What 100 FP&A Episodes Taught Me About Career Growth, Failure, and the Future of Finance
In this special solo episode of FP&A Unlocked, Paul Barnhurst celebrates reaching 100 episodes of the podcast while also reflecting on his broader journey of hosting over 200 FP&A episodes across multiple shows. He shares lessons from his experience in FP&A, career growth, and learning AI, along with what actually matters in the field today. He also shares his thoughts on AI and how it’s changing finance workflows, explaining why building repeatable processes matters more than just prompting. He also previews upcoming conversations with professionals already using AI in their day-to-day work.
Expect to Learn:
What helps FP&A professionals grow beyond technical skills
Why career paths are rarely linear
How to approach networking in a more effective way
Why AI is more about processes than prompts
How AI can help save time in finance roles
Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:
“AI is a magnifier. If you don't know what you're doing, it will magnify that.” - Paul Barnhurst
“Technical skills get you your first job, the soft skills get you promoted.” - Paul Barnhurst
Paul explains that FP&A is not just about reports and models. It’s about understanding the business and working with people. AI can help speed up tasks, but it doesn’t replace core skills like financial modeling, data understanding, and communication. If anything, those skills matter more now.
Campfire: AI-First ERP:
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Explore Campfire today: https://campfire.ai/?utm_source=fpaguy_podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=100225_fpaguy
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 FPAC Certificate, take the quiz on earmark and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.
In Today’s Episode
[00:00] – Trailer
[01:41] – 100 Episodes Milestone
[02:36] – What Makes FP&A Professionals Stand Out
[03:38] – Career Growth Is Not a Ladder
[04:25] – Early Career Struggles After Graduation
[05:47] – How to Approach Networking the Right Way
[06:37] – Turning Down Offers & Career Decisions
[07:28] – Moving into FP&A & Career Shift
[09:08] – Learning AI & Current Challenges
[10:06] – AI Skills, Courses & Future Focus
Full Show Transcript
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:00):
What you need to do is you need to come with a plan, come network, show them you've thought through things. You understand things and you're asking for help specific questions. The more you can give the person you're asking for help, and the more you can do it in such a way that you're also offering them value, the more willing they are to answer. So I share that as some advice because I get a lot of questions on that job. Out of grad school, I graduated from grad school. I turned down two offers. I would've gotten an offer from my internship. Didn't think it was a great fit to go back, so I turned it down and two, I turned down another company. That was a really good offer because it was doing work I'd done before grad school and didn't feel like a good fit.
(00:41):
Welcome to another episode of FP&A Unlocked. I am Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A guy, and I'm thrilled that you join me for this episode. This is going to be a special episode. There is no guest. I'm going to be talking for a few minutes here. I want to celebrate two years of FP&A Unlocked. It was April two years ago. We've now done a hundred episodes. I have done over 200 episodes of FP&A shows. It was four years ago that we released the first episode of FP&A today, which started this journey and what a journey it's been. If you had told me I'd interview the people I've interviewed and had the experiences I've had, I'm not sure I would've believed you. But the best part of this journey is hearing from each one of you. I love when I get dms on LinkedIn telling me something from the podcast helped you, how much you enjoyed it, how much you liked a certain guest, how much it helped you in the work you do.
(01:36):
So today I want to talk a little bit about my journey, the show AI, and then an event I have coming up. So let's start a little bit just to show, and having interviewed 200 people, having done two different FP&A shows, I've had the opportunity to learn so much, and there are a few key things I'll share. First, for those of you who are early in your career, remember FP&A is about business partnering and operations. Those technical skills get you your first job, and the soft skills get you promoted. If you really want to see and hear from experienced people, go listen to some of the senior episodes I've done with people such as Andrew Hole episodes with Glenn Snyder, Carl Seidman, many of the CFOs I've had on Anthony from a paddle and many others, almost all of 'em say one of the most important things you can do in FP&A is be curious.
(02:38):
That applies across the career. But if you're early in your career, other advice I'll offer if you're early in your career, remember that it's not a ladder today. A career is a journey. You're not going to join a company and climb up a ladder. Don't think you're going to be a CFO in five years. Enjoy the journey, learn, be willing to take roles in the business, learn operations next to more senior leaders. I think the episode I did with Aswin of Qualtrics is a great episode to listen to, to make sure you have a mission that your team is on the same page. I would also highly recommend Brett Hamson, where he talks about goals and the operating system. That's the most popular episode I've had where he shares the book. He wrote about the flywheel and the operating system for FP&A professionals, where he helped explain how that works.
(03:30):
So another great episode. There are so many, it's hard to list them all. If you want one about how we're teachers, Carl Seidman, Glenn Snyder, and I, it's been a thrill to have Glenn Snyder co-host with me once a month. Other things is I ask people, what are the top skills that are needed in fp and a? There are the ones you expect, Excel, financial modelling, accounting, communication, partnering, storytelling, and then there are ones you may not expect. Systems thinking, really being able to understand systems, being able to understand data and how they work. You start hearing ai. Another one is empathy, not something you would expect. A lot of great answers and what you come to realise is there are definitely some things great FP&A people need, but there are a lot of different great approaches just like there are to leadership. There's not one right way to be great at fp and a.
(04:25):
And so that's a little bit about all the different kinds of episodes I've done. Next I want to talk a little bit about my journey, what a journey it's been. So I want to talk a little bit early in my career. I get a lot of emails from people and they think I'm ultimately successful, and so my career must have gone well. I run my own business and people don't understand the journey. One of the things I get most is I'm looking for a job or I'm struggling to find a job, and what I want to tell people is I can relate. I don't have all the answers, but out of undergrad, I got a degree in business with an entrepreneurship emphasis, wanted to go to work for somebody. I didn't have an idea for starting my own business, but I couldn't find a job.
(05:02):
I graduated in August of 2001, so right before September 11th that hit the economy was in a difficult position. It took me a year before I started a new job. I had to move to the middle of the desert in California, just outside Death Valley. Not something I ever planned on doing to start my career, and it was a great learning experience, but it took me a year so I can relate to that experience and not being able to find a job. And what I'll say is stick with it. Keep working. I did busing, substitute teaching many other things to make money. Well, I looked for that first career job. I found one, and I quit within two days for some ethical reasons that I thought would be a decent job. So as you're struggling with that, I can understand and I'll give you some advice.
(05:47):
When you reach out to people and ask for advice on a job, don't ask 'em to find a job. Don't on a first message, just ask them to hire you. What you need to do is you need to come with a plan. Come network, show them you've thought through things. You understand things and you're asking for help specific questions. The more you can give the person you're asking for help, and the more you can do it in such a way that you're also offering them value, the more willing they are to answer. So I share that as some advice because I get a lot of questions on that job search out of grad school, I graduated from grad school. I turned down two offers. I would've gotten an offer from my internship, didn't think it was a great fit to go back, so I turned it down and two, I turned down another company.
(06:37):
That was a really good offer because it was doing work I'd done before grad school and it didn't feel like a good fit. Then it took me six months after I graduated, I graduated in oh eight. I thought investment banking would be interesting, but in that market, after everything that happened with the bank collapse, not having investment banking experience, I couldn't find a job. And ultimately it took me six months after I graduated, no bonus, a salary I came in at that was slightly lower. And when I went into grad school and I went back to work for the company that had, I said I wanted an internship offer, I would've got one and would've made substantially more. So that was a painful lesson, a painful time. So all I want to say is I can understand the challenges that come with the career search, but then I got into American Express.
(07:28):
I did a finance reporting role, realised that wasn't the career for me. I was getting tired of writing SQL all the time, although it's incredibly valuable and I'm glad I have the skill. I then moved into an FP&A role because well, they're going to pay me more, and I wanted to be promoted. I'd had an MBA and I felt like I should be making more than before my MBA. And I got that role and been in FP&A ever since. Great experience. From there, I spent six years at American Express and then I went to work for a company called Sora, had the opportunity to get promoted several times. Went to a company called DigiCert and then ultimately started my own business. So that's a little bit of my journey and in the business I'll say there's been times as much as a month ago, I've considered going to work for someone else.
(08:15):
There's times when it goes slow and it's challenging, but it's been a great learning and the most rewarding part is all the people I meet, the people I get to teach, the difference I get to make and just the fun of the journey. I love it. So really grateful for that experience. So that's a little bit about my experience, a little bit kind of experiences on the show and then let's talk ai. I'll admit I'm a novice. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm like the rest of you. I'm trying to figure out do I use AI a lot? Yes. Have I got good with skills? No. That's an area I need to get better at. Even though I host a show and I talk to people all the time and I see the benefit, I need to be better. So offer you my advice from having spent a lot of time with ai, with experts now starting to learn skills.
(09:08):
It's time to start to learn how to build skills, how to build agents, how to build instructions. That's where you're going to get the real benefit. If someone tells you it's all about prompting, they're wrong. It's about the markdown files that you give or skills as Claude calls them and Claude will walk you through it. Just today I saw Chris Riley release a new course where he built a bunch of skills to help with your modelling. A formatting skill, I think a checklist, skill for error checking and other things. Those types of things can save you hours and it will help AI do repeatable processes. So learn those skills. I know Carolina Lago is coming out with a course soon. Glenn Snyder offers several great courses. Look for those experts that can really help you learn how to build repeatable processes and to get more out of ai, what I'm excited about is I have a whole series coming on ai.
(10:06):
I'll be speaking to several guests, including Caroline Lago. I'll be speaking to some people at Columbia who took the Columbia University Wall Street Prep AI course, who've used Nicholas Boucher's Finance Club, and who've taken some of the AI courses offered by FP&A Professionals Institute. Those are all programmes I've put up on my website. I'm going to interview those people and bring you their experiences to help you make decisions. I'm also going to bring some others. I think it's David Debo. He is going to be a partner with Philanthropic for training for Claude. He's been using it for a couple of years and has gone really deep, and I'm going to bring several others that are working full-time in FP&A roles to share their experiences. One who's built some great dashboards that he can just update in meetings. Another one who's going to tell the story about a $30,000.
(11:01):
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(11:55):
You don't even have to travel to learn the tactical skills to put your team ahead. You can stream the whole thing on demand, totally free, anytime after the event. So if you're ready to get tactical about AI and finance, head to campfire.ai and register for the on-demand content for free. That's campfire where finance teams go to think forward. So AI can change the way we work. I'll be bringing you those stories. That's in addition to future finance, which if any of you're interested, you can check out the great conversations that Glenn Hopper and I have. That's in addition to what we've done on Financial modelers Corner testing all of these Excel agents to build models that can help with fp and a. So I'm really excited for that series. I'm excited to bring you more resources. That's something you'll see more in the future. I'm rolling 'em out on my website, more modelling courses, more AI courses from experts, people I trust, as I like to say, they'll have the FP&A Guy seal of approval if you want to call that.
(13:03):
So really excited for that and experiment. If you have great stories and you want to be on the show, reach out. Another person I'll bring is Derek Baker. He's doing some really exciting things in FP&A with ai. I am really excited to have him on and him to share his journey. So I'll have several guests. There'll probably be eight to 10 over the next few months that we'll be sharing very AI journey. I hope to roll out more training in that area come summer because it's really important. We need to learn ai. I think most people are struggling. The data clearly supports that. It says 67, 70% are using it, but mostly piloting it. Only 10 are really using it in the processes. We see LinkedIn, it says, Hey, everything can be done. The other thing I've done, and I'll say Glenn is the star of this Glenn Hopper, is I've partnered with Waterborne, Glenn Hopper and Ollie to put together a newsletter for FP&A people.
(14:04):
The FP&A office, you can find it on substack and join will be releasing newsletters weekly. And so really excited for that. We'll be doing a lot on Claude and different tools and sharing our thoughts. And there's nobody better than Glenn, so join that newsletter. So that's a little bit on ai, but remember, AI is another skill. Just like if you want to get good at Excel, you have to put in a lot of time. If you want to get good at modelling, you have to put in a lot of time. If you want to get good at ai, you're going to have to put in time. It's a skill you have to learn, and those that put in time will benefit. You'll be able to automate more of your work allowing you to focus on what's more important. Is there a risk that you could automate yourself out of a job?
(14:52):
Yeah, sure, there's a risk, but that's always been a risk If you do the right things and the business thinks they can save money, but you'll find somewhere else if you learn AI and you really have really good soft skills, you can help with the business and you become valuable. They'll be opportunities. You may have some challenges, but that's what I would say on ai. And then the last area is I want to take a few minutes and talk about an event I'm very excited about, and you can learn about it on my website. If you go to the fp a guy.com, do a back slash FPA software showcase. So for the last three years, this will be the fourth year in a row. I've done it. I've done an FP&A showcase after testing tools. As you know, I've seen over a hundred tools.
(15:39):
I've talked to a lot of people in the market. I've helped people implement tools. I helped KBL and Chris Pollock. I did a little bit of work with another company. I've answered questions for people all the time. I've even provided research reports to some of the large firms out there on fp and a. I met with one today. That's one of the biggest in the industry. And so this of my annual event where I bring in new tools, I have four tools committed, still working on the fifth tool right now. So I want to share just a little bit of who we have coming and what they are and why I recommend attending. Even if you already have a tool, I think it's worth seeing what's out there. We have drivetrain. Drivetrain is a great mid-market tool. They sell to a lot of SaaS customers.
(16:21):
They're probably four or five years old. Very strong engine, very heavy into ai, one of the best AI implementations. I love the way they think about models, the MCP server, the way it helps with the work you're doing. You can use Gen AI and they've done a lot of good things to you ask the question of Gen ai, it writes code on the backend, so it's deterministic where it needs to be and it's generative where it needs to be. So impressed with drivetrain, excited for them. And now a brief message from our sponsor is your AI thinking like a generalist or like a finance leader. Here's the thing, most large language models weren't built for finance. They're trained on everything from Reddit threads to recipe blogs. So when you plug them into your accounting workflows, the results can be, let's just say not balance sheet accurate.
(17:15):
And now, a brief message from our sponsor. Is your AI thinking like a generalist or like a finance leader? Here's the thing: most large language models weren't built for finance. They're trained on everything from Reddit threads to recipe blogs. So when you plug them into your accounting workflows, the results can be, let's just say, not balance sheet accurate. That's why Campfire, the company pioneering AI-native ERP, just made a huge move. They've raised $65 million in Series B funding, co-led by Excel and Ribbit, bringing their total to $100 million raised in just 12 weeks. And they're putting that momentum to work with LAM, the large accounting model. It's a proprietary AI trained specifically for finance and accounting, already hitting 95%+ accuracy on accounting tasks. That's redefining what ERP can do for modern finance teams. Unicorn companies like PostHog and Ripple are already using Campfire to automate their finance operations and seeing real results. You can see it for yourself, sign up for a live demo of LAM at campfire.ai. That's campfire.ai.
(18:32):
So excited for UNA software, a modern tool, maybe similar to an Anaplan or pigment. I say drive train's a little bit like that too. So come see two exciting tools that really focus on the mid-market, but they offer some smaller customers, maybe a little larger. They're good solid tools. Come see those. In addition to that, what I'm really excited about is this is the first year we'll be adding some AI agents. We have two AI agents that will be participating. Concourse Concourse recently landed, Palo Alto Networks, Chick-fil-A. You can think of 'em as the decision layer, an analyst tool connect with your ERP. They can connect you with your FP&A tool, your CRM, your whole tech stack, and really help help with variance commentary, board reporting, updating models, scenario planning, forecasting, estimating, and the tool keeps getting better and better, helping you deploy agents.
(19:28):
So that's concourse really excited for them, kind of enterprise. And then we have Sapien, call it a competitor of Concourse. They focus on finance and operations. So bringing in the data warehouse a little more broader remit, probably a little more mid-market, but very similar tools in many ways. They each have their unique approaches to things they do really well. So we'll be demoing both of those. I'm excited to have the AI tools and then the fifth tool, we'll hopefully announce next week. We're still finalising that, but really excited to share that. And then also I'll be sharing some, we'll have Kelly Lynn that is an analyst for Bark. She'll be sharing some highlights from her report, just sharing a few quick thoughts to kick off the event. So we'll have the thing on the 21st. It'll be about three and a half hours long. So just a half day.
(20:17):
Come see these five tools. Super excited for this, so I hope you'll join me. Please go sign up FP&A dash software showcase, one of my biggest events of the year, so I would love your participation. Alright, so we've covered a few different things, covered a little bit about how we've hit a hundred episodes, how much I've enjoyed this show, the great guests we've had. We've talked about my journey and how I can relate to those who may be struggling with unemployment and some of those challenges. I empathise with you and I encourage you to keep going to network to find new ways. You'll be seeing an episode coming out end of the month with Glenn Snyder, where we specifically talk about some advice in the job hunt. So look for that. Excited for that episode. When we talk about some of the FP&A trends, almost a state of the union of fp and a, so check that out.
(21:06):
Then I talked about ai. Don't fear ai, adopt ai just like you shouldn't fear Excel. What I will say is one kind of final thought is AI is a magnifier. If you don't know what you're doing, AI will magnify that. If you know what you're doing, AI will magnify that. So it's not going to replace your need for Excel skills. It's not going to replace your need to be a good financial modeler. You still need those skills. So work on them. Data visualisation, those technical skills, they're not going away. I would argue in many ways. They need to be better to get the best out of ai. We interviewed in Snore, shared this. He talked with a guy in one of our interviews, had been using Claude for the last six months, their Beta Excel agent, and he was using it to save hours in his modelling.
(21:53):
And this person asked him, would you be comfortable doing that if you didn't know modelling? He's like, oh, not a chance. I couldn't have got near the benefit I did out of it without knowing modelling really well. So you need to know things well. So that's the third thing. And then I talked about my showcase and so I'll just wrap up. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you've enjoyed FP&A Unlocked. If you have, I'm going to ask you to please leave a review particularly on Apple written reviews. I love those or send me one that I can use for my website that helps me grow. Also, not just my podcast, but if you're taking one of my courses or I've helped you with the LinkedIn post in any way, I'd love you to send me a testimonial. Help me grow. It's hard as a business owner.
(22:35):
There's times when you're trying to think, okay, can I keep going? Do I need to go to work for someone? Where is my revenue? And I want to keep doing this. I love being the FP&A guy. It's fun. Never thought I'd use that name for my business. And it's fun getting to know each of you. So thank you for joining me. Thank you for listening to this episode. I decided to keep it short, not that typical 45 minutes since there's not someone on the other side, but thank you so much for joining me for this episode.That's it for today's episode of FP&A Unlocked. If you enjoy FP&A unlocked, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's the best way to support the FP&A guy and help more FP&A professionals discover the show. Remember, you can earn CPE credit for this episode by visiting earmarkcpe.com. Downloading the app and completing the quiz. If you need continuing education credits for the FPAC certification, complete the quiz and reach out to me directly. Thanks for listening. I'm Paul Barnhurst, the FP&A guy, and I'll see you next time.