FP&A Today

Dan Newman heads FP&A at RingCentral, a $2.5B public SaaS company (a platform for business phone, SMS, contact center, workforce engagement management, video collaboration, and messaging) , where he has overseen a  period of 10X growth. Discussing a career which includes consulting, financial analyst at Salesforce, private-equity-backed startups, Dan discusses everything from building financial models towards a sale,  to navigating the shift from 30% growth-at-all-costs to efficiency, and AI processes.

Building the FP&A team at SchoolMessenger and pivoting to a sale 

Joining RingCentral at a $250m run rate and a six-person FP&A team towards $2.5billion

Why revenue is rarely as simple as it looks 

Business partnering in an age of efficiency in SaaS

Caroline McAuliffe is Senior Vice President, Head of Corporate Finance (FP&A and Procurement) at Fannie Mae. In its Q1 2026 results, the government-owned mortgage giant boasted 33 consecutive quarters of profitability and $3.7B in net income in the quarter—delivered by a team of 7,000 employees. In this episode Caroline reveals the FP&A mindset and processes behind this success.

The career progression from audit to controllership, and FP&A

Combining procurement and FP&A 

Shifting from an annual budget cycle to a 2-year rolling forecast

How AI is transforming repetitive low value work including AI “flash reports needed supporting 50 officers at Fannie Mae

Secrets to being a CTA (Challenging Trusted Advisor) at Fannie Mae

In the third in our series on finance business partnering we are joined by David Manela, who has had the role of CRO and CMO at Fiverr, Ideei, and Vivre. As managing partner and co-founder of Violet Growth he is in high-demand at some of the hottest scaling companies, designing a  growth operating system that “speaks the CFO’s language from day one”. It is tailored to companies spending more than $10m annually on marketing and sales - with digital as the main growth channel.
“Spending a dollar in marketing is no different than spending a dollar in infrastructure, on say a forklift that you might need for your warehouse. You need a return on a specific schedule, and you need a percentage of returns on that schedule. Don't start with a campaign, start with a financial goal.”

 

In this episode on the highlights and lowlights of the FP&A relationship with marketing, David talks:

 

His background from audit to marketing and P&L responsibility at companies 

Marketing as an “investment” not a “cost”

The power of getting a marketing forecast  based on cohort behavior 

Payback period and capital constraints at Fiverr

Disconnected and expensive mistakes in business partnering 

The power of AI in marketing and finance

Swati Bagri, head of FP&A for a major global FMCG company was told early in her career: “Either you are sales or you are helping sales”. In this second in our series of finance business partnership Swati, representing finance, is joined by Stephanie Troy, VP of Sales at Datarails, for a candid conversation with host Glenn Hopper about what sales leaders actually need from FP&A, and what great revenue-producing partnerships look like.

In this special episode: 

The dynamics of sales vs finance needs 

Pipeline communication challenges 

The problems with forecasting

Where lack of communication hurts sales and finance

What finance needs from sales leaders in budget season

Dealing with the Office of No

Today on the show, we're launching a special series on finance business partnering - exploring different facets of modern finance business partnering. Today’s special guest is Tunc Tezel VP group FP&A, Ontax, bringing 30-years of lessons from Ontex, Pladis, British American Tobacco, Procter & Gamble, and Gillette - business partnering with marketing, sales, and operations to reach common goals and bringing some of the most popular CPG products to market. 

From “spy” to “strategist” in business partnering   

Secrets to storytelling 

Embedded vs. centralised FP&A business partnering 

Working capital as a partnering tool

Breaking bad news in business partnering 

When business partnering breaks down