AI Finance Club: What Three Members Learned from the Experience with Eve, Jurgen & Bukie
In this episode of FP&A Unlocked, host Paul Barnhurst is joined by AI Finance Club members Eve Reiter, Jurgen Lang, and Bukie Faforiji for a discussion on how artificial intelligence is reshaping the future of FP&A. The panel shares how AI has changed the way they approach financial modeling, forecasting, automation, business partnering, and software development. From replacing repetitive Excel work with AI-powered workflows to building production-ready finance applications, they explore the practical skills finance professionals need to stay relevant in an AI-first world.
Eve Reiter is a global procurement leader and AI advocate with experience at Amazon, American Express, and State Street. Jurgen Lang is a Hamburg-based fractional CFO specializing in SaaS, sports, hospitality, and technology, with more than 15 years of finance experience. Bukie Faforiji is an FP&A professional and creator of CFO Intel, an AI-powered platform that delivers transparent and auditable financial insights.
Expect to Learn:
How AI is changing the day-to-day work of FP&A professionals.
Why critical thinking and domain expertise matter more than ever in an AI-driven world.
How finance leaders are using AI to automate workflows and build custom finance tools.
What the AI Finance Club offers finance professionals looking to upskill.
The opportunities,and risks, that AI creates for the future of finance careers.
Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:
“If nobody can act on the information, then the work has failed.” - Jurgen Lang
“The best way to learn is to share.” - BukieFaforiji
“You are not just consuming in a community. You are also contributing.” - BukieFaforiji
AI is reshaping FP&A by reducing manual work, accelerating analysis, and helping finance professionals build more powerful workflows and tools. However, domain expertise, critical thinking, governance, and human judgement remain essential for producing reliable, defensible results. Finance professionals who actively develop these skills will be better prepared for an AI-driven future.
Follow Eve Reiter:
Follow Jurgen Lang:
LinkedIn: https:www.linkedin.com/in/jurgenlang/
Follow Bukie Faforiji:
Learn More About the AI Finance Club:
Join the AI Finance Club:
The top global finance community with over 3,500 members. Advance your AI and FP&A skills through exclusive training, expert-led sessions, and a global network of finance professionals. Visit the AI Finance Club – Nicolas Boucher | Advance Your Finance Skills Today. The FP&A Guy and use code YNVTUWKG to get $100 OFF your membership.
Earn Your CPE CreditFor CPE credit, please go toearmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, answer a few questions, and earn your CPE certification. To earn education credits for the FPAC Certificate, take the quiz on earmark and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.
In Today’s Episode:
[00:00] - Trailer
[06:43] - What Great FP&A Looks Like
[11:01] - Inside the AI Finance Club Community
[13:41] - Why the Guests Joined the AI Finance Club
[19:08] - Moving from Excel to AI-Powered Workflows
[23:24] - The Most Impactful AI Projects They Have Built
[32:19] - How to Get More Value from AI Communities
[42:27] - The Opportunities and Risks of AI in Finance
[52:18] - The Essential Skills Every FP&A Professional Needs
[01:01:33] - Quick-Fire Questions and Final Advice
Full Show Transcript:
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:00:00):
I started with a provocative explanation. I said initially 90% Excel, now 90% CloudCode Codex. That means 10% Excel. That's probably not fully true because I'm still using Excel. Yes, I do not longer do is a manual work. I use Codex and CloudCode to play around in Excel to modify all the stuff I want. I give the specifications and the AI is doing the changes in Excel. Of course, I have to look at it. I talked about guardrails and stuff like that. In edge cases, that's very important because you are the human gauge in the end. But yes, the manual work, the manual building of an integrated model is no longer the case I'm doing because also clients, they do not pay you anymore for it.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:00:38):
Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A Unlocked. Thrilled to have you with us today. We're going to go ahead and talk about where finance meets strategy. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, a.k.a. The FP&A guy. And each week we bring you conversations and practical advice from thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who are reshaping the role of FP&A in today's business world. And it's changing rapidly. That's why I'm super excited to have this episode about AI. We're going to be talking quite a bit about AI, the AI Finance Club, and I have with me three guests that are joining me this week. So we have Eve. Eve, welcome to the show.
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:01:13):
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:01:14):
Excited to have you. We have Jurgen with us. Welcome, Jurgen.
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:01:18):
Welcome. Thank you.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:01:19):
And then we have Bukiewith us as well. Welcome.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:01:21):
Thanks, Paul. Thanks for having me.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:01:23):
So we're going to start, I'm going to give each of our guests just a minute to introduce themselves versus you listening to me read something. I think that'll be much better here. So why don't we start with Jurgen this time? If you could just take a minute and introduce yourself to the audience.
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:01:35):
I'm Jurgen. I'm based in Hamburg, Germany. I work as a fractional CFO, mainly in sports, hospitality and tech and SAS too. Before founding my own firm almost five years ago, I spent more than 15 years in leading finance positions at EY, Deloitte, and the sports marketing industry. Yes, the part that matters most for today is probably the last two years. And I had a conversation with Nicholas Boucher. He's the founder of the AI Finance Club. That was my, let's say, personal AI moment. I like to call it like this. I saw at that time. AI was posing a real risk for my solo business and a huge opportunity. And then what I did, I went all in. I started building my whole AI expertise. I've spent roughly 30% of my whole time, of my available time on building AI expertise and building my, let's say, agent harness.
(00:02:22):
I like to call it like this. During that time, I also joined the AI Finance Club and the Accelerator. In the meantime now I'm part of the coaching team. Yes, during the last 1.5 years, the work changed dramatically. I like to call it from 90% Excel to 90% CloudCode and Codex. That's currently what I'm opening first in the morning and closing rest evening.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:02:42):
I think a lot of people. So thank you for the introduction. Fun fact when you mentioned sports marketing, graduated from ASU at the time, they had the number one MBA program in the US for sports marketing.
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:02:52):
Oh, nice.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:02:53):
I had several students I graduated with that are multiple big kind of sports marketing roles all over the globe. So fun area. Why don't we go to Bukienext and let you go ahead and introduce yourself?
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:03:04):
Thanks, Paul. Thanks again for inviting me. Hi everyone. I'm BukieFafariji. And I chuckled at Jargon because of what you said about Cloud and Codex. It can be very addictive because I find myself also spending all of my time in Codex and Cloud, but I'm a FP&A professional, 15 years of experience supporting businesses. I mean FP&A go-to-market and business analytics. Worked in verticals like SaaS, manufacturing, professional services. And more recently, similar to Juggen, I have been doing a lot of building, vibe coding, AI. And so my journey in AI also started about two and a half years ago where I was exploring, especially when ChatGPT came out and I was like, okay, how could I level up? How can I start to use this in my workflows and all of that? So that arc has been very interesting two and a half years later, things that I've been able to accomplish with AI.
(00:03:59):
Most recently, I built from scratch. So from concept in my head all the way to production, deployed software, I built my AI-powered financial intelligence platform called CFO Intel. And what it does is it provides CFO grade insights with a paper trail. And so that has been really validating and fulfilling for me to accomplish with AI. I'm really excited about what the future looks like, what else I can keep accomplishing with it. And that said, happy to be on this episode. I'm looking to having a great episode with the rest of the folks. So thanks again for having me, Paul.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:04:37):
Thank you. Eve, go to you next.
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:04:39):
Hi, my name is Eve Breiter and I live in New York City in Union Square, Manhattan. Great location. And I'm a little different. I am not an FP&A. I am in procurement. I'm a global procurement leader. I've stood up functions, done everything from cost savings, risk management, governance, anything, finding new suppliers. But I've always worked in finance very, very closely with FP&A, so very relevant. And AI has the same application. I'm getting my procurement buddies to all join the AI Finance Club because to help with the analysis, unlocking insights, building automations, being able to teach Claude. I love the idea of these skills, creating the building blocks and then pulling it together into a monthly workflow. It's just amazing. It's life-changing. It's bigger than Excel, bigger than Windows or even the internet. So I'm enjoying every moment. And my background is Amazon, American Express, and State Street.
(00:05:45):
And I'm doing some interim fractional work right now with a variety of mid-sized firms and looking at full-time, but also considering doing fractional longer term and also making some.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:06:01):
Got it. Appreciate the introduction. I'm not sure we can allow a procurement person on the show. Kidding, because I started my career in procurement. Oh no, I'm
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:06:08):
Nicholas.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:06:10):
I spent four years as a contract specialist with the Navy before I went back to grad school and switched careers. I've done my procurement stint, as I like to call it. I also did time at American Express, so I worked there as well. So have a few things in common there. All right, so this is a question I like to start every episode off, and I'm going to throw this one to Bukiehere. And then Jurgen or Yve, if you want to add some thoughts, you can. But if I was to ask you what great FP&A looks like, I know you spent a lot of years in the FP&A chair, what would you say? How would you describe it?
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:06:43):
Thanks, Paul. So for me, if you say great FP&A, I would say great business partnering. And if I was going to click down on that, I would say for any great finance business partner, you have two muscles. You have your strategic muscle, you have your tactical muscle, and you can't do without either of the two. So when I talk tactical, you're talking about your technical skills, so financial modeling, building dashboards, your critical thinking skills. So the things that make you actually do your work, data mining. Can you get a bunch of data and then squeeze insights out of it? So can you use Excel? Can you write queries? So from that aspect, you need great technical skills to even just do the job. That's just the cost of admission and doing the role. And then the other side of it is the strategic piece of it.
(00:07:45):
So that's where, okay, now you have all this great data, you've gotten the insights. Now what do you do with it? Especially with regards to the business. So you then need to help translate what those numbers mean. So the business doesn't care that you built a 40-tab Excel spreadsheet. It doesn't care that you use Power Query. It wants to know, okay, what do the numbers say and how does it impact the business? And if you cannot communicate that in a way that is actionable to the business, then you're not really doing the other side of the role, which is being strategic and using those soft skills that make you a full, complete FP&A business partner. So having those strong technical skills and then having the soft skills to together have you as a full business partner to the business. And the only way you can literally drive influence is showing up, translating the results, communicating what it means, and letting them know how it impacts the business so that the business can then go on and execute on it.
(00:08:57):
So in a nutshell, start with being a business partner with your muscles, your strategic muscles and your technical muscles. I call it this way that being an FP&A business partner is part art and part science. You need the two to be a great FP&A business partner. So that's what I feel that great FP&A is.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:09:25):
Okay. Appreciate that answer. Jurgen, anything you'd like to add or any thoughts there?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:09:29):
Honestly, not too easy to bring additional value to that really profound answer that Boogie already gave. But what's pretty clear for me that FP&A is not a report. It's not the report. As Boogie also said, it's a decision behind it. The report helps you make. I think we'll talk about it later. You can build beautiful decks, especially in the age of AI. It's so easy doing that. It comes almost at no cost. But if nobody can act on it, then just it has failed. And what's also important for me, figures, they have to be, let's say, defensible. You have to make them defensible. You need to show where every number came from that you present because great FP&A turns numbers into decisions. People can actually stand behind them. And yes, I think that's more important in the HFAI than ever before.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:10:21):
Great points. Appreciate that. Eve, coming from the procurement side of things, anything you'd like to add?
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:10:26):
I mean, I think at the end of the day, we're here to make change. That's Seth Boden quote. We're not here to answer email through do reporting. It's like, what difference did we make? And AI can't replace that. So it's the human judgment . The what, so what, now what? What are the insights? And we'll get into that. AI Finance Club has really helped me unlock that from AI as well. So helping the business drive margin, find the right suppliers, the right capabilities, mitigate risk and drive growth.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:11:01):
Love it. All right, thank you for that. So we're going to spend most of the rest of the time talking about AI. I'm going to ask you some questions about your experience with the Finance Club. I'm going to give a little bit about it, and then I'll turn to one of you to give a little bit more. So this is run by Nicholas Boucher. I know he has over 3000 members in it now. There are several other instructors that help. Has masterclasses, a circle community, courses you can take, webinars, and just a number of resources designed to help you get up to speed with AI to be more productive. So that's how I describe it in a nutshell. I've spoke at it before. I have access to the community. I know Nicholas and I have been friends now. I think we met for the first time probably five years ago now.
(00:11:44):
So it was before AI even came out that we've been connecting with each other and know each other. So I know he is doing a lot of good work there. But Eve, I'd love for you to just give a little more of a description. How would you describe the community and how it works?
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:11:58):
The AI Finance Club is 3000 CFOs, fractional CFOs, finance pros, and a few procurement people who snuck in, all learning how to leverage AI, hands-on, practical knowledge. And it's everything from knowing the tools, whether it's Claude, OpenAI, Copilot, ChatGPT, but what does it mean for finance? How do I use it for analyzes, unlocking insights, creating interactive dashboards, automations so that we free up the day-to-day and have more time on the analysis, the relationship building, and the so what? What are we going to do with this information? What should change in the next 90 days? So you learn from each other. There's excellent masterclasses, there's constant updates. So every time there's a new update, these LLM tools are constantly upgrading their models. You'll see a really great post about what it means for you and some tips and tricks and some examples. And then there's the AI Accelerator, which is a six-week intensive course, hands-on, helps to build.
(00:13:17):
So you do 30 live muscle building exercises, six projects so that you ship product. And I know we're going to get into this. Jurgen was the star of our cohort one. And Buki, I know you were already creating your own tools even before this, and I think you're both coaches, but amazing, amazing opportunity to learn from people day-to-day.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:13:41):
Thank you. So I'd love to know, and I think we'll start with Bukieand we'll work around here. What made you decide to join? How did you come to that decision that it made sense to join the community? So we'll start with you on that, Buki.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:13:52):
Yeah, sure, Paul. So yeah, like I said earlier, when ChatGPT came out, that was the first of the AI LLMs that came out. I was doing it on my own. So experimenting, pushing the envelope, okay, how far can I go with this? But there was only so much I could accomplish on my own. And I'm a proponent of joining communities where I can learn with other professionals. So I had a sense of, I was already scouting for, okay, is there any community where we can learn AI together, AI and finance together? And so when I discovered AI and finance, I'm like, okay, let me check out this community and see. So it helped also because I think when I joined the first informational class, there was something about if you joined 30 days refund or something, if you were on there for a while and we are not feeling the community, you could get reimbursed.
(00:14:48):
I'm like, okay, well, let me check it out. And I joined, and I've been in the club for almost a year now because the value has been immense. To Eve's point, there are a lot of high players in the community. There's a lot of sharing, there's a lot of learning as well. So you're not just consuming, you're also contributing back to the community. You can define how you want to engage. There's a lot of resources on there as well. So for me, it's been validating in a way because I wanted to grow along with people. So you know the saying that says, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." I feel like we're all elevating each other. We are all pushing each other to be, okay, hey, someone would do something and say, "This is how I put this workflow together and these are the results I got." And then people are like, "Oh, great." And they'll take that same example back to their own work as well to go implement.
(00:15:50):
And the same way someone will say, "Hey, I'm struggling with this." And then there's someone to jump in and say, "Hey, have you tried this? Have you tried that?" So just having that kind of community. And it's a community of CFOs and senior finance leaders too. It's a global community. So I think about 85 countries. So yeah, it's a great place to be, I think. I see. But that's been my experience so far. I've enjoyed being in the club and I'm excited to see the other things we keep doing. I'm pushing in there as well.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:16:25):
Eve, how did you end up joining the community? What was your story?
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:16:28):
So I was on LinkedIn and I see a post from someone named Nicholas Bustai, and he's like, "Free AI masterclass CFOs, but it's for CFOs." And I'm like, "Should I do it? I'm not a CFO." And so finally I got over it. I signed up. I'm like, "I hope he accepts me." And then I signed up, this was probably spring of last year. And then learned about the class, signed up immediately and joined May of 2025. There were about 500 members. It's now grown to 3000 members and it's been amazing ever since. And then I also joined the first accelerator in January of this year.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:17:14):
Got it. All right. Thanks. How about you, Jurgen? What's your story? How did you end up joining the community?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:17:19):
As I already said, my story was really personal related. I met Nicholas roughly a bit more than two years ago, and then we had just a virtual discussion about the chances that ChatGPT that was beautiful. He's
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:17:32):
In Germany now, isn't he?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:17:34):
He is, yes. He's late in Southern Germany, and we met in Germany. Yeah. When he said there are some huge changes coming and as a solo entrepreneur, as I said, I saw some risks at first. And I was a bit sceptical too, because this whole new world seemed a bit strange to me as an Excel guy. But as I said, I saw an opportunity, and this was the reason why I really heavily invested. I invested really 30% of my available time as a fractional CFO for really expertise building over the last two years, not only the last half a year, also the time prior. And at the same time, I decided, okay, you do it by yourself. Why not exchanging with other people? And then I talked again to Nicholas and he said, "Yo, come join my group. Join the A Finance Club." And I did that.
(00:18:24):
And for me, it was more or less not being the only guy. I searched out for people who have faced the same issues, who faced the same challenges, who faced the same. Yes, you see the same risks probably and chances. And that's why I joined. Yeah, it was great time. As I said, and I participated in the Accelerator two in January in the cohort one. And now in cohort three, I'm one of the coaches. Yes, it was a great journey and a great exchange.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:18:49):
Thank you for that. So I want to ask a question. This wasn't necessarily in the list, but I'm curious to see the answer here. So before joining the community and now, how much time did you spend in Excel versus how much you're spending now? I want to see something. So booky, rough estimate. How much has it changed, would you say?
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:19:08):
I don't even really spend time in Excel anymore, to be honest. Like I said, I've graduated to the level of always thinking of, okay, automate, automate, how can I bridge the gap from A to Z in the fastest, quickest, most defensible way to Jorgen's point? So I'm also always obsessed about, can I defend this? Can I defend this? That's my non-negotiable. But in terms of, am I spinning my wheels in Excel formula and all of that? I don't spend too much time in that anymore. I pretty much start from a workflow standpoint. Okay, how can I do this? And what are the tools I can build together to make sure that it's giving me the output that I want and is serving it in a manner that I can defend it? I would say in a nutshell, to answer your question, Paul, there's been a vast difference from an AI application standpoint for me.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:20:04):
Okay. How about you, Jurgen?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:20:05):
In my introduction, I started with a rather provocative exclamation. I said initially 90% Excel, now 90% CloudCode Codex. That means 10% Excel. That's probably not fully true because I'm still using Excel, yes. But what I do not longer do is a manual work. I use Codex and CloudCode to play around in Excel to modify all the stuff I want. I give the specifications and the AI is doing the changes in Excel. Of course, I have to look at it. I talked about guardwares and stuff like that. In edge cases, that's very important because you are the human gauge in the end. But yes, the manual work, the manual building of an integrated model is no longer the case I'm doing because also clients, they do not pay you anymore for it because they know, especially because of these strange LinkedIn posts. Sometimes the models can do it, the AI can do it.
(00:21:02):
And this reason why I automate as much as possible and the manual work is just gone.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:21:06):
FP&A guy here. I hope you're enjoying this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. I love speaking to Yve, Bukieand Jurgen and hearing how the AI Finance Club has accelerated their use of AI and changed the way they're working in finance and even procurement. And with that, what I want to share, if you're interested in the AI Finance Club, you can learn more about it at my website. You can also use my discount code Y-N-V-T-U-W-K-G for $100 or 10% off. So you can go to thefpnaguy.com, click on my educational resources, go to the AI section, and go to the AI Finance Club, and you can learn more about it there. I encourage you to check it out, and if you're interested, consider joining the club. Like I said, I've got an exclusive discount for you. You get a hundred off. That code once again is Y-N-V-T-U-W-K-G.
(00:21:59):
If you have any questions about the community, don't hesitate to email me. Yve, any thoughts here? I know you're in procurement, so you probably weren't quite the same, maybe the same with Excel, but any thoughts there?
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:22:08):
So definitely spent a lot of time. I've always spent a lot of time in Excel, and AI has definitely cut that in half. Just some of the basics or cleaning up a chart. I used to spend way too much time trying to fix charts and PowerPoint. And then AI has unlocked a lot of dashboards, analytics, dashboards, insights, and really cleaned up the quality of the appearance. Because for Excel, while comfortable in Excel, I've learned, I've gotten that FP&A polished to my spreadsheets. I think it's gone to the next level. And I've been able to do amazing dashboards, which I do check in Excel and I have an audit trail. And it's great to have this work product, to build this work product in your role. Or if you're looking for a role or trying to win new business, you want to have work product that you can show.
(00:23:11):
So not just that you took a class or you're part of AI finance, but here's what I built. And work product is the new resume. I need to post more on LinkedIn and get a little high. But I definitely use it and I'm using it for different projects for different clients and also putting a portfolio together. So I'd say it's cut my Excel in half probably from before. Could be endless number of hours of Excel, but let's say 20 hours of Excel down to 10 hours of Excel because I'm still learning and testing. Want to be comfortable, want to document the processes as well so I don't forget and I could keep everything fresh.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:23:54):
Appreciate that. I kind of had an idea what the answers would be, but I wanted our audience to hear that. So appreciate that. What's the favorite thing you've built, either kind of tool that you've vibe coded, workflow you've automated, maybe thing you're most proud of, favorite, saved you the most time? You can define that however you want, but with AI. Maybe we'll start with you, Jurgen.
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:24:18):
There were several tools, but I think at least the most important one from a client perspective, at least it was the tool the client paid most of the money so far. It was a Monte Carlo simulation, a cashflow tool that I built for a SaaS company. They just shifted their revenue model from a licence to a subscription model, and they wanted to see how does revenue dip that may come from a J-curve result in their cash position. And yes, I built that model for them fully based on AI. And what I liked is how it changed the conversation. Instead of just saying revenue will be X, and we just could talk in probabilities, which was more difficult before. For example, what are the odds that the liquidity stays above a certain line? That was one of the question. There's something a CEO could actually decide on because the model really gave the possibility to do that.
(00:25:19):
But the part I'm proudest of is probably invisible that before the simulation, I did some, let's say, unglamorous work, making sure the numbers tie back to source systems. You see, I always come back to that crucial point because I checked the edge cases. I made sure that the output could be challenged. That is why the client could actually trust it and he paid for it. And it was not built to look good in a five-minute demo because I hate these demos. I think you all got that now. It was built on a holdup when someone challenged the number. And yes, I was pretty proud of it because the client really saw the value added for him. And it was of course very interchangeable. It was HTML, Java based, and yes, looked pretty good. The question, could that also have been done with Excel? Yes, that was possible in Excel, but I think the way I could sell it to the client was much easier in the age of AI now.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:26:20):
Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, the reality is you can build just about anything in Excel, even without AI before AI ever came. There's a question of should you? Does it make sense? And I think that's what a lot of people are trying to figure out. And it varies depending on the role, complexity, how much you can do with AI versus Excel. Also your learning skills, seeing a lot of different things, but it can clearly help, no question. And it can do things. There are certain things that are better for AI than doing in Excel for sure. So it totally makes sense. I get what you're saying. Eve, how about you?
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:26:55):
So when I was in the AI Accelerator, I created everyone's favorite topic, procurement policy. So a
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:27:03):
Chatbot for - Love both policies.
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:27:05):
Procurement policy where you have to use procurement. No one understands the policy. Everyone's in tears. So I was like, "There must be a better way to do this." Now, what took time, creating the actual agent or the GBT, the custom GBT was pretty easy. I created basically a fictional policy. Having to break that down, trying to simplify it and explain it was a great opportunity for process improvement. And what I should have done and what I would do in the future is I ran it through AI again, whole separate chat, and I said, "Here is the policy and process. Map this out." It took a while and tell me how it could be more efficient using first principles. So where are there duplicate approvals or where are there points of confusion? Because it's not necessarily procurement. Often finance has to approve it, legal, the business, and then it has to be approved again during the contract process.
(00:28:16):
So I got a lot of great ideas and I would have a work session to simplify. So you always hear about before you build any AI tool, use this as an opportunity to simplify the process, document the process, find points of confusion, and then just use the app as a supporting tool. The app is not going to streamline your process for you unless you can ask it for ideas. So that foundational work was really important. And then I submitted it and my coach said, "Hey, wait a minute. How do I know this is real? Go back." Because I hadn't attached the actual policy itself and I hadn't attached enough use cases. So I went back again and I liked that rigour. I liked that challenge. And I built out more detail and more explanation with tables. I tested more use cases and I resubmitted it.
(00:29:17):
So it was a great learning example and one of my favorite parts.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:29:21):
Cool. Thank you for sharing that. How about you, Buki?
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:29:23):
Yeah, sure. I would say without any shadow of doubt, my favorite work so far has been building CFO Intel from scratch. And how that started out was I just took the idea of, okay, how far can I go with this? I wanted to quote unquote automate myself out of most of the grunt work that comes with FP&A. So I was like, okay, the deterministic part of it, the calculations, putting stuff together. And I just started building. So no prior experience, but I was like, okay, let me take a stab at this. Let me take a stab at this. So I built it to a point where I felt, okay. If at some point And a version of me was asking, how far down the rabbit hole have I gotten? What am I doing over here? Why do you think you're a software developer all of a sudden?
(00:30:10):
So I was having that conversation, but then Annabel reached out and said, "Hey, we're collecting pieces from people. What have you been doing with AI?" And I'm like, "Okay, well, I've been doing this. I can share this." And she shared it on the feed and the response kind of blew my mind because prior to that, I was just, okay, I'm just putting stuff together. But the level of response that I got on feedback kind of validated what I was doing, that I had something, that there was something here. I had mentorship inquiries. I had people saying, "Oh, you've inspired me to go build something." I think I also got featured on the milestone announcement as well. So I'm like, "Okay, wow, this is a big deal. I should take this more seriously." So I then continued building it out up to the point where I now have gotten it to, it's fully production deployed.
(00:31:09):
And now I'm at the pace where I'm not getting an engineer to look in and start to look at, okay, where are the gas from a security standpoint before I then officially bring it to market? So that has been super, super great. I would say without any doubt that I'm very proud of that. And then most recently as well, another idea that I've been sitting on, a finance concept as well, I did it in an AI hackathon at Johnny Foods, and it won third price for Best Builder Award too. So I'm like, okay, you know what? I think I unlocked new skills at this point with AI and I'm excited to see how far I can push it. So yeah, those have been my two favorite experiences so far.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:31:53):
FP&A guy here. I want to take a minute and share something I've been working on. I've spent several months adding new affiliate programs to my website, probably wondering why affiliate programs? Well, I can't train you on everything, but I can show you and give you trusted resources with exclusive FP&A guy discounts in many cases on my website. I have several of the top FP&A AI people in the world. I have the top certificate programs. I also have other programs like Excel, Power BI. I'm bringing you some of the top people that train in the world. There's Nicholas Boucher with exclusive discounts, David 14. I'm adding Carl Seideman with Exclusive Discount. The top programs, FPAC, FMI, and more. So go ahead and check it out on my website. Sign up. And if you have a question on what program is right for you, go ahead and message me.
(00:32:52):
I'll get back to you, LinkedIn, or you can email me. So go to thefpnaguy.com and check out my trusted list of resources for you to upskill yourself. Love it. Thanks. So is the plan to release your software and sell it commercially? Why are you thinking about it?
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:33:10):
Yeah. So I'm thinking, so right now I have it in two forms. I have it as a SaaS software. And then I recently did a portable workflow for Codex and Cloud. So right now, I think right now it's more marketable with the Codex Cloud workflow because there's already buy-in with that. I'm just going to ride the wave on that versus there's that reservation of, do I need another SaaS platform? So I'm still kind of figuring those pieces out. Like I said, I kind of accidentally stumbled on this, but I'm trying to put on my founder entrepreneur hat and see how far I can take this. But I really, really believe in the product and I think that is something I can take really far.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:33:59):
Got it. Appreciate that. The next question I want to add, it's clear you're all big fans. You feel like you've got a lot of value out of the finance club. I mean, that's obvious. What are maybe areas you'd like to see it improve or changes or could even be concerns people might have or things they should be thinking about before joining? So anything you can share around that. And maybe we'll go ahead and start with you on this one, Buki, if you could go first.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:34:24):
Yeah, sure. What I would say, not so much concerns, but more like feedback. Whether you're trying to join or you're in the community, you joined already is I feel like there might be some reservation from, I don't know much. And so people might tend to be quiet or not show up and say, "Hey, I've done this or this is what I'm working on." And I feel like the best way to learn is to share. So if you're learning and it's a loop, you're learning, you're sharing, you're learning, you're sharing. That's the only way you can level up for lack of a better word. So if I'm doing something and I share it and somebody says, "Hey, there's a better way you can do that. Now I've learned something new." Versus if I just keep it to myself because I'm like, "Oh, I think that people probably know this more than me or I have a gap.
(00:35:22):
I don't want to do it." So just put yourself out there. Be curious. Is just what I would say is at any level where you find your expertise at, you will always learn. And the way the community is structured, there's always someone who's smarter than you. You're not the smartest person in the room. So just having that sense of, okay, I can always learn. I feel like there's no shame, there's no judgment . So just kind of show up as yourself, show up ready to learn, be curious, ask questions, engage. I think with that kind of little mindset shift, that would help you get to whatever point you're trying to get to. And it's not a one and done. It's not you do it and it's a continuous loop. It's you're learning something fresh every day. There's fresh content, AI is changing and then you're learning it.
(00:36:14):
So everyone is growing at the same pace, at the same time. And I would just say just remove those reservations and just show up as yourself to learn and grow. Appreciate that.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:36:28):
Why don't we go over to you next, Eve, on this one?
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:36:30):
Right. So to add to Buki's point, AI is not a spectator sport. And I think with the AI finance club, you do have a lot of participation in training workshops and we have a live stream. Anyone can share a use case. So for example, when Buki's CFO Intel use case was posted earlier this year, we were all blown away and we wanted to learn more, we'd like to see more of that. Now in the AI Accelerator, one of the beautiful things is you have to post your daily exercises. So everyone learns from each other. So Jurgen Lang would always somehow be the first to post. I don't even know how, always magic and the best. He would always have. I
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:37:21):
Figured it was in Europe. It was earlier in the day.
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:37:26):
Yeah. Let me see what. And then I'd be like, oh, that's too complicated. But then I would see what other people did. And sometimes it would really inspire me and get me going on my project or I'd do my project and I'd come back because I love to see how other people do it. So I love this idea that they'd be encouraging people or firing them to share their work in the live feed for AI Finance Club. Get outside the shyness. Maybe there's an incentive or a lottery. And then I have another idea. So I am the biggest fan of AI Finance Club and AI Accelerator. And I want to have a procurement supply chain subgroup. No extra cost. I've floated this idea by Annabel, but I'm going to discuss it with Nicholas because there's a few people in the group who are procurement or they're finance and they have operations of procurement.
(00:38:25):
So even if they don't have procurement in their title, they're responsible. And they're like, oh. So I'll post something and they'll be like, "Oh, I'm going to bring that back to my team or I'm going to try that or I'm going to bring it back to my procurement folks." So I think it would add another dimension and maybe one for operations. There's a lot of COOs, CFO, but they really are the COO. They do everything. I also have a huge network of procurement people who are like, "Keith, can you sell me? Can you demo what you're doing in AI?" And I'm happy to do that and I'll probably start doing that as well. But I'm going to get them to join the AI Finance Club and Accelerator because I'm like, "Make the investment today in your future for your current job, for your future job, create that differentiation." And AI is not a spectator sport too.
(00:39:16):
There's no substitute to getting in there and building right away. So the AI Accelerator, first week, you have to build a dashboard. May not be a very good dashboard. Mine was interesting. I show you the before and after, but get in, build it. You'll see what you really know. Because I though I knew AI. I'm like, "I've been to webinars. I'm reading articles. I watch podcasts. I must know." It's very different. And you see the process and you get better and better. So the AI Finance Club, you keep your skills sharp because it's year round. You keep that muscle. It's just like the World Cup. World Cup players train 25 to 40 hours a week during the regular season. So you can only imagine what they're doing for the World Cup. So you wouldn't just watch an Oscar, you wouldn't just watch a soccer match or try a few things.
(00:40:16):
You need to do it day in or at least week in, week out and really build, whether it's a dashboard, an app, an automation, skills, and really start to use it in your day-to-day and build up your portfolio. So I think I'm a big component of the marketing as well. So that's another, I want to take that further as well because I think there's something completely unique. I mean, I've done other trainings, there's nothing like it in terms of the applicability or right mix of strategic and hands-on that's really meaningful to your job and you'll walk away with real tools that you can use in your day-to-day work and in your portfolios. So I just want to keep seeing it continue to grow.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:41:08):
Thank you for that answer. Appreciate it. Anything you'd like to add? Any thoughts there, Jurgen?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:41:12):
Yeah, I'm just thinking about, because a lot of things have been said, I think it's very difficult to add something new, but I think every advantage that we just heard about the AI Finance Club, about the community, there's one thing that has to be clear. It's not coming by itself. You have to be willing to invest sometime. You have to be interested in learning something. You have to believe, of course, in that AI is no longer a hype. It used to be it's no longer a hype. It's reality and it will advance. We look at the disruptive development from December until now when you just project it to the future. There might also be some. I'm really looking forward to it, but there's also some risks inherent with that, I think. But okay, there's another point. But you have to be willing to invest some time because I also had some discussions with clients, especially older CFOs according to my experience who say, "Why should I learn stuff from you guys?
(00:42:10):
Because I know how to chat with ChatGPT, Copilot and Cloud."
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:42:14):
Yes,
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:42:15):
Probably you know how to use AI as a junior developer, but now AI transformed to a senior partner. A discussion with the senior partner is completely different because it's no longer like a Google question answer stuff. It's a conversation. It's a brainstorm. It's a specification-driven approach. And then implementation like the tech guys used to do over the years now. And that's exactly the muscle I think you learn from not only from the expert in the group, but from the whole group. When you listen to these things, to these webinars, stuff like that. If you're open to all this stuff, to open to these information, to these new developments and not afraid of learning them, willing to learning them, then you can really stay ahead of the market. That's a huge USP.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:43:02):
Thank you for that answer. And I'm going to just share one thing here before we move on to the next question. So for anyone who is interested, I do have an overview on the AI Finance Club on my website. I have several finance programs there, but also I've worked with Nicholas and I have a special discount code that will give people 10% off if they're interested. So I think this code was created by AI because no person would've wrote this code. So I'm going to share it here. There'll also be an ad that you guys listen to, but here's the code, Y-N-V-T-U-W-K-G. Who came up with that code? That's all I had to say. Almost all my other ones are something like FP&A guy or FP&A 30. And I'm like, they sent me the code. I'm like, "Are you serious?" But anyway, so there's my one complaint.
(00:43:52):
No, but you can also see that in the show notes. So if anyone's interested in the club, I'll be doing several more episodes like these of different programs, but just wanted to share that for anyone. That was something Nicholas gave me as a special one for some of my audience and things. All right. So I want to ask one more question, then we're going to go a brief FP&A section, a brief get to know you section, and we're going to wrap up. So the last question I want to ask before we move into these sections, what has you most excited? Or if you want, you can say most nervous because I think there's always a little bit of both with AI and technology. So Jurgen, we're going to let you go first on this one.
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:44:32):
Yes, I think I already mentioned it a bit. I'm in various development groups and sometimes I'm the only finance guy. I was honestly at the beginning tough to follow them, but I know I'm quite able to do that. But as I said, when you see the really huge change, especially from December now until June with the Oprus46, Oprus47, 48, and now the fatal version, also GPT 5.5, this turnaround from seeing AI from a junior developer, that was last year, to a really senior partner who knows things sometimes much better than I do. It's great for my daily work. As I said, the output is great. The clients pay for it. You can build nice shippable versions of it. But I asked myself, what happens in two years? What's happened in three years? Now the human gate is the most relevant aspect here. Your domain knowledge in finance is the knowledge you get really well paid for, even the age of AI.
(00:45:31):
But if this is the case like this in five years, honestly, I do not know. And that's a thing that really sometimes spotters me a
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:45:39):
Bit. Makes sense. I think we all have a little bit of nervousness of where does this end? What does it look like? Because there's moments where you're like, "All right, this is going pretty quick." And then there's moments where you're like, "Oh, wow, that went really fast." I think the Opus versions there that came out in pretty quick succession was a big step forward that surprised all of us. Because I remember I was testing all the modeling tools and none of them would get the balance sheet to balance, and they were subpar compared to where we are. Then we tested Claude and it was like, oh wow, this is a huge difference. And so I totally know what you're talking about is like, okay, so do we have another leap-like clap? What does that look like? So it's a good question. Why don't we go to you next, Buki?
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:46:22):
I like how you phrased the question because I have the high points and I have the points I'm nervous about. So let me start with what I'm happy about. I'm happy about the fact that AI now exists. Ideas that you would've killed because you didn't have the budget, you didn't have the timeline or the team to put it together. A lot of ideas are in the graveyard right now because yeah, I can attempt it. But now just a few sleepless nights, get some tokens to burn, and you probably get your MVP at some point in a few weeks or a few days, depending on how fast you're going. So as far as that's concerned, I'm really happy with the direction of AI where, and to Jorgen's point now with domain expertise, we actually have an unfair advantage too. As finance professionals, if you're building an AI app or a workflow, we have the domain expertise to do more debt to it because we know what good and bad looks like and we can define it.
(00:47:22):
We know what to spot check. We know what to say no. We're challenging that assumption. So that part has been great to go out there and build those tools that are now available. But the other flip side to it that I was kind of nervous about is also the effect of AI from a job security standpoint. So now I know we've all heard recently, in recent times, this company is laying off and is AI and this company is laying off because they just invested in AI. And what does that mean from a future of work standpoint? What does that mean from a job security standpoint? The formula we were given was go to school, get a master's degree and put your head down and you're going to be great for life till you're retired. Well, I feel like future of work now is going to look very different, especially with AI.
(00:48:16):
And I think a lot of us are thinking, okay, what's next? What's next? A lot of people are pivoting out of full-time roles into more fractional roles now because they're like, okay, I want to own my own destiny going forward. I want to ride the current wave and see how I can just reframe myself and reposition myself in the job market. So I think a lot of people are thinking about a lot of things. The wheelie spear in our heads, okay, what does job security look like going forward? I wouldn't say cannibalization, but it feels like that in a way where, oh, now quad design, now quad can do this. SaaS companies that were built to provide a particular service, AI is doing all of that now to some degree. So it just makes you wonder, okay, is there a bigger conversation to be had?
(00:49:04):
Is this more like a policy conversation even at this point? Is there a boundary we need to put? So all of this is still up in the air. These are things that I mull on to think of, okay, where are we going with AI? Yes, it's powerful, but how far the edge should we push it? So those are just kind of thoughts that I've been thinking about.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:49:28):
Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, and I think everybody's wondering how far do we push it? And what's best for society? Where does it end? We're all in this journey together, whether we want to be or not. So we figure it out. Eve, your thoughts.
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:49:41):
I'm excited about, and it sounds like a cliche, but really AI is a true value multiplier for FP&A, for finance, procurement, supply chain, meaning, what does that mean? What does value multiplier mean? It means one plus one equals five. You can do so much more in your job than you could ever before. So you're going to spend a lot less time on the transactional work, the monthly close, the day-to-day. You should have more accurate work if you set it up correctly, and so much more time to do the fun stuff and the value add, which is finding the new insights, finding the risks. You can have all these risk indicators, forecasts, like the cash flow that Jurgen was meant to make. Cashflow is the new bid according to a lot. It's all about cash flow. We got to make sure we protect that. There's a lot of great tools for that.
(00:50:40):
So I wouldn't be afraid to say that it truly is a value multiplier if you use it right. And it takes a little time to set it up correctly. I love this, the Claude approach where you set up skills. So I'm building a competitive bidding tool and it's going to be a set of skills because I want to teach Claude what are the different categories. I don't want racing, otherwise going to race off and just say lowest price and only have one supplier per category. But I really want to take the time to train it. IT, SaaS, AI, ERP, marketing, consulting, you name it. And then the competitive bidding, really, it should start with what are your needs? I'll build some parameters, but have Claude interview the user and ask the right questions. Because a lot of times people think they need an RFP, but they're really not ready.
(00:51:43):
And certainly we can have a conversation, but it may help as well to have it go through questions. What are you trying to do? Big picture in one sentence. What would good look like? What is your solution today? Start coming up with some requirements. And then maybe it's an RFI, you just want to see what's out there. But in that case, you don't need to torture the supplier with this huge RFP. And then when you are ready to do, assuming you need a formal RFP, you often don't, you could do a less formal, but what is the right level of questions as opposed to this formal RFP that goes out to all these suppliers who then have to spend time filling in all of these fields? And what you can do also is have AI pulling some of the information that exists from internal tools or external, save the supplier some time, and then have all this great information come back, analyze it, say what's missing, and so that it's more of an iterative process and it can do the analysis and presentation.
(00:52:51):
And then you still need human in the loop because things can go wrong and you want to make sure, because really every project is so different. The requirements get very customised and specific. So the watch out and the opportunity is governance. And when we say governance, I'm talking internal governance, whether you're fractional, whether you're a big company, and that is have some structure around how you do AI. Have some sort of a policy, an acceptable use policy. Any of the AI tools can help you create that. Rules of the road, some sort of a playbook of what you can do, not to do best practices. Don't go crazy with the tokens, use the right model, and ethics and governance as well.This is what we don't do. This is what we do, this is what we don't do. And then
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:53:48):
The - I'm
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:53:48):
Going to
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:53:48):
Cut you off there on the governance just in the interest of time so we can kind of wrap up because we're almost at time already and I have a few more questions I'd like to get to, but thank you for that answer. I appreciate that. So this section, here's how it's going to work just to keep it going quick. I'm going to ask a couple FP&A questions. You get 30 seconds. If you go over 45, I'm going to stop you and keep going so we don't go too long here. So I just want real short kind of first thought. We'll start with Bukieon this one. If I asked you, what is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals need to master, what would you say?
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:54:23):
I'll say financial modeling because that's a hallmark of any FP&A. That's where you start from. So just having those great technical skills of building a model and making it give you the output that defends the business standpoint. So yeah, any average FP&A should at least a minimum have really good solid financial modeling skills.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:54:50):
That's an answer I've heard many times before. Jurgen, how about you?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:54:52):
For me, it's clearly the shift from Excel to a development mindset I call like this. Even if you never write code, the scale now is to specify precisely and think like a develop in my opinion, because if define what good looks like, think through the edge cases, translate that clearly enough solar coding agents like code codex can build it. The agent does the typing, but the scale skill in my opinion is the precise thinking in front of it.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:55:18):
I've heard similar, a lot of times I've been hearing a lot more lately data modeling, design thinking, systems thinking. Developer is another one that kind of goes along those lines. So I appreciate that. Eve, what's your thoughts coming from procurement? What's the number one technical skill you think FP&A needs? To
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:55:33):
Be able to frame the business problem and the implications in the next steps.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:55:39):
That's a good one. You definitely have to be able to frame the problem, so I appreciate it. Love that we got three different answers. That's what I like about this is almost everybody has a different answer. All right, now we'll go in the reverse order here. What's the number one soft skill FP&A professionals need to master? So we'll start with you, Eve.
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:55:54):
Communication, relationships, empathy, curiosity, being able to have those collaboration skills, really understand and listen to the other party to understand their needs, even if they can't articulate it. They may not understand. That's our job is to be consultants, ask the right questions, and help find a solution that works for them.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:56:20):
Got it. Love it. I like that you added empathy and curiosity in there. Those are some of my favorite answers, but get lots of great ones. Jurgen, what's your thoughts?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:56:28):
I would agree in terms of communicating the so what. That means you could have the most, let's say, rigorous model in the building, but if you cannot tell the client what it means for their decision in their language, it dies in the deck. And here it doesn't matter if it's AI or Excel.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:56:45):
Got
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:56:45):
It. All right. Bookie.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (00:56:47):
Yeah, sure. So I'll add a little to Jargon's absolutely yes on this point. And then to Eve's point as well, I love that she kind of distilled what emotional intelligence is because I think that's one skill that we don't put a name to it, but it actually shows up in how we work as FP&E partners. And so what she said about curiosity, about empathy, these are all things that come in the role from a soft skill standpoint. So how do you regulate yourself? Self-regulation, especially when you're having those tough conversations or when you're challenging assumptions and telling business leaders why they can't have 10% more budget or expense for the next fiscal year. So just having those conversations, being self-aware, it's a brother umbrella, but all under it, it still wraps up under emotional intelligence and just knowing how to influence without authority. So leading, even if you don't have a job title, leading with influence, even when you don't have the specific job title to do it.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:57:55):
Like that emotional intelligence, that's a good self-awareness. See, that's why I do podcasting. I don't have to have as much self-awareness. I just talk. Wait, no, I'm kidding. All right, we'll keep going here. I have one more under the FP&A section. Then we're going to spend about two minutes getting to know just a little bit about you, some fun questions. So last one here, what do you believe is the most important skill to develop to be successful with AI? And why don't we start with, we'll go ahead and start with Jurgen on this one.
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:58:25):
For me, it's a judgment backed by real domain expertise, as I already mentioned. AI keeps producing convincingly wrong answers. Everybody in hosted, especially when the spec is unclear, I always said that. And you cannot just tell the AI not to hallucinate. That's just not working because its sole purpose is to produce an output. And so the skill is looking at the output and knowing from real domain knowledge whether it's brilliant or plausible but wrong. I like to end like AI can draught, your judgment is what sides?
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:58:55):
So you mean I can't just stick in the instructions, don't hallucinate?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (00:59:00):
Yes, you can do it. But according to my experience, it's not really working.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:59:05):
Yeah, no, I know. I got to have a little fun. Eve.
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (00:59:08):
I would say the most important skill is design thinking and being able to structure the problem, use the right tools without token maxing, have the right audit trail, and then use it within the appropriate governance and regulatory framework. And there's something called the harness prompting that's going to be more important. So it started with prompting, which is you tell it what to do. And then context, give AI a sense of what you're trying to do and the context behind it. Now it's about the harness, which is the constraints and the design features, and you're going to hear more and more about that. So I think that's a critical step.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:59:51):
You're definitely hearing more about the harness, the context, the instructions, the examples. The more and more you can give it guardrails and Restrictions, the more likely the probability of what it's going to output is what you want. The less guardrails, less restrictions, the more freedom it has, the more likely it is to go in different directions because it's probabilistic, right? We're not dealing with. It's not like math. One plus one always equals two. Just not how it works with AI. So I love that one. I
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (01:00:25):
Was just going to add to what you said that you want, I think proper governance and structure will give users the confidence to use AI because you do have some AI rejectors and companies or clients who are nervous about any use of AI because they don't know what they don't know.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:00:43):
Sure. Yeah, agree. Bookie.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:00:45):
We mentioned this earlier, but I'll say critical thinking and I think it's very closely related to judgment as well. Just again, knowing what good looks like, what bad looks like so that you can look out for it and say, "Hey, even when you're putting AI workflows together or if it's coding in say cloud code or code X, I read my code. So some people just kind of put a prompt in and walk off like, come back in 10 minutes." And everything is all baked and you're ready to go. But I push back on my code. I read my code and I'm like, sometimes this doesn't make any sense. Why are you doing this? So knowing what good looks like, knowing what bad looks like would also help you define your final output if you're working with AI. Same way we use critical thinking in Excel building, in financial modeling and all of that.
(01:01:32):
From an AI standpoint, it's still the same principle. And what helps you know what good versus bad is, is your domain expertise. Again, back to that. When you know what you know, how the business runs, when you've embedded yourself in the business so that you know firsthand information, okay, this is how we do business, this is what it looks like. That gives you the domain expertise. Then you know how to feed that back into what you're trying to do or develop to say, okay, well, this is a non-negotiable, this is a no-go. This is what I'm looking for. You can define those requirements and when you fine tune it like that, you can guarantee that you always have a better output. So I'll say for sure critical thinking.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:02:13):
That's a great one, critical thinking. So thanks for that. Again, I like that you all took a similar, but in a slightly different direction. And I think what it shows is there's a well-rounded group of skills that are needed. It's not necessarily one thing, but I like to see how different people think there. So thank you for those answers. And I think one thing you said, Buki, on the code and the domain knowledge, I've started now using it to help build my website. Not an area I have expertise. But the more and more I do it, now I can go back, I really could clean out that code. But I go through every single line and edit it myself. And not the code per se, but the descriptions it uses and the wording. And I'll challenge it and go back and forth. It's not like I just produce a page, throw it up on my website and hope it sells.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:02:57):
Yeah, absolutely. In
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:02:57):
Some cases, I'm probably spending more time around the copy than I was before, but now I can write the code instead of having to go pay somebody to write it. Exactly. And so AI, yes, it's a force multiplier. It can allow you to do things, but that domain knowledge still makes a huge difference. And I'm seeing it a lot in some of the things I'm doing as I struggle through it to try to have an understanding. So I appreciate that. All right. So this is the get to know you section. We have three quick questions we're going to ask, and I'm just looking for short answers. So we're 15, 20 seconds here. We'll kind of go through this quick since we're a little over an hour now. And I'm sure there's a few people going, why are they still talking? But that's okay. If they are, that's their problem.
(01:03:37):
So these are just fun little questions I'll ask. We'll start with Eve here. If you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be?
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (01:03:46):
I would love to have all the time in the world to do everything I want to do, whether it's AI.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:03:53):
So you would either live forever or be able to stop time. So you can do everything you wanted. I like it. Exactly. Booky, how about you?
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:04:02):
I would love a perfect recall, photogenic memory.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:04:07):
I'm not sure I'd want to remember some of the things I did.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:04:09):
Well, that's true, but also it would make my life so much easier and better too.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:04:16):
There would definitely be some advantages, no question. Jurgen, how about you?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (01:04:20):
Easy one. I think a great superpower for me would be being able to set my token costs to zero.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:04:29):
That's a good one.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:04:31):
Spoken like somebody who uses a lot of tokens. That's a good
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:04:34):
One. I think you're
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:04:35):
The one to ask what your monthly bill is after that. All right, next one. If you could recommend one book to our audience that you think they would enjoy reading or that you think they should read. You can go either way. Go ahead and share that. So we'll go ahead and start with you, Buki.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:04:50):
Yeah, I would say On the Room. I actually have it here. Okay. The camera can catch it. On the room, it's executive presence. It's about executive presence. So how you show up. You don't have to be the loudest in the room. You don't have to be the most extroverted. Just identifying your signature voice so that when you kind of speak up and lead, you can influence decisions, you can influence and push agendas forward even if you don't have the job title of a leader. So it's a really great book that I'll recommend, especially for FP&A partners because we always find ourselves presenting in meetings, presenting to leadership. And so you want the hard work you've done behind the scenes on your laptop, on all the data crunching and all of that. You want to be able to present it in a way that they actually, okay, she's trustworthy.
(01:05:44):
I can take her. I can take her word and I can run and execute on what she said. So that's a great book that I recommend.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:05:51):
All right. So Own the Room. Eve, what's your book?
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (01:05:53):
The Topic of Governance and Regulation. Lead the Machine by Arvind Meta. Just came out in March. Great overview, quick read on the principles of governance. A read of regulation is forming and things for you to think about so you can create it in your own business.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:06:13):
Thanks. Jurgen, do you have a book to hold up?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (01:06:16):
Yeah. Well, honestly, I do not. But honestly, I also read a lot of non-fiction business finance books and stuff like that, but none of them comes close to read to the reading. Joy, I had the first time I read Tokians, Lord of the Rings. Nothing has matched it since, and I stick to that.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:06:31):
Lord of the Rings, love it. I like reading fantasy books. I don't read a lot of business books. I'm like, "I work enough. I need to turn off." So everybody has their different approach. All right. Last get to know you question, and then we're going to wrap up and let you guys go. So we'll start this one. We'll go ahead and start with Eve on this one. If you could have dinner with any one person in the world, someone who's alive, who would you have dinner with?
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (01:06:53):
Seth Godin. He's an expert in marketing and influence management. First heard him speak at American Express in 2006. And I'm going to try to clone him as a skill in AI. He really brings me back to the basics and talking in human language and what does this really mean? So I find him very inspirational.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:07:16):
Alrighty. Jurgen, who are you taking to dinner?
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (01:07:18):
Martrus Carson. Chess was the first field where the machine decisively beat us humans. And I'd love to understand how you keep playing at world level when you know AI will always outcalculate you. That's exactly what -
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:07:30):
When you know the machine can win.
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (01:07:32):
Yes.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:07:34):
All right. Bookie, who you taking to dinner?
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:07:36):
I was overthinking this one. I couldn't land on one person. I'm sorry. So I focused on the dinner. Give me great food and give me great company. There are a lot of great people out here in the world, especially people with excellence and great. That's my super mixture. Just be excellent and have that great to back it up. So give me people with that same characteristics in the same room, great food. I'm good to go.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:08:04):
All right. So you bring the great food, I'll come show up as the person.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:08:08):
Yeah.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:08:11):
All right. I want to thank all three of you for joining. I think this has been a great conversation. And before we wrap up, one I'll mention, you can reach out to these people on LinkedIn. You'll be able to see there a link for each of them in the show notes, but I'll just give them a last couple seconds, any last parting advice you want to give before we close here. And why don't we start with Bukieon this one. We'll let you go first.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:08:36):
Thanks, Paul. This has been a great episode hanging out with you guys today. I was going to say to everyone watching, join. If you've not used AI, if you've not gotten on the AI, hype is not about hype. Literally the next era. And so the earlier we get on, the better. And if you haven't gotten on yet, no worries. You're not late. The next best time is now. Hope you watch this through the end so that you can learn about all the great advantages you can get using AI in your everyday life. And so don't be scared to jump in and have fun.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:09:07):
Thank you. Really appreciate that, Bookie. Eve.
Guest 1: Eve Reiter (01:09:09):
Remember, got to jump in and do the AI. Got to do the work. Practice, build your muscle, and work product is the new resume. That's a new way to build your reputation, whether inside a company for your next role, if you want to build a business. So results and actual work product mean more than anything these days. So if I can do it in procurement, so can you.
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (01:09:32):
Perfect.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:09:33):
Jurgen,
Guest 2: Jurgen Lang (01:09:33):
First of all, thanks for having me too. What I want to tell people is when you see us a nice looking AI-built finance model, do not stop the demo. Ask where the numbers come from. Ask who signs off when it's wrong. I can draught and speed up the work, but it cannot be the one who signs. And I would summarise in one sentence probably AI should amplify your judgment , not replace it.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:09:54):
I'll give an example. Somebody asked if AI is wrong on something, are they responsible like the company? And the company was like, "No, SAS isn't responsible. You still ultimately sign off, even though you have a subscription through us." At the end of the day, if something's wrong in a 10K or 10Q, you can't blame it on AI. And so just that's one of the most important things to remember in all of this. AI is a tool. Human judgment is critical to the process. And so I just want to thank all three of you for joining me. It's a pleasure chatting with you. I really enjoyed it. So thank you so much for carving out some of your time and chatting with me today. So thanks.
Guest 3: Bukie Faforiji (01:10:30):
Thanks, Paul. Cheer. Thank you.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:10:34):
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 guide 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&A guy, and I'll see you next time.