How SaaS FP&A Teams Leverage AI to Manage Cloud Costs & Transform Decision-Making with Raheli Sasson
In this episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst is joined by Raheli Sasson, the Director of FP&A at JFrog. Raheli shares her expertise on the evolving role of FP&A professionals, discussing the importance of being proactive, clear, collaborative, and continuously learning. She also dives into the challenges of managing cloud hosting costs in a hypergrowth environment and how AI is transforming the finance industry. Raheli discusses the use of AI tools for productivity, forecasting, and machine learning, and provides insights on data storytelling and its impact on decision-making.
Raheli Sasson is the Director of FP&A at JFrog, where she partners with executive leadership to deliver financial and operational results. With deep expertise in budgeting, forecasting, and process automation, Raheli is passionate about leveraging technology and AI to drive efficiency in finance. She has managed budgets exceeding $1 billion and spearheaded global initiatives to integrate AI in finance.
Expect to Learn:
How finance can act as a strategic partner to drive company growth, especially in the early stages.
The importance of balancing growth with sustainability in high-growth SaaS companies.
Key metrics and strategies for scaling operations and go-to-market efforts in early-stage startups.
Insights into how AI is changing the landscape of finance and operations.
Tips on building trust and accountability within teams to ensure collaborative success.
Here are a few quotes from the episode:
"The ability to present financial data clearly and compellingly is one of the most powerful tools you can have in your FP&A toolbox." - Raheli Sasson
"AI is transforming finance, and for me, it's not just about automation. It's about leveraging it to forecast better and make smarter, data-driven decisions." - Raheli Sasson
"A great FP&A professional is not just reactive but proactive, anticipating needs before they arise and simplifying complex financial data for everyone." - Raheli Sasson
Raheli shared key insights on what makes a great FP&A professional, the importance of collaboration in high-growth environments, and how AI is transforming finance. Her practical advice on managing costs, forecasting, and data storytelling provides valuable takeaways for aspiring finance leaders.
Corporate Finance Institute:
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Learn more at: https://corporatefinancialinstitute.pxf.io/c/6003589/3067930/23723
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Earn Your CPE Credit
For CPE credit, please go to earmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, answer a few questions, and earn your CPE certification. To earn education credits for the FP&A Certificate, take the quiz on earmark and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.
In Today’s Episode
[03:49] - What’s Great FP&A?
[07:15] - Transitioning from Auditing to FP&A
[10:35] - Managing Cloud Hosting Costs in Hypergrowth
[15:48] - Passion for AI and Becoming an Advocate
[22:57] - Impact of AI Workshops on Team Productivity
[27:44] - Introduction to Deep Research
[33:36] - Best Use Cases for AI in FP&A
[37:15] - Implementing AI Training in Finance
[43:04] - Favorite Gen AI Tool
[44:55] - Soft FP&A Skill
Full Show Transcript
[00:01:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Hello, everyone. Welcome to FP&A tomorrow, where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst aka The FP&A Guy , and I'll be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. For each week, we're joined by thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who share their insights and experiences, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. Whether you're a seasoned FP&A professional or just starting in your journey, this show has something for everyone. This week, I'm really thrilled to be welcome to the show. Raheli Sasson, welcome to the show.
[00:02:11] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Thank you Paul. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
[00:02:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I'm really excited to have you. So a little bit about her background. She's a seasoned finance leader who is known for transforming financial complexity into strategic clarity. Today, she serves as director of FP&A at Jfrog. She is a trusted partner to executive leadership, delivering measurable financial and operational results. She has managed budgets exceeding 1 billion and possesses deep expertise in forecasting targets, setting annual operating planning, modeling and financial excellence. Beyond her financial acumen, she is a storyteller and problem solver, adept at turning data into actionable insights. She's also an innovator with a proven track record and process automation. Leveraging technology and AI to drive efficiency and create added value. She championed the adoption of generative AI in finance, leading initiatives to integrate AI-driven efficiencies, and spearheading global learning programs to equip finance teams with AI skills. Outside of her professional endeavors. She is passionate about great food. I can relate to that one. Unfortunately my waistline can relate. Fashion. Stand up paddle boarding. Traveling. And she is a lifelong learner. So once again really thrilled to have you. Welcome to the show.
[00:03:41] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Thank you. What an intro. That's amazing.
[00:03:44] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you. Great. So we start every episode with this question. When you think of FP&A what does great FP&A look like? How would you describe it?
[00:03:54] Guest: Raheli Sasson: So I would describe. Great for a professional to be someone who is proactive, who is clear, who is collaborative and always learning. And what do I mean by that? Being proactive means you don't wait for being asked to do stuff. You anticipate the needs of your partners and then you care for them. Simplify means you don't use this high jargon. You try to simplify all the things that you talk about in finance and non-financial stakeholders, to make them relate to what you talk about. You need to collaborate with all across the departments of the organization, understand what they talk about, understand their jargon, and then give them the best insight and recommendations. And always go above. Above and beyond your job description and above. Above all, stay curious, keep learning and adapt and be agile.
[00:04:50] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great answer. I think we covered everything. We'll just call it an episode. And I'm just kidding. I love Proactiv. I've heard it said a couple different ways. You know, FP&A needs to be able to anticipate what's coming right and help guide the business. So I had one person call it the great anticipate for or if someone else said it, who's a CEO. I want my FP&A team to be able to peek around corners and kind of help me understand what might be coming and how to manage risk. So I love that. I love the simplicity because yes, it's easy to get complex, especially when you're talking about finance. And sometimes people look at you and they're like, what are you talking about? You know, bring it down to my level. So great there. And I'd love to ask you, can you share an example from your personal experience of when you've seen great FP&A in action and kind of what was the result of that?
[00:05:38] Guest: Raheli Sasson: So, you know, currently I work at Jfrog, we are in Hypergrowth, so I can give you my current situation. We as an FP&A team need to support this growth of headcount and make sure we are on track. Make sure we are within budget, but also we need to make sure we are agile, right? So if they want to swap and do other stuff then what we initially budgeted, we don't need to stay rigid, we need to be evolving with them and make sure that we are aligning with the strategic goals of the company. So in this scenario, I would team up with the engineers, I would team up with HR, with business operations. Everybody is working together to make sure we are speaking the same language. It's like weekly, bi weekly meetings all the time to make sure that we are on track. This is, for me, what FPA means to collaborate with everyone and to help the business. And you know, you probably felt it yourself. Sometimes as an FP&A, you go in directions that are not even relevant for finance. You know what I mean? To structure the headcount map in a different way than what was originally planned. It's not even dollar value, but someone's got to do it right. So we help the business transform this. Insight into decision making.
[00:06:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No 100% agree. There's lots of times what we're doing may not be financial in nature as an impact to finance, like headcount and helping with restructuring. I still remember helping try to map out a whole new inside sales team we're going to have with 100 people. Yes, there's a big cost to the end of it, but I remember going, okay, we're going to have this many of these. And does that make sense? And not necessarily numbers. You put numbers at the end of it, but it's much more than that strategic and operational and all those things. And I can imagine in a hypergrowth those types of things come up all the time.
[00:07:35] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely. Yeah. But it's the fun part, right?
[00:07:38] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think so, I mean, that's part I enjoy working with the business. I'm not in it just to build the plans. I mean, yes, I enjoy a good model and getting my hands dirty, but I love working with the business and actually seeing when things work and you see it in the numbers and see that progress, we're like, we're making a difference.
[00:07:56] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely.
[00:07:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So you started your career in auditing? I'm not an accountant. I won't hold it against you, but I would love to know. How did you know? Starting your current auditing helps prepare you for FP&A and working in FP&A .
[00:08:10] Guest: Raheli Sasson: So I actually learned accounting and economics in university. And the nature would be to go and do an audit internship. And during the internship I understand I don't want to work in audit. I just came to this realization that this is not for me. Meaning always looking back, preparing the reports. I don't reveal my age, but we used to like be in the copy machine and copy invoices all day. It was, uh, not fun. But what I did love is learning about businesses. So I had the opportunity to learn about multiple businesses like real estate Services, high tech, even our Greek culture. So it really gives you an edge on any other student that just came out from university to learn about all these businesses, what drives them, what's their strategy and do all this analysis work? That's what really caught me. And this is when I understood this is what I want to do. Back then I didn't even know what FBA even meant. But I know that this is what I want to do, and this is how my career evolved from there.
[00:09:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, like a lot of people, when you're in college, most people don't know what pH and A is. You might have an idea that I want to be more strategic and involved in the business versus backward looking, but, you know, it's not like there's many universities at all to have, even in PHP and a course, let alone in PHP and a program. Right. You got an investment banking or accounting or audit or you get into a lot of those, but you know, PHP and you don't, you just don't see it as much as I don't. I rarely get a college student reaching out to me maybe twice a year or so. I want to go into FP&A whereas investment banking. I know people to get, you know, people reaching out to them all the time saying I want to go. And I think that's changing. It's starting to become better known, but definitely it's not something most people know about when they're in school.
[00:10:08] Guest: Raheli Sasson: I actually see it as a trend that people that learned accounting, they shift gears and move to FP&A more economical stuff. I think it's fascinating.
[00:10:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I do too. I definitely hear from a lot of people who want to make the switch, like they get into accounting for a few years and then they want to go into the FP and eh, I hear from somebody like that almost every week. Rarely hear from the college students saying, I want to go into FP&A right out of college.
[00:10:33] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Yeah, I agree on that.
[00:10:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So, you know, I want to ask you a question because I think this is something a lot of people struggle with. I've done a few episodes on it. So I know in your profile you mentioned at Jfrog, one of the things you manage is cloud hosting costs, which is everybody's trying to figure out how much is hybrid, how much is cloud, what does it cost? What's it been like managing that cost? And any advice you'd offer to people in a hypergrowth company? How do you manage that? Because I know if you're not careful, those costs can kind of get out of control. So I'd love to get your thoughts on what that kind of journey's been like.
[00:11:07] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely. So the hosting cost is huge. It's like I believe most SaaS companies, this is the second biggest cost. So we need to look at it carefully. I would start by the advice because this is also what I did. Take a course. There are lots of online courses, cloud practitioner courses, and AWS courses. They're all free. They are very good. It's basic, but you need this knowledge. And then when you get up to speed in the company, I think the most important is the collaboration. Stick to FinOps. Finops are your best friends in this scenario. You need to really understand how things work, what labeling means, all the different SKUs. What is storage? What are data transfers? What is everything, all these, all these names and partner up with the engineering and really understand what drives the cost. Are the optimization plans that you have the savings. Plus it's like a whole nother world and a whole nother language. It's overwhelming. But um, this is my advice. This is how I started. So the most fundamental thing is I think it's accountability. Right. Because FinOps also talks about it. Teams need to have accountability for their budgets and you need to measure them. You need to give them budgets that make sense, and you need to follow up on this budget too and make sure they understand their budget. So we are all aligned and serve the company in goal. It's not easy. It's a very challenging task. A lot of my peers, we talk about hosting all the time. I don't think anyone can say, yeah, I totally figured it out. I can sit on my desk and look at the dashboards. Everything is so clear. Um, but it's a very challenging world, and it didn't come up every day that you need to learn a whole nother dictionary from scratch. For me, it's exciting. I absolutely love to learn new things.
[00:13:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I know you mentioned you love being a lifelong learner. And so it speaks to that. And I think great advice there. Your first one that's mentioned. Or take a course, get to learn the terminology and some of those things so you can talk to the engineers. Because I know I've heard multiple people say you kind of need a standard language because otherwise you're you're talking about one thing and they're talking about something else. And that can mean very different numbers depending on how they're defining things. So I think that's great advice. And I like how you, you know, jump in and hold people accountable as well. It's really having an idea of what those targets are. And if they blow through them, really understanding why and trying to prevent it in the future. Because it's easy to be like, you know, product people. Sometimes it's just a little bit of a cost. We need to do it for this and that and that. And it's like, yes, but we set a budget for a reason. How do we accomplish what you need to while still managing that cost, which sometimes is easier said than done?
[00:14:10] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Yeah, I see it. Like when you set a budget, it's your North Star. It's okay if you deviate a little bit, but you have, you know, what's your goal, you know where you're going. And okay, now we understand the deviation. And like you mentioned, we learned from it and we understand what we did wrong. Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we left an environment and we didn't shut it down when we needed to. So we learned from it. And we go ahead. We go to the next task.
[00:14:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I like how you said North Star. I think that's a great, great way to describe it. And also, you know how you mentioned leaving something on and kind of blowing through the budget. I've heard people mention that before, like not realizing, oh, if we just make this one little change, it will change. Save us 25% or whatever it might be with storage costs. They're not accessing that very often. Why are we paying for this storage cost versus that one? I see you nodding your head. You've probably dealt with all of those.
[00:15:05] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely.
[00:15:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So all right. So I love that. Love a little bit of the cloud cost. Because I expect that to only increase some of the things like that. Even AI costs, which isn't cloud but the tokens and how different it can be. It's my own language as well. As we start to see, you know, billing for all of these AI projects. So we're going to get more and more into complex costing that can have huge impacts to the business and pricing. So the more we learn these things the better. So let's jump into the AI side of things. I know you yourself have leaned very heavily over the last few years into AI. You've served as the Gen AI champion at your prior company, Amdocs. How did you become so passionate about AI? What led you to kind of be a champion and lean so heavily into artificial intelligence?
[00:15:56] Guest: Raheli Sasson: So a few years back, when ChatGPT came into our lives, I found myself not sleeping at night. Literally. I just typed like prompts and saw the results, and I started to learn more about it and get into this, like online communities and watch webinars. And I was fascinated, and I started to use it in my work without even thinking about it, that this is my work or my life. It's just, you know, it's there and it's helping me. And I realized that I use it more and more. And I remember I talked with my manager and I was like, listen, we need to do something, like we need to, to teach everyone. And she said, it's yours. Go ahead, do it. And I'm like, I will. And this is how I initiated and um, and led not online actually. It was also live in front of face to face with people and also, uh, on zoom with the global teams. And what I initiated is the comprehensive learning program to learn AI in general and AI in finance, because there were lots of courses out there. And you can tell people to go and learn. There's online, watch YouTubes, but most people don't do it. Uh, some people are very, very curious, but most of them are wanting to learn from somebody that they know, somebody that is close to them. And I think this is the key to the success of this program. Um, when I initiated this program, the responses were amazing. I remember people like it was an eye opener and they finally understood, okay, what I can do with it.
[00:17:37] Guest: Raheli Sasson: How can I use it today in my life or in my work? And I started with simple examples that everybody can use in their daily life, and then moved on to more finance stuff and work stuff. It was really good in terms of creating engagement. I also created a community inside the finance organization that together we initiated ideas and talked about cool stuff that we saw online and shared ideas. And the aim was really to have this community that then will spread, spread the words for everyone. In addition, we did a competition like the Shark Tank if you know this show. So we invited everyone from finance to pitch ideas how they can use AI in finance. And then we took it like a live show in front of everyone. And we had sharks from inside the company and everyone came and pitched their ideas and we had three winning ideas which were really amazing and really exciting. I also hosted the event. It was pure fun to see it go live and beyond the competition. I think it really sparked more ideas from the teams after they saw it, and it sparked the engagement that we needed to push this idea forward. So it's also, you know, the daily work that you do and how to use it in emails and stuff like that, but also the bigger ideas that people presented in this competition that some of them took onwards to, to develop them and make it happen in, in the daily work.
[00:19:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think. Thank you for that. I love what you shared there. I think the Shark Tank, you know, it's a fun way to get people involved, you know, gamifying it and making sure you could tie it back to work. I'm curious, you mentioned early on you were staying up half the night, prompting and learning with, uh, I you know, how much of that were you doing? Kind of personal things. Was there something you found in your personal life that you were using AI a lot, and how much? It was kind of professional and trying to figure out, how do I use this in finance in those early days? I'm just kind of curious.
[00:19:52] Guest: Raheli Sasson: It started with, uh, personal stuff or just general questions, you know, to see, to check it. You know, how much it knows what quantum mechanics is, stuff like that. Explain to me, like, I'm a five year old, explain to me, like I'm a scientist, stuff like that. And I also plan a trip to Paris. I think everybody tried that, right?
[00:20:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, a lot of people plan my vacation for me.
[00:20:15] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Plan my vacation, prepare for me a recipe, you know, fun stuff like that. I started with that. And then for work, I remember one time I struggled with this formula, you know, like an inside if it's horrible. And I like, do this formula for me this is what I need a, b C, d. Abcd and like, oh my god, this is amazing. And I just copied and pasted and I showed it to the team and some were excited, but one person told me, um, I can do it by myself, you know? And I told him I could do it by myself, but it would take me like half an hour and it did it in one minute. So that's what matters. It's not like cheating. I don't say it like cheating. Some people do.
[00:20:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm 100% with you. I had to write a complex indirect formula where I was referencing a bunch of different worksheets, and I always hate those because I'm like, okay, I got to use single quote here and double quote there. Just the syntax is messy. And so I just plugged it in to chat and kind of worked through each step. And it took me about 20 minutes. It would normally be with how complex one takes me an hour. So it saved me 40 minutes. I'm like, okay, yes. Can I do it on my own? Sure. But why should I take 40 minutes? If I can take 20 and spend the 40 on something that adds more value?
[00:21:30] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely.
[00:21:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm totally with you. I think Excel functions are a great area to use it. You know, I think some people make a valid point when they worry. Will we circumvent learning and going through the process just because we can get an answer from AI? And that's always a concern. It was a concern with the calculator. And some people do that. Some people will still really learn the process, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use the tool.
[00:21:55] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely. We need to check. We need to check. I had this one time that I used the formula and liked the result. It looks okay. You know, at first glance. And then I'm like, something is wrong here. And when I looked into it, I saw it. It's completely wrong. It's rubbish. So I learned. I need to check it very, very well. Even if it looks okay, just do a random check and. And you're good to go. It still takes less, less time. Then do it from scratch.
[00:22:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Agreed. Like I remember early on, I was challenging. It was back with 3.5. How many different ways to do a lookup? Like asking hey, give me all the different ways index matches. How would you do it with Power Query and Vlookup and Xlookup and 3 or 4 of the ten different examples you gave me were wrong. And so I shared that with people and showed it when I was doing self training to say it's great, we got to validate and make sure it's right. You got to know enough to be able to say, hey, is it giving me an answer that's doing what I want?
[00:22:54] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely.
[00:22:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm curious, you know, as you did these educational workshops you mentioned, you know, there are some people like you who gave the example with the formula. I can do that myself in general. How was it received and what were some of the benefits you saw from the team like you see increased in productivity or what? What did you see from, you know, the team as you did all this and you rolled it out and were that champion.
[00:23:20] Guest: Raheli Sasson: So there were several types of workshops that were like, like keynote speech where you just explain stuff and they were like, hands on, the hands on were the best because they get to try with me as I'm typing and sharing online with them. I think it's part. It's like, oh, I tried that. Oh, I tried this. Let me show you. Okay, let's share ideas. And people are like, oh, I have the same scenario. I will use this trick as well. How to prompt like I show them how you do like a basic prompt and how you can elevate your prompt and give it more context and a persona. And what is the exact format that you want? All these techniques that we all know I guess by now, but that was a game changer. People actually came back to me afterwards and showed me like, you have to see what I did. I asked him this. I asked him if it helped me create a presentation. He had me create a survey. I did an analysis with it, but my best was when I showed them how I used it to be my personal tutor for Power Query. So you know all the great solutions come from names. And I didn't need Power Query, I didn't know I needed it. And I know I need to learn Power Query at some point in time, but I never got to it.
[00:24:41] Guest: Raheli Sasson: And then I needed to consolidate files in the same format into one and give management and updates every hour. So what would I do? Copy paste from all these files and it's just not possible. So I tended to I and asked how I could use Power Query to consolidate all these files into one. Within a click of a button, I can see everything consolidated into one file automatically, and within ten minutes I went step by step what he told me to do. Sometimes it didn't work. I told him, oh, it's not working. He told me, try it this way. That means. And I had like a power query file that works. I was so proud of myself. So when I told the team about it, I heard in the room like, wow, I actually heard people say it and I know for a fact people came back and told me how they use it to do other power queries. When I asked, does everybody know how to do Power Query? Only one person knew how to use it, but after this I started training a lot of people. This is a powerful tool. A lot of people are afraid of it, and I think this is a great way for you to learn to personalize your exact needs, so you don't need to be afraid.
[00:25:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm a huge fan of Power Query. I'd save me hours of time, so I love that you shared that example. I also noticed that when you said, you know, sometimes things got wrong and I'd have to tell him, did you use the term him because it was wrong? You know, men do wrong things or I know that you referred to it as a man.
[00:26:16] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Yeah. It refers to himself as a man in my chats. I don't know why.
[00:26:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Interesting. Yeah. No, I've had people say different things. I always, you know, it's interesting the different things we assign. Sometimes it's because of the chat. Like I will often say please when I'm asking it a question, and I remember somebody looking like, why are you telling it, please? And I heard someone say one of the prompts they used was to please and thank you, because it will force you to treat it more like a conversation, which is supposed to be a conversational tool. So I just find myself doing that by nature. But I had people looking at me like, why are you saying please to me if you recognize that's just a computer? Like, yes, I know. Or why are you calling it a man or a woman? So I, I always find it interesting the different things we assign.
[00:27:02] Guest: Raheli Sasson: I heard this week that by saying please and thank you, uh, you are wasting billions of dollars every year. We are, because it's compute power on getting to waste. So think of it as helping the environment. Not saying please and thank you.
[00:27:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'll keep that in mind next time I use please and thank you for destroying the environment. Thanks for making me feel good. Isn't it amazing that somebody calculated all that? It's a crazy world we live in. Just a cost for all this computing, you know. And one of the new things that I think is fairly recent and multiple different LMS have come out with is deep research. Right. And you shared something just the other day on LinkedIn about deep research. So let's start with can you tell our audience a little bit of what deep research is. And then we'll talk about the exercise you did.
[00:27:51] Guest: Raheli Sasson: So think about deep research as someone that goes through all the resources that you need for your inquiry or question in the search and back it up with multiple resources. It's not just hallucinations, it's real, real resources. Analyze them and come up with the result. To your question, with examples, with backup. It's nothing that we've seen before. You always used to ask a question or estimation, and it gives us back an estimation. You can have some backup, like 1 or 2 if you ask it, the AI will give you a backup. But in this case you don't need to tell him to go and search for backup. It will go on its own and search the web. And I've seen it use like 8100 resources even more. And it's amazing. In only a few minutes it would take me months, probably, to read all of that, analyze all of that, and come to the conclusion. Now you do it within a few minutes. It's a powerful tool for free and I 100% agree.
[00:29:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I've. I've used deep research on several projects. I've typically used ChatGPT. I know Jim and I have one and there's some others, right. All the different tools are rolling those out. You did so with the example you shared on LinkedIn, you did an RFP&A benchmarking of professional services for SaaS companies. I think you said you got back about 22 pages. Is your summary with, you know, 80 resources or whatever. So what did you learn from it? What did it help you as far as business? What was kind of the takeaway from that exercise?
[00:29:31] Guest: Raheli Sasson: I wanted to learn about other companies that are similar to my company and the industry. How much do they use outsource versus how much do they do it in-house? The professional services part. I also wanted to learn what is the average hourly rate and is it profitable or not? Lots of questions. So we took a few good minutes. Then it came up with this report like I mentioned. And what I learned from that is that not many companies reveal this information. So you have hints, but it's not disclosed most of the time. But I could get to and arrange a range that is good. A range can give me a ballpark figure if I'm in the direction or not. I can do benchmarking. Um, it says that most companies are breaking. Breaking even on the professional services. That's interesting. And that they use it to leverage their upsells to get a net new error. Not necessarily as a separate business line. So this is an amazing result. Like I could have got it from my hunch or talking with people. But when you back it up with data from so many sources with company names, it gives it another, uh, you know, it's a validation to your assumptions. It's very powerful.
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[00:32:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah great example there and amazing that right. You could do that in ten minutes or however long it takes to come back. And you have something like you mentioned that would have taken weeks or months or. Yeah, you could have talked to people and this gives you resources and backup. It just makes you feel much more confident in a decision you're making. So I'm a big fan of deep research. I think there's a lot of great areas in FP&A like you mentioned benchmarking competitors, understanding industries. You're new in a role. Have it right. You have an article summarizing your industry and what the key trends are. And that would be much quicker than searching the web for hours and it will give you now you can go search those articles and know you're going to places that will probably add value, versus looking at ten sites and finding one that actually, you know, is talking about what you want.
[00:32:56] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely. My next level will be to take this document that I received, put it in a notebook and create a podcast and then listen to it, listen to it in the way the work that's. And now I don't even need to read all these 22 pages, right? This is the next level.
[00:33:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great point. I've used notebook LMS on the podcast. Just amazing. You know, like five years ago. Who would have thought of that? Like, I can go out and just ask this tool to summarize everything out there into a document, then put it in another tool, have it as a podcast, and listen to it on the way to work.
[00:33:31] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Amazing.
[00:33:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It really is. It's fascinating. So, you know, kind of. Speaking of amazing, I'm curious, what do you think are the best use cases today for AI and FP &A, what are some of the cases you're seeing that are really helping people in their daily work?
[00:33:48] Guest: Raheli Sasson: So I would put it in two different baskets. The one is personal productivity. This is huge. I feel it saves me every day. I don't know, maybe at least one hour of writing emails, the presentations, documents, summary of all these long email chains. You know, it's a game changer. I frankly don't know how I did without it before. It's, uh, it's amazing. And the other thing is the final stuff. So there's the small stuff I would call like we mentioned, um, Excel formulas. If you use BI tools, you can build the code with, with the help of AI. And also when you think about the bigger picture, now you're getting into the really cool stuff. For example, use machine learning for predictive, uh, forecasting. I can share that we are trying to do this. And this is something that most of us would not think about before 2 or 3 years. Right? We heard machine learning, something that engineers do. Software developers, it's not related to finance. Maybe fancy companies do it not related to us. But today, with all this knowledge, you understand the power that is in your hands. So maybe I can. I don't know how to do, um, machine learning models by myself, but I know what the result I can get so I can hire someone or use someone within the existing team. If you are working in a tech company, you have the advantage. You can lean on one of your peers to do it. And I think this is really going to be a game changer for us in FP. And also the agents for FBA. Also a very powerful tool. Imagine if you need to consolidate data from multiple sources. Up until today you need to go download and put it all in one file. You can have an agent to do all this. You can have an agent to analyze this data and give you a report without even doing anything. So I think about the future. Um, this is something that I really want to get my hands on when I'm, when I'm going to.
[00:36:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm excited for agents as well. I know I want to get my hands on the copilot agent and some of those. I haven't had a chance to really test them, but I agree with you there. I love productivity. I think that's where everybody should start, you know, helping with emails, presentations, summarizing reports, like, you know, I do a lot of podcasting and I couldn't do all the podcasting I do today without If it's, you know, help summarize that and write each of the different posts I do. And then I just go through and edit them versus I remember when I first started because it would be a month later, relistening to each episode to figure out, you know, what I was going to write, and spending about two hours to come up with those posts, versus ten 15 minutes where I get the quick summary and then I can like, okay, I just need to tweak it and make some changes and I'm done. So it's amazing. So many different areas, formulas, coding. I'm also like you, machine learning is really exciting. I think that's a huge area of helping us forecast better by bringing in external data and then agents. So it's an exciting time for sure.
[00:37:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, I'd love to ask you.
[00:37:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: If a company is looking to implement some AI training. You've been through that and some programs, particularly for finance. What advice would you give them if someone's listening and going, I want to do that in my company. What would be your advice for them?
[00:37:28] Guest: Raheli Sasson: First of all, you need to lead by example. And I'm talking to all the leaders, all the managers. You have to lead by example. You cannot expect your team to be active if you don't show it on an everyday basis, like look what I did, look how I used AI to help me do it in five minutes. Uh, look at the presentation. I helped me do stuff like that, and you start to build confidence and show the team that it's okay to use AI. It's not cheating. Just check yourself. Validate. Like we talked about. You have to do learning if you want to bring someone in like an instructor, preferably to do it with real life examples from there, from their daily lives to make a preparation beforehand. To show them the real use cases that you are handling are very powerful. Gamification, like we spoke about, really creates engagement within the team and think big about how you can leverage the ideas from the team. Make a space for knowledge sharing and people will come with ideas. It's amazing. People have great, great ideas but you start small with the productivity stuff and people will come from the ground up with amazing ideas. And you can start to pick the ones that you think bring a lot of value and start to implement or do a little POC. See if it's making sense and then take it from there.
[00:39:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great advice. I appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, I want to switch gears a little bit. Still, I related, but I saw in Lincoln that recently you prepared a class for teachers on how I can enhance learning. I'd love for you to share a little bit about that experience, because I think that's just a great example of, you know, using AI in our personal life in a way to better the world. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about that.
[00:39:33] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely. Um, this was part of, uh, volunteering, uh, in Israel, uh, for the education ministry. So what they did, they called for people that want to help and shape the future of education and come and teach the teachers. So I took this opportunity, and I came to the school and with a group of teachers, and I started to teach them about AI. Very basic. Um, not fancy the usual tools that everybody is using, like ChatGPT. I showed them Gemini and Claude. And we started very simple. Like with the plan, we trip in Paris, uh uh, stuff. And then we went on to see how it can help the teachers to elevate their work, how they can personalize the materials for the kids. If someone like they have a different levels of, uh, knowledge in the classroom, how they can personalize the same material that they need to teach, the different kind of knowledge levels, how they can come up with, uh, homework or or classes, the real structure that they can use in the class instead of all the time, reinvent the wheel and do a lot of research before every class.
[00:40:52] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Get help from I to do it, brainstorm on ideas and even personal stuff like how to handle a tough conversation with the student, uh, how to handle a conversation with a parent, stuff like that. For most of them, like the young people, they knew it, but they know I. They use it, but they elevated their skills. They understand the proper prompting, how you need to prompt. And we actually did live examples and they prepared stuff that they actually told me, I'm going to use it. I'm actually going to use it in the classroom. So, um, they told me they really benefited from it. And it's very fulfilling, you know, to do volunteer work. We have busy life, we have busy schedules. And every time this volunteering stuff comes up, I'm like, oh no, this is like the worst day. I have a tight deadline that you have to go. You have to do it. And it feels amazing. And I recommend everyone to do some volunteer work, even if you don't have time, like you'll find the time.
[00:41:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I you know, there's a quote I love when you talk about volunteering that stuck with me my whole life. It said service is the rent we pay for living on the earth. Kind of speaking to volunteering. And if you have that mindset, you find the time to do it doesn't mean you can always find the time and different times you have to scale back. But it's really about a mindset, right? Because it's not even so much about finding the time. It's about choosing what we want to prioritize with the time we have. And I find every time I prioritize volunteering or service, and obviously sometimes I'm much better than others, I get more out of it than probably the people I serve.
[00:42:38] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Absolutely. It's a really amazing feeling that stuck with you.
[00:42:44] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. So I really appreciate you sharing that and that example. And I love how you said just find the time to do it. So It is a great area. Thank you for sharing that. So now we're going to move on to the FP&A section where I ask some kind of standard questions around FP&A . So the first one I want to ask you and I kind of customize this one a little bit. Since you've talked a lot about gen AI, what's your favorite gen AI tool and why?
[00:43:10] Guest: Raheli Sasson: I would have to say ChatGPT it's the best, I don't know, I tried them all. I now have a Gemini for work. It's also very very good, but ChatGPT gives me the best answers. I don't know, I don't know how to explain it.
[00:43:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. So ChatGPT and I. I probably use ChatGPT the most. I really like Claude for summary and certain things and so I appreciate that next one. What do you believe is the number one technical skill that PHP and professionals need to master?
[00:43:43] Guest: Raheli Sasson: I would say excel, but in a broader way of Excel. Like we all know Excel, we all use Excel on a daily basis, but Excel teaches you on the broader perspective how to handle data. Large data sets how numbers speak to each other. So when I say Excel, I mean to understand data to understand how it works, what impacts what. This is fundamental still that any analyst and any finance professional needs to muster.
[00:44:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: 100% agree. I, I like that you talked about the data. I came from a data background. I worked for a couple of years in a data report report role. I did a master of Science and Information Management in addition to finance and having, you know, at least enough of the data, enough of the technical to have the conversations has been invaluable. I knew SQL, I understood data structure, and it helped with designing things in Excel. So I think understanding tables, knowing how to use tables, understanding kind of power Query and some of those relationships can be incredibly valuable beyond just understanding Excel in the tool. So I appreciate that one. It's a great one. Next one, what about softer human skills that FP&A professionals should master? What's that number one soft skill?
[00:45:01] Guest: Raheli Sasson: I think data storytelling or presentation skills. So you work so hard. And your deliverables. It won't matter if you don't know how to deliver them. You need to deliver it clearly in a precise way. Simple language like I mentioned earlier. So this is how you wrap your deliverable and present it and make sure the narrative is going through like you wanted it to. Otherwise, you are just moving data from here to there and nobody would care. It will not move the needle. Decisions need to be made and you are responsible to give the best recommendation based on the data. So you need to do it properly. And thankfully today there is more awareness to it. There are lots of, uh, courses and webinars and workshops. I personally find them very, very useful. I also took them. I continued to evolve my storytelling skills.
[00:46:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Data. Storytelling. Funny enough, just this morning, I actually, uh, trained 25 people at a large company, came in and did a presentation on data storytelling because that was the number one thing they wanted me to talk about to their team and got a lot of great questions. So that's a huge skill. We all have to be able to influence and take that analysis and help it drive decision making. And the key to that is telling the story. If you can't put the story together, unfortunately, often your analysis goes nowhere and that's always frustrating. You want to feel like the work you're doing, analysis is driving the decision, and without being able to tell that story in a way that helps people see why it's important. Like you said, the analysis often goes to waste.
[00:46:51] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Yep.
[00:46:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. So we have a fun couple questions to get to know you personally. Some, uh, we use I think I use ChatGPT to come up with a few of these. Sometimes I mix it up. They come up with them myself. Sometimes I use I. And so here's the ones we have. First, I know you like to travel. So what's been your most enjoyable travel experience so far?
[00:47:15] Guest: Raheli Sasson: I think backpacking in Brazil was life changing, and I'm not exaggerating. First of all, backpacking is something else. It's not like any other trip that you can make when you sleep at the hotel. It's something else. You meet people from all over the world. You really get to feel the culture. Brazilian culture is amazing. The people there are amazing. Their music, their food, and football. I loved everything about it. I spent more than two months in Brazil and it was a long time ago. I didn't come back ever since. I'm. I really need to go back.
[00:47:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you. That's a great one. Sounds like it was an amazing trip to be able to do that for two months. I've heard a lot of people share great stories about backpacking across countries. I haven't done a backpacking trip across the country. Most of mine have been backpacking in the hiking sense. I've done a 50 mile backpacking trip before and that was amazing. So I love getting out and hiking and backpacking, but it'd be fun to go see a country I'd love to go to, Brazil. So thank you for sharing. All right. Obviously you traveled a lot about traveled quite a bit. So what's the most unusual food you've tried in all your travels?
[00:48:34] Guest: Raheli Sasson: So I know it sounds funny. Maybe it's not irregular to some people, but for me, I drank, um, avocado shake in Sri Lanka and like, avocado is not going in a shake. Like I didn't know what it was. It was green. It looks, you know, fresh and I like it. What is that? It's a smooth avocado. Like you drink avocado. It was weird. Not. Not for me. Even though I like avocados.
[00:49:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. Funny. Yeah. Sometimes, like, I love the food, but that is not the way to prepare it. I just can't. I can't eat it that way. So. All right. Last get to know your question before we wrap up here. If you could instantly master any skill, be personal or professional, what would that skill be?
[00:49:25] Guest: Raheli Sasson: I always wanted to know how to learn the piano. I like to play the piano. I always envy people who like playing the piano and it looks so effortless and the music is amazing. So I just wish I could learn. I know how to play the guitar, but I don't know. Piano seems too hard for me. Maybe I will start one day. But I would love to just know how. How to play the piano.
[00:49:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great one. Music. Music is fun and I struggle with music, so I'd love to instantly be able to do that. I'm basically tone deaf. My daughter will literally if I start singing, she'll be like, dad, please stop. You're terrible. She's there. She's very honest. She's at that age where she tells you what she's thinking. It's like, please, dad, stop. So music is an area I'd love to be better at. I've taken piano lessons, but it's definitely not something I'm good at, so I like that one as well. All right, so wrap up the question before we let you go. If you could offer one piece of advice to our audience to be a better F.P. and a business partner, what advice would you give them?
[00:50:34] Guest: Raheli Sasson: To learn empathy. Empathy for yourself and empathy for your partners, for your business partners. Learn their pains. Learn where they want to go and help them get there. And also be empathy with yourself. Uh, it's hard work sometimes, but it pays off when you see the value that you bring to to the business.
[00:50:55] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great. Thank you. You know, empathy is one I often get when I ask people, what's the number one skill we need to learn? As I've started to have more and more people say empathy, and I always love that because I think it's underutilized. I think sometimes people confuse empathy with sympathy and they're different things. And so I, I love that answer and I love that you said to have empathy for yourself because we're the hardest on ourselves. And so that's important to have. It's something we have to learn. So thank you for sharing that one. I think that's great advice. And as we wrap up here, if someone wants to learn more about you or get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
[00:51:32] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Go to LinkedIn, reach me on LinkedIn, or you can DM me or post and comment on my posts. I would love to hear back from you.
[00:51:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great. Well, we'll put your, uh, information in the show notes so people can reach out to you. And thank you so much to Healey for joining me today. It's a real pleasure to chat with you. I love what you're doing around AI and I think it's great. Keep up the great work and thanks for carving out some time to chat with me today.
[00:51:59] Guest: Raheli Sasson: Thank you Paul, I appreciate it, I enjoyed it. You have an amazing podcast. Thank you so much.
[00:52:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thanks for listening to FP&A tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five star rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app, taking a short quiz, and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the FPAC certification. Take the quiz on earmark and contact me the show host for further details.