't know the answer.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (17:41):
Well, I mean, the reality is no more than you do on your own really. Look how many people that... It's like some people say," Hey, if you learn AI, you're safe. "And I remember seeing somebody commenting on it," Yeah, I'm a machine learning person who built a bunch of AI for a company and then they laid me off. "So I don't know that you're safe if you know AI.
Host: Giles Male (18:00):
Okay, so we're going to talk about AI in a little bit. There's a couple of other questions that I wanted to ask you before we get into there. Again, really with the thought of people that might want to learn or take those steps following in your path or others, are there any people out there that you would suggest others follow other than you, obviously, in our space or in our space with finance and AI?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (18:24):
There's a lot of great people to follow. I mean, one of my people I've learned a ton from. I mean, obviously I think you're great. We'll put that out there, so I'll give you a shout out, but Carl Seidman's one of my favorite people to follow. I think he does things the right way. I really appreciate how thoughtful he is. He's one of the first people I connected with, so I've always looked at him as a mentor, so I'll definitely put them out there. Ron Monteiro I think is great. He doesn't share as much on LinkedIn, but does a lot of great training. He's written a book called Love Mondays. He's really good. I think Christian Wattig's done some great things with Wharton Online, and there are several others out there. Those are mostly in the FP&A. In the modeling space, I think one of the most prolific people on LinkedIn is probably Chris Ryman.
Host: Giles Male (19:06):
Yeah, Chris. I haven't heard from Chris for a while, but I like Chris. I like what he does.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (19:11):
Yeah, and his work is outstanding. You're not going to find somebody better on the training side as far as just online training that shares a ton of free resources. Doesn't mean there aren't other great trainers. I think FMI is a great one to follow. You definitely should be following Financial Modeling Institute. Obviously, I'm biased. They host the podcast, but even if they didn't, I would still say to follow them because I believe in the work they're doing. What about you? Who's one or two people you recommend?
Host: Giles Male (19:38):
I've got a few. So actually, one of my favorite people in financial modeling altogether is Hilary Smart, who works at Operis. She's fantastic, and an ex-world champion of the predecessor to the competition that runs now, which is Modeloff. I think the obvious ones, people like Dim, obviously Diarmuid Early for anyone in esports or financial modeling is so generous with what he shares.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (20:05):
If you want your brain to hurt, just try to do what Dim does.
Host: Giles Male (20:08):
It's wild what he does. And for me, he's the bar of broad and deep Excel knowledge, both together bizarrely. Michael Jarman, I wish he posted more, but I think Michael Jarman is so busy with life. He's got a new job now.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (20:24):
Well, he also, I think he recently got married as well, if I remember right, in the last year or two and moved across the country.
Host: Giles Male (20:31):
Yeah. The last person I'll mention who I know you know really well is your friend Glenn Hopper, who I think is
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (20:38):
Absolutely fantastic. Yeah. When it comes to AI, Glenn is as good as they come. He's working on his fourth book. He has about 12 training courses out there between LinkedIn Learning and Corporate Finance Institute, and I have a podcast with him. He's great. You're not going to find someone better. He's not into the self-promotion, so he's not as well known. That's really hard for him, but he knows his stuff as well as they come.
Host: Giles Male (21:03):
I listened to one of your interviews with him recently, and I just found myself nodding the whole time. None of it was hype-based. It was just very real, insightful, honest communication, which I thought was great. All right. One other pivot of a question before we talk about AI, you and I have done training together. I can probably count on one hand the number of people I would trust and recommend as trainers. So I don't want to lose too much time on here, but for me, it's a real skill, and I've obviously seen you do this really well. What's your experience like as a trainer? Do you enjoy the process of virtually or in person trying to lead a training group?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (21:49):
I do. I really enjoy training. I've got a lot better at reading the room. My training partner is much better at that than me, and it'll be times like pick it up or let's take a break because he really reads the room, and I think that's a very important skill you have to develop. But for me, the joy of training is when it makes a difference. When you know somebody actually took it away and they come back like, "Oh, that saved me hours or I still use that." Or the other one that I always find interesting is you share something that wasn't necessarily in the lesson, you're just kind of talking and they come back and that's the thing they remember. When you ask them, "Okay, what's the takeaway?" And you're like, "That was just kind of a throwaway line. I didn't even think about that." And so for me, I think the biggest thing is just seeing when it actually helps people and knowing that they can use this to help in their career.
(22:38):
Because let's just say it took me a long time to get promoted. I was way too detail oriented. I could go on and on about a lot of things. And so helping people realize and not have to go through some of the pitfalls I did is rewarding.
Host: Giles Male (22:49):
But you are very... How can I describe this? When you deliver training, like I said, we've done stuff together, you put a lot of effort into making it fun as well as educational. And I feel like that's such a huge part of what a trainer or a good trainer is. It's not just technically being aware of the content, it's actually thinking about the experience across half a day, a day for people, which I think you do as well as anyone I've seen really.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (23:18):
Well, thank you. So I think speaking to that, I'm going to flip it back to you and ask a question. If I asked you to think of top speeches or presentations you've been to, some of the best presenters, what percentage or how many use some kind of humor in their speech?
Host: Giles Male (23:32):
All of them.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (23:33):
All of them. Right there. What do you remember? And so that keeps people engaged and it makes them realize we can have fun while doing this. And so it just lightens the entire mood because let's face it, probably anywhere from 20 to 80% of the people in the room don't want to be there.
Host: Giles Male (23:51):
Yep. It's so true with team training, right? It's different when people have paid their own money to be on a bootcamp or something, but when it's a team, yeah, it's very different.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (24:03):
Yeah. When they've been told that they will attend this training. And if you're doing Excel training, the reality is one person knows everything you're talking about and may even be better at Excel than you. One person probably should have one-on-one training because they may not have ever used a spreadsheet, and then you got to range everywhere in between. So you have to break it up, do something to help keep them engaged in addition to being hands-on. Otherwise, you're just going to lose the room.
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Host: Giles Male (25:11):
I agree. I spoke about this a few years ago somewhere where I said on average within a cohort of say 30 people, you will have a pocket, maybe 5% of people that are genuinely very good. Interestingly for me, the people that rate themselves as experts quite often aren't the best in the group. It's the ones that rate themselves as intermediate or they know they're pretty good, high-end intermediate, but they're so aware of everything they don't know that they are really hesitant to call themselves experts. I don't know if you've had that experience.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (25:45):
100%. Honestly, when people ask me, I think of myself as intermediate. I recognize compared to a lot of people to say I'm advanced, but I rarely use LAMBDAs. I almost never use VBA. I mean, there's so many areas where I know I could be much more efficient in Excel. Now, that's not to say I don't know more in the sense of I probably know more formulas and have done more Excel than 90% of people, but that doesn't mean I'm an expert. I think there's a very high bar when I think of a true expert. I think of someone like a Dim. I think of many of these MVPs, even though I'm an MVP that I look at and I'm like, "I wish I had forgotten about as much of Excel as they know." You know what I mean? They forgot more than I'll ever know.
Host: Giles Male (26:25):
And the funny thing is Dim would probably rate himself seven or eight out of 10. There's no way he would say nine or 10. I've had people, because we quite often send out questionnaires, self-assessment questionnaires for training. I've had a group where somebody literally put 10 out of 10 and in the free text box, "I do not need training." And that's mind-blowing to me because very quickly you see they do need training and they do need help.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (26:51):
So I'll share one story on that. I'm interviewing a guy for an FP&A role, this is 10 years ago now, and I would always ask a question. I'd ask people to rate themselves on a scale of one to 10 in Excel, and it wasn't about the answer because then I'd ask them to explain why they rated themselves that way, to really get their thinking and see where they're at in Excel. And this guy said a 10 out of 10. Okay. And he rates himself, "I can do anything I need to, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I go, "Hey, by chance, have you ever heard of XLOOKUP?" And it was fairly new. It'd been out a year. "No. Have you heard about this? ""No." And kind of went on. I go, "Do you want to change your answer?" And he looked at me begrudgingly and said, "Fine, a nine out of 10." Just like, "Wow, are we arrogant?" And he was really smart, and I actually put him forward into the next round and see what the other manager would say.
(27:41):
They interviewed him and went, "He could do the job, but I wouldn't want to work with him because he was just so arrogant and we didn't hire him.
Host: Giles Male (27:48):
I think that's also, if you think back to the point about trainers, that's one of the skills of a good trainer as well as times you're going to have to deal with real world people, personalities, and people that are going to disagree with you or try and put you off or whatever it might be. On the training front again, and we should probably start talking about AI, do you think we'll have a job, Paul, in two years as trainers or is AI taking it all over?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (28:14):
AI is going to change it, but trust still matters and there will be areas you want a human. I don't think so, but if it does, I guess I'm hoping for a not a universal basic income, but some call it a universal high income, and I'll just go retire.
Host: Giles Male (28:31):
The thing that always jumps out to me when you look at, let's take our field of financial modeling, you look at all the experts that share so much thought leadership at the moment. My worry is whether it's a year, two years, five years down the line, if all of those people just stop because AI is just doing all of this work for everybody anyway, where does the thought leadership come from or does AI just fill that gap, which fills me with fear? I don't know if you have any strong opinions on that.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (29:04):
I haven't given that a ton of thought. I think the thought leadership will continue. What I fear is it's going to get watered down over time. A good example is Carl Seideman recently shared, he had shared a financial model and then he was attending something someone was sharing. The financial model they were sharing looked almost exactly like a model he had built. There's 90% the same. And what he realized, he had recently done a training where he'd built a lot of it with, I think, Claude or one of the AI tools, and the fear is everything's going to look the same. We as humans, one of the things that makes us great is the
Host: Giles Male (29:42):
Diversity
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (29:43):
Via though, the diversity that's out there. I would say even in the modeling field, even though yes, there are standards, we all have a signature. As Jeff Robinson said, who's trained thousands of people there in the UK, he made a comment once, he goes, "I I could usually tell who trained them when I'd see a model or what style they had been trained in because everybody has a unique signature. Do we really want that to go away? That's what I worry about, whether it's thought leadership, whether it's modeling, whatever it might be, AI doesn't have the creativity that a human has. And so there's just something to be said for value, right? We've all seen it where you're reading a post and the information may be valuable, but you could tell it's 100% written by AI and it just turns you off because you're like, "I want some original thought.
(30:32):
I want to connect with the person here." That's what I fear more than anything, even though I think we'll continue to have content develop, we'll continue to have thought leaders regardless of how good AI is. Is the next generation going to lose a lot of that creativity and part of what just makes us who we are?
Host: Giles Male (30:50):
Yeah, I agree. And actually the creativity words are really important. We've mentioned that in some of our training recently as well. Even when you think of the use of AI, ideally you need to be quite creative in your thought processes and interactions with AI to try and get the most value out of it. So that's something that I try to keep in my mind, not to just fall into a lazy mindset with modeling and AI of just that, okay, well build me a three-statement model. Actually, you've got to engage with these tools quite creatively to get the best outputs. I don't know if that's something that resonates with you.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (31:27):
No, I do agree. I mean, you have to spend time with them. There's art and science. And for certain parts of the model, you want it to be science, a debt revolver. There are other areas within the balance sheet balancing, that's not an art. There is science to that that you need to follow or it won't balance. But how you show the summary, how you do other things, there is that ability to bring art into it. Exactly how you do the scenarios. Yes, there's some structure to that, but there's also some freedom. What assumptions do you use, how many? These are all things that, whether you want to call it creativity, knowledge, they're human judgment. So even if you want to say, oh, I don't like to be creative, fine, take out creativity. You still have to involve human judgment in the process, and that leads to a different outcome than turning over your judgment to AI, which is happening.
(32:27):
Now is AI building models for us? The answer is unequivocally yes. Is it building good models in the hands of the right person? Again, the answer is unequivocally yes at this point. Can it do a lot of the work and save us hours? Those are all yeses. Those are no longer a debate like when we started the ModSquad a year and a half ago and we were wondering where it would be. Those have been settled. The question is how you're going to adopt it when you come on board and how you responsibly use it at this point to me.
Host: Giles Male (32:56):
And you mentioned the ModSquad. I mean, God, if you and I reflect on the year that we've had, what was it? Pretty much a year ago I think we started the ModSquad.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (33:04):
Yeah, we started, I think the first one was September, late August or early September of last year. We started talking about it, I think at the end of July. It took us about a month to find our logo and our name and all that.
Host: Giles Male (33:14):
Yeah, which we used AI for, I think in part at least didn't we, to try and brainstorm the name. But you think when we start, and for anyone that doesn't know, listening or watching, this is Paul, myself and Ian Schnoor, who's the founder of the FMI. And a year ago we were just testing third party AI tools in Excel because we didn't have Claude and Copilot in Excel. There weren't any agents. The only link to in-app experiences were these third party tools,
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (33:44):
Right? Yeah. Copilot came out about a week after we started. We did our first episode. I think our second was testing Copilot online.
Host: Giles Male (33:52):
Online, I remember.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (33:52):
And that called the agent, not Copilot in Excel, but the actual agent that would build for you, just so everybody understands. The copilot had been out for a while, but it could only answer your questions. It didn't have an agent that actually could build for you. So the first one was online. And do you remember how awful it was the first time we tested that thing?
Host: Giles Male (34:09):
Yeah, but I remember there were a few points. There was definitely the moment when we tested the Excel online agent where we were like, "Oh, hang on, that's better." And then I think the beginning of this year, I can't remember if it was just certain model releases,
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (34:22):
Something happened. It was 4, 4.5, and 5 late last year. We tested at the beginning and I still remember Ian's comment, "This changes everything." He was like -
Host: Giles Male (34:32):
Yes.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (34:33):
His jaw almost dropped like, "Wow, this is actually good. I could see where this could help, but man, you got to be really paying attention." It was, yeah, this can really help. You still need to be paying attention, but it's not this kind of help.
Host: Giles Male (34:48):
Yeah. Hell of a journey. All right, I'm going to move to some questions you will be very familiar with. Not quite a quick fire round, but we're definitely going to hit you with those. The first one, what's your worst modeling experience, whether it's yours or somebody else's?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (35:06):
So I would say probably this is the greatest learning, but the worst one. I inherited a business that was the most complex business we had. So I'm going to tell the story because I think everybody will appreciate this. I'm working in FP&A. We get a new CFO. He basically tells all of us, "All your models suck. Everybody's coming to headquarters next week and we're all building new models." And if you know him, that's basically the way he said it. He may have even used a few F-bombs in there as he said it, very colorful. And so we had to go to Texas and one of the first things he wants us to do is we're using this offset to build a ramp. And I had never done it and I couldn't figure out the formula and he could tell I was struggling a little bit.
(35:46):
So this was only 10 years ago. I'd never learned proper model training. I just kind of figured everything else out on my own. I'd call myself a spreadsheeter at that point. I'll be honest. This was 10, 12 years ago. So he called in an investment banker to work with me on this model. We spent six months and got to the point where we had something that was decent, but it could never really support the business because our data was so crappy, we didn't have an understanding. So I spent the next year basically remapping all our data. And then finally I told myself, I have to rebuild this model. And I was like, crap, it's going to take forever. I'm not even sure I know how all of it works. Still occasionally got circular references in it, which I never figured out in the prior model.
(36:21):
I just turned it off and the numbers look good. I shouldn't admit that. So here's telling the horror stories. Dim is just rolling over right now going, what you idiot? And so I rebuilt it and it was still a complex model. It was a really complex business and this is just revenue. But then I can have real conversations with the business like, Hey, for this key customer, we're estimating this for this product and these are the campaigns and this is the timing. And I could start to make important decisions and take my boss through what was really going on and we make changes. Here's what happens to margin. And that was the best learning experience in modeling I've had in my career, but it was painful. That model at times was just awful. Yes, we broke many modeling rules. I freely admit it. There's real life and as you get better, you follow more and more, but you also know where to break them and you're putting in proper checks so people can understand what's going on.
(37:17):
And I still sometimes think this model is really tough. And the new guy who took over one day we're talking and I go, he had managed another business and I was kind of doing some support to help him with the transition. And he goes, "This other business is really complex." I go, "My models are really complex too." He goes, "Yes, but I can understand the logic of why you did what you did. It makes sense. It helps the business. This other one is complex, but it doesn't help the business. We have to tear it apart and rebuild it. At least yours, I can see how it supported the business." So that journey, it went from just a garbage model that we took over and six months to get to good enough garbage that we could be comfortable, we could forecast, but not actually help the business to a year later before we really had something that could truly help the business.
(38:00):
So probably a lot longer answer than you wanted, but there you go. Half the guests on this show have it.
The advanced financial modeler is becoming the way modelers signal that the work is real. I took it, it made me better, and it opened doors. What are you waiting for? Go to fminstitute.com/podcast. That is http://www.fminstitute.com/podcast and use code podcast for 15% off.
Host: Giles Male (38:34):
No, it's great. And it's a nice real-world answer because I think my textbook answer every time on this, if you pick up a messy model is, oh, you should just rebuild it. Start from scratch. Don't try and just use what's there. But actually, the reality for a lot of teams and individuals is you don't have the capacity to just stop for three weeks or more. You might argue it's a day now with AI, but you don't have that time to just stop and start from scratch. So sometimes the reality is you've got to make something work to the best of your ability with as much confidence as you can.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (39:08):
Yeah. And so it was a really good learning journey and it got better and better as we went and I felt like I at least handed something over that could support the business even though there were some areas that definitely needed to be rebuilt.
Host: Giles Male (39:22):
And you described something which has always been a bit of a litmus test for me, which is when somebody goes, just explain to me how you got to that cost of sales number. If you don't fall apart when you are asked that and you're on the model and you can go, yep, it's here, there's the logic, this is how it flows through, that's kind of the litmus test for me for good modeling or one of them at least.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (39:42):
Yeah, no, I hear you. It's asking them to, when they can explain assumptions and you can tell they really understand the business, you get much more comfortable with the model. I think the second one is when you ask them a question and you can see the models in some kind of order where you can follow what they're doing, that's another one that you get. You automatically feel more comfortable. Doesn't mean it's perfect, you could be wrong, but it increases that comfort level that they know what they're doing.
Host: Giles Male (40:09):
All right. Similar question. What's the most unique thing you've ever seen being built in terms of a model or Excel?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (40:17):
Oh, that's a good question. So not that I build, but one of the favorite things I've seen, if anyone's followed them, I always love. I used to share it in some of my training. Have you ever seen the Japanese artist? What his name? He's an artist that he sold some of his paintings. He would do complete paintings in Excel. Some of them were sold for like 70,000 landscapes and different things where he'd do the entire artwork in Excel. So not me. And I'll have to find his name. I want to go look at Yoshi something, but if you just type in Japanese Excel spreadsheet artist, you'll find it. And it's fascinating some of the pictures. So that's probably one of my favorite because I'm like, wow, who would've thought that you could make a career? And he had made a career. If you sold something for 70,000, that's a career out of painting in Excel.
(41:08):
Just bizarre.
Host: Giles Male (41:09):
I've never heard that before. That's really, really cool. There's a guy called George, I've forgotten his name. He was at the Global Excel Summit a few years ago. A guy called George who builds the orbit of planets within the solar system in Excel. I'm not sure if it's VBA or something else. That's probably the craziest one I've seen, but I think yours is cooler actually. Artwork.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (41:29):
Yeah, there's a lot of crazy... I mean, some of the games, if someone knows there's some Easter eggs where there's a spy hunter in an earlier version of Excel, there's a flight simulator in Excel, just some fun stuff. Doom. They actually created a Doom game if anyone, if you played the first-person shooting game when you were a kid, Doom, that was created once. I think they called it the Hall of Tortured Souls, which we've all felt that way using Excel. Let's be honest. Rapid fire incoming. 20 questions, yes or no answers, no hedging aloud. Circular references, VBA, the future of Excel, and more. Let's find out what our guest really thinks.
Host: Giles Male (42:09):
Circular references, yes or no?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (42:11):
No.
Host: Giles Male (42:12):
VBA?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (42:14):
No.
Host: Giles Male (42:16):
LAMBDAs in financial models?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (42:18):
I'm going to say no at this point. There are exceptions, but I'm going to say no.
Host: Giles Male (42:22):
External workbook links.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (42:25):
Do as I say, don't do as I do. I've used a few, but the answer is no.
Host: Giles Male (42:30):
Okay. I know what your answer's going to be to this. Should modelers primarily use keyboard shortcuts?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (42:37):
No.
Host: Giles Male (42:37):
Should modelers always be print ready?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (42:40):
No.
Host: Giles Male (42:41):
Models, maybe not the modelers, the models.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (42:43):
No.
Host: Giles Male (42:44):
Are merged cells ever acceptable?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (42:46):
Yes, but you'll go to hell according to many of my guests.
Host: Giles Male (42:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Including me. Should financial modelers learn Python in Excel?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (42:57):
No.
Host: Giles Male (42:59):
Should they learn Power Query?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (43:01):
Yes.
Host: Giles Male (43:03):
Should modelers learn Power BI?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (43:06):
I guess technical, if the answer is should, you could say yes to all these, but I'm going to say no in the sense of I don't think it's necessary.
Host: Giles Male (43:12):
Should every financial modeler be able to build a fully integrated three-statement model?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (43:17):
I'm going to say no. I didn't build one in my 12-year corporate career.
Host: Giles Male (43:21):
Will Excel ever die?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (43:24):
Yes. Everything dies. Just don't let it be in my lifetime.
Host: Giles Male (43:28):
Absolutely. Love it. Have you used AI to help you build models in Excel?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (43:34):
No, I watched you guys do it on the Mod Squad. Yes.
Host: Giles Male (43:37):
Yeah. Okay. Which of the three financial statements would you say is the most important for financial modelers?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (43:44):
I'm going to go balance sheet.
Host: Giles Male (43:46):
I think I had to argue in your debates once. I had to debate somebody and argue for the balance sheet, so I'm glad you said that.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (43:53):
You probably did. I can't remember because I did two versions of that, but my favorite was watching Danielle and Lance argue. Danielle argued AI would never build models for us, and Lance argued they would. I brought that up recently and Danielle's like, "You had to remind me of that. That was not one of my better moments. Thanks."
Host: Giles Male (44:09):
We were forced into the positions though.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (44:12):
To a certain extent. I did ask questions, so I did try to take based on how people answered positions, but yeah.
Host: Giles Male (44:19):
Okay. A few more. Favorite LLM?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (44:22):
Claude.
Host: Giles Male (44:23):
If you could pick only one for all your models, would you choose sensitivity or scenario analysis?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (44:30):
Scenario.
Host: Giles Male (44:31):
It's an interesting one as well because I think they are kind of two versions of the same thing almost,
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (44:36):
But - There are some similarities. So you could argue, "Hey, I can do sensitivity within scenarios to a certain
Host: Giles Male (44:40):
Extent.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (44:41):
So yeah, I've considered eliminating that one for what it's worth.
Host: Giles Male (44:45):
Okay. Do you believe financial models are the number one corporate decision-making tool? And if no, what is?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (44:51):
I'm going to go ahead and say no after listening to a lot of guests' answers. I usually say yes. I think they should be, but I think gut checks, politics, and stupid people rate above model. I shouldn't say stupid people. And people making bad decisions rate above model.
Host: Giles Male (45:08):
I think that's probably the most honest answer I've heard to that question. And the last one, what is your lookup function of choice? Choose VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH, XLOOKUP, something else.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (45:20):
If I was Mark Proctor, I'd say filter because I would make him happy, but I got to be honest here. Power Query is my favorite, but that's often not practical, so XLOOKUP.
Host: Giles Male (45:28):
Filter's a great shout though. I have to be honest, that is a great shout.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (45:31):
Yeah, and I'm starting to see more and more after seeing what Mark's done with it, where if I spend a little more time, I could see where... Because he's got to think a little differently to use it. It could be better than any of the other lookups. So I think there's a real argument to be made. It's the most flexible of any of them.
Host: Giles Male (45:46):
I know you normally allow your guests to choose which question to go back to. You put me in charge, so I'm not going to let you. Merged cells, when are they allowed?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (45:55):
In formatting of a report, never in the raw data. If you use a merged cell in your raw data, yes, you should go to hell, as many guests will say. But if you do it on the front of a format, I don't care. As long as it's clear that's formatting and you have all the raw data in a nice area where the person can go work off it. If the raw data is part of your report format, you should not use merged cells because they're going to hate you because the first thing they're going to want to do is get to that data and they're going to be like, "What have you done?" And spend 10 minutes undoing merged cells. Now you could just ask AI to do it, so that's my reasoning.
Host: Giles Male (46:27):
Okay. I'm uncomfortable with your position, but I accept it as you are a grown adult as well. I think until they come up with the vertical alignment for merged cells, if you're listening to Microsoft, improve named ranges and give us vertical alignment, the name manager and give us vertical alignment on merged cells, please. I'm comfortable enough to be uncomfortable.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (46:48):
That's fine. I just want to let you know Dim also said they were acceptable.
Host: Giles Male (46:51):
It's really difficult because I generally just agree with everything Dim says, so okay, fine.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (46:56):
Well, what was great is actually I was finishing up the interview with Dim and Ryan Humphreys, anyone listen to the show was back there and he heard that answer and he was like, "Oh man, do I got to change my answer now?"
Host: Giles Male (47:04):
Yeah. Okay. Well, you got through. You survived. I've really enjoyed putting you on the spotlight. Is there anything else you wanted to share? One more question, I guess. What's coming up for you? I know you've just started writing for Forbes or you will be soon. What's on the horizon for the FP&A guy?
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (47:21):
Yeah, so writing for Forbes, I've been working on software market map that I hope to release. I have a course that I was originally going to release in January that I need to finish. I've recorded it all. I just need to get the recordings done. So there's a few course things I hope to get out, and I think those are the main things. I mean, there's nothing really big out there, just continuing to be annoying to everybody on LinkedIn.
Host: Giles Male (47:42):
I mean, I'll be there with you, Paul.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (47:46):
And who knows? I can even travel one day.
Host: Giles Male (47:49):
Yeah, do. Come and join Excel on the road at some point. Faye and I have dinner with you in Salt Lake City, didn't we? So we can do that again. I will hand back over to you. Thank you for leaving me in charge for this episode. It's been a pleasure and I'll let you wrap up.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (48:02):
All righty. Well, normally I ask the guests at this point how people can get in touch with them, but if you don't know how to get in touch with me, then you're probably not watching the show and it won't matter what answer I give. So we'll go ahead and wrap up and just say thank you, Giles, for taking a few minutes. I enjoy getting to share a little bit about my experience with the audience. Would love for you to leave a rating and review if you enjoyed the episode, and we hope to see you in future episodes. So thank you everybody.
Host: Giles Male (48:26):
Thanks very much.
Guest: Paul Barnhurst (48:27):
Financial Modeler's Corner was brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. This year I completed the Advanced Financial Modeler Certification, and it made me a better financial modeler. What are you waiting for? Visit FMI at www.fminstitute.com/podcast and use code podcast to save 15% when you enrol in one of the accreditations today.