FP&A veteran Cameron Janke has spent most of the last decade working at HealthEquity, the largest health savings account in the US. Cameron played a large part in the company going public in 2014. As HealthEquity took off so did Cameron’s career – he rose up the ranks from SEC Reporting and Analysis Manager to VP of FP&A at the company which now has assets of $20.3 billion and Cameron oversaw 32 consecutive quarters of the company meeting or exceeding EBITDA consensus.
- In this masterclass for anyone in finance, Cameron explains:
- How he took the initiative to move from accounting to FP&A by building his own forecasts and sharing them with management
- Why anyone involved in an IPO Needs to Worry more about Day Two – not just Day One
- How FP&A can best manage ongoing M&A opportunities and not get sidelined
- The secret to building the best performing FP&A teams
- Plus how a Kind CFO’s words gave him a leadership lesson to remember
Paul Barnhurst
Hello, everyone. Welcome to a brand new FP&A podcast. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, AKA the FP&A Guy, and you are listening to FP&A Today. FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails, the financial planning and analysis platform for Excel users. Every week, we will welcome a leader from the world of financial planning and analysis and discuss some of the biggest stories and challenges in the world of FP&A. We will provide you with actionable advice about financial planning and analysis today. This is going to be your go-to resource for everything FP and a, I am thrilled to welcome today’s guest on the show. Cameron Janke. Cameron, welcome to the show.
Cameron Janke
Thanks for having me, Paul.
Paul Barnhurst
Oh, we’re really excited to have you, so let me tell you a little bit about Cameron and then I’ll go ahead and let him do an introduction. But, you know, Cameron has spent most of the last decade working for HealthEquity. Previous to that, he worked as a controller and then also worked at EY doing some auditing. He has a degree from the University of Utah. He’s Also earned his CPA and CMA certifications. He’s an FP&A veteran, and we’re really excited to have him on the podcast today and, you know, discuss some of his experiences and some things that we think can help all of you as listeners. So, Cameron, why don’t you maybe just go ahead and give a little more about your background. Tell us a little bit more about yourself?
Cameron Janke
Sure. Thanks Paul. For the opportunity to be here and to learn from you as well. I am what I like to commonly refer to as a recovering accountant. But, no, all joking aside, I started in accounting. The base knowledge of accounting has helped me immensely in my career, and been a resource, not only from an FP&A perspective from an accounting perspective and helped bridging that gap. And, I started out, as you mentioned, in accounting auditing and decided that I wanted to be part of an opportunity to be part of a growth story and a company.
And, that led me into a lot of different areas and one being FP&A. You know, I’ve been actively looking for different resources and content to help me improve my FFP&A a skills and leadership. And, you know, one of those individuals that has helped me along the way has been you Paul and I’ve appreciated your great content and your leadership and just expertise in the realm of FP&A. So, I’m happy to be here and have a good conversation with you.
Paul Barnhurst
Well, I am excited to have you, and I appreciate that. And, you know it’s fun to share things about FP&A and I’m glad to hear it’s helped because that’s really, you know, one of the biggest benefits of doing it. So, you know, kind of with that in mind, I think you touched a little bit on, I know you earned your degree in accounting, you started in audit. I think you did a little bit of M&A and then you made that transition to FP&A. So, can you talk a little bit about how you ended up in FP&A, and a little bit about how you made that transition?
Cameron Janke
Sure. So, I mean, I look back at my EY days and I remember being at a client. All of us in the audit room, we wanted to go talk to the FP&A person because they were way more personable, they were exciting to talk to. And we had to go complete, you know, some of our flux analyses and get explanations on why things were changing, why certain, you know, P&L things that happened that we saw. And, remember us, you know, rock paper scissors, trying to figure out who was going to be able to go, which is, which is different in an audit area, because typically, you know, you’re scared of the client. You don’t want to go ask questions because they don’t like auditors.
If you are in an organization that’s growing and you know, you have to wear a lot of different hats and you want to be a good performer, I think you can take on a lot of different responsibilities and learn in a lot of different areas.
Cameron Janke
But when we went and talked to this FP&A individual, I remember just feeling so excited to talk to them and learn from them because they knew so much about the business. So that was a little bit of an inkling of, hey, you know, what is FP&A. I think back then too, it wasn’t really defined as much as it is today. And so, you know, I didn’t really think that it was a possibility that my background could, you know, lead me into that area. But I remember being intrigued by this individual. And so, I had an opportunity to be part of a company that was going to do an IPO, which was a company called HealthEquity. And they’re listed on the NASDAQ. And I started at a time, which was an inflection point for them.
They were wanting to go public. They were growing like crazy. I got in pretty early. And so, I think a couple factors helped me get into FP&A and, you know, make that transition from accounting. And two of them were external factors, something that I could not impact. And, and those would be, I started at a company that was growing right? And growing companies provide different opportunities for those that work there. Second, was the organizational chart, you know. I was not in the controller org, I was reporting into the VP of finance and the VP of finance was owning reporting. And I was an individual that was going to be helping with SEC reporting. And so, that was something that just where I was placed in the org really helped me be empowered to go different places.
And so, if you are in an organization that’s growing and you know, you have to wear a lot of different hats and you want to be a good performer, I think you can take on a lot of different responsibilities and learn in a lot of different areas. And that was something that I saw and I found myself you know, trying to create reports, trying to create external facing documents and realizing there’s a lot of forward looking statements that are placed in SEC documents or investor presentations. And I wanted to know the “why” behind some of these numbers that I was putting into these filings or investor presentations. And I started to look more into those numbers and realized, hey, like I could add some value here. I could create more of a process behind our annual operating plan.
I could create more of a process behind our forecasting. And, oh it seems like the business would like to know more about these numbers, right? That trading that connection between the outlook that we, as a public company would be giving and the actual business to help them have buy-in into those numbers. And so, I saw a need and I just started doing it. I remember, you know, no one asked me to, to really go and do these things. I just started one day and had, you know, an opportunity, you know, some free time. And I just started building out my own operating plan from bottoms up. Building out my own forecasting from bottoms up, seeing fluctuations in the trend and then going and asking accounting, Hey, what happened here? And as I started doing that, myself, what I started realizing is that you know, I remember there was probably three months in that accounting started saying, well, someone went to accounting asking a question about the financials.
And I remember overhearing accounting say well, Cameron does that. It wasn’t something that was in my job description. It wasn’t something that I had been asked to do, but because I had been, you know, taking that initiative, people started recognizing, well, Hey, Cameron does that now. Cameron looks at that. Cameron’s, you know, documenting some of you know, the reasons why our trend looks like that Cameron’s, you know, helping with the forecast. And so, think if you just start you create an opportunity for yourself just by jumping in and helping where you see a need. Eventually you can go wherever you want in the organization. That’s the principle, just a higher, you know, overarching principle, but that’s kind of how I got into FP&A is just, just starting to do it myself.
Paul Barnhurst
No, thank you. And, and I love that, and I mean, it shows the importance of initiative, right? Just going and learning and trying to improve yourself and understand what’s going on. It opens a lot of doors that you may not even know can be opened. Right. I’m sure when you’re starting to do that, you weren’t thinking I’m going to go be the FP&A person. You know, I may not even have known about it. You’re just like, you’re trying to understand and be better at your job. And it opened up opportunities. And I think that’s great advice for anyone, but especially, you know, accountants, because I, you know, regularly get asked on LinkedIn, getting notes and things. How can I make that transition to FP&A? And I think your answer is great advice to just be proactive, to dig in, to start to understand how the business works and it’ll open up opportunities, whether it’s FP&A or operations or wherever you may want to be.
Because everybody’s a little bit different when they get into accounting and try to figure out what they want to do next. So I appreciate that answer. So I know you were at HealthEquity for, I believe it was eight years. And during that time, I know you were promoted several times and you were a VP of FP&A there. Can you talk a little bit about that progression through the roles and how you made the adaptation from an individual contributor to managing a team and what, you know, what were maybe some of the challenges of making that transition?
Cameron Janke
Sure. Yeah, I was at HealthEquity for eight years. I had learned a lot and I loved the experience. And as you mentioned, had a different career path to eventually becoming VP of FP&A. You know, a company goes through a lot of different phases and when you are at a smaller stage company growing a lot, you wear a lot of different hats. And so a lot of my changes in my roles were giving up some hats to other different areas so that I could focus on specific items, such as FP&A. But also expanding my responsibilities. So, there were a lot of different things that happened such as M&A transactions, which allowed me to get more broad and into the organization and have more responsibility there.
I was given a team to lead and guide through that process. And that was a learning experience for me. I went from an individual contributor to a manager and, you know, something that I think about is it just takes time to learn.
Cameron Janke
So you know, when you’re growing, you need to change the hats that you wear, right? And allow for others to focus in on areas that you need to maybe you aren’t as focused in as originally, and that would be SEC reporting for me. So, one of the changes for me was I was hired to do SEC reporting and eventually I found myself not giving it the love that it should have gotten. And so, then focusing more on FP&A which is where I wanted to be. And that was one of the changes. And when that change was made, I was given a team to lead and guide through that process. And that was a learning experience for me. I went from an individual contributor to a manager and, you know, something that I think about is it just takes time to learn.
I don’t think there’s a lot of companies out there when you make that change from an individual contributor to manager that give you, you know, you’re not sent to some sort of leadership retreat for, you know, two weeks and, and they go through all different types of scenarios. You’re learning on the job. Right? Yep. And you need to understand that it’s going to take time. I think if you are open and honest and vulnerable with the team, they understand that it will take time as well, and they’ll give you that flexibility to learn. And so I think being vulnerable and just being open and honest with the team is like, Hey, look, we’re all in this together. And we are going to accomplish some great things, but I might, you know, there might be some bumps along the road where I’m going to make mistakes.
And I hope that, you know, you’ll give me some leniency as I give you leniency. And so I kinda went in from that perspective of you know, being vulnerable. And I, I know that there’s some, you know, common, you know, big motivational speakers out there that talk about that. But I found that very successful for me. But you know, you have fears of changing from an individual contributor to a manager. And one of those fears that I had was I felt like it was my responsibility to fill the to-do list of the people that I was managing. And I quickly learned that, you know, as a leader that it’s not, that’s not necessarily your job. Right.Prioritizing those to-do lists would be helpful. You know, you know, clearing roadblocks is your job, but you don’t have to, you know, tell them exactly what has to be done and when it has to be done and, and fill a full 40-hour work week.
Cameron Janke
So that was fear of mine. And I quickly learned, you know, learned through that. Something I also, you know, was fearful of was you know, hiring for the future. I was very conscious of the company’s funds and realized, well, I don’t want to misuse funds. But I saw future need. And if you just trust in your gut in knowing that just like any entrepreneur, right, you need to be thinking about the future and what your future needs. And sometimes you need to make that investment, right? To learn to scale. That was something that I learned and had to learn as I was changing from individual contributor to manager of, okay I’m going to need this in the future, and I need to overhire for this.
And even though the need right now isn’t, you know, showing right now, we will need it in the future. And that was a learning for me as a leader. And also as a leader I thought all the ideas had to come from me. Right? But what I realized, and I think it’s a Steve jobs quote, but maybe don’t quote me on that. And I think he said, you know, we, you know, we hire good people to tell us what to do. Right. And I think that was also a great learning experience for me. Hey, it’s not solely on your shoulders to come up with all the great ideas, all the things that people need to do. It is your job to prioritize clear roadblocks and inspire the team to do good work. And so you know, I think you can say that to everyone, individual contributor but most of them are going to have to, as they make the change, learn those principles by themselves. But hopefully some of that resonated with you Paul in your experience, I’m not sure, but that’s been my experience.
Paul Barnhurst
There’s a lot of great information in there, a couple things stuck out to me first, you know, being, being willing to be vulnerable. I think that’s really important helping the team know that hey I don’t know the answers, or I don’t know all the answers. This is new to me too. Let’s learn together. So they see the human side of you. I heard sometime, you know, great leaders do hard things in a compassionate way. And I really loved that because they don’t let up on the expectations that you want teams to accomplish a lot, but you’re taking the consideration of the person and you have to do both those. So the vulnerable made me think about that, because that shows the personal side. And then I really liked how you said, you know, at first you thought it was your job to set up their to-do list.
You know, sometimes you know, the other one I experienced is that you want to tell them how to do everything. And I can still remember sitting with someone on my team and saying, Hey, this is how you should do it and laying it all out. And I could tell they didn’t really like it. And I stepped back and said, you know, at the end of the day, here’s what the boss has to have. As long as you meet those requirements, and as long as it can be reproduced and it makes sense, I don’t care how you do it. And that was kind of a breakthrough for me, a reminder that it’s no longer my project. It’s somebody else’s. My job is to give the guidelines, like you mentioned, right. Those guardrails help remove the blockers. It’s not to do the work.
I’ve had conversations you know, with people in the LinkedIn network of just trying to understand what my experience was from the IPO perspective. And the first one would just be, don’t worry so much about Day One, worry about Day Two.
Cameron Janke
Cameron Janke
Yep.
Paul Barnhurst
So I appreciate that. And can definitely relate to a lot of what you said there in my experiences of going from an individual contributor to managing a team. It’s quite the adjustment. So I know while you were at, you know, at HealthEquity, you went through the IPO experience. I know you first did SEC reporting. What advice would you offer to somebody in FP&A that’s in that environment where either they’re getting ready to go and do an IPO or, or they’re thinking about that. Maybe a little bit about what that was like for you and some things to watch out for lessons learned that type of thing.
Cameron Janke
Sure. It’s a good question. You know, if there’s one topic that I get reached to out to on LinkedIn to talk about it’s this one
Paul Barnhurst
Not surprised
Cameron Janke
I’ve had conversations you know, with people in the LinkedIn network of just trying to understand what my experience was from the IPO perspective. And the first one would just be, don’t worry so much about Day One, worry about Day Two.
Cameron Janke
I’ve had conversations you know, with people in the LinkedIn network of just trying to understand what my experience was from the IPO perspective. And the first one would just be, don’t worry so much about Day One, worry about Day Two. And what I mean by that is when a company decides to go public there are so many advisors and consultants in the business, it won’t fail to go public, right? You know you take a step back and you look at how many parties are involved. You’ll have so many investment bankers and each investment banker will have their law firm doing due diligence. And then you have maybe outside investor relations firms, you have board members, you have, you know, executive leadership and your own internal team. There’s so many people looking at documents and you know, just the numbers themselves that sure, you know. Follow their lead and, and, and do what you need to do.
But yes, it is work and it is time consuming, but it is also kind of fun and enjoyable to, you know, rub shoulders with such smart people and learn from them. And so yes, day one is fun and exciting and you learn a lot, but day two is really where you need to be thinking about from an FPA perspective. Because all those people go home, right? And then it’s on your shoulders. Right. And you know, some things that I didn’t realize so much about a public company would be that the investor and public realm of just being a public company will take up a lot of your time. Right? So from a time management perspective and the capacity planning perspective. So what I was alluding to in the previous comment of, you know, you need to, you need to think about if your capacity is already constrained now and there’s going to be, you know pull on that, that capacity in the future, you need to figure out like, how can I expand my capacity?
Cameron Janke
Whether that means letting some things go or increasing your capacity, whatever it might be, there will be additional asks of you and what are those? So you know, think about from a perspective of consensus guidance, right? As a public company, you know, investors and sell side analysts they’re talking to management and they’re asking management, all sorts of questions and management is going to go on, what’s called a non-deal roadshow a lot and get in front of institutional investors. They are going to go to different, you know, conferences, their earnings scripts, earnings calls. There’s a lot of interaction with the investment community. And your job as an FP&A individual is to make sure that management knows what the story is, right. And they can speak to the numbers, and do you know your numbers? Well, that might be like a simple ask, but it does take time and it does take constraints.
Consensus and your guidance. You never want to miss it. Right? So those become your new targets
Cameron Janke
Cameron Janke
It will constrain you because you’re putting yourself out there, right? When have you ever had to put your name behind a forecast and, you know, sign your name behind it or whatever it might be out in the public realm, right? To reconcile against the future. So, it is something that, you know will constrain you. Consensus and your guidance. You never want to miss it. Right? So those become your new targets, right? So you might have an annual operating plan that you have been thinking about as you set that once a year or whatever it might be and your forecast that you do quarterly for the board. Yeah. It’s okay to explain variances to the board, but you know, if your consensus from your sell side analysts is higher than an annual operating plan, there’s a lot more pressure to meet that consensus than there is to meet the annual operating plan. So understanding that dynamic is key for any FP&A individual in a public company. And going with all that, you know, deadlines are FP&A’s world, right? You need so many deadlines, right?
So, take a step back and look at your reporting calendar and, honestly, think to yourself, what can I cut out of here? How can I give myself more time? How can I give management more time?
Cameron Janke
Cameron Janke
Yes. So, take a step back and look at your reporting calendar and, honestly, think to yourself, what can I cut out of here? How can I give myself more time? How can I give management more time? Because you know, you want as much time to feel confident in your forward-looking statements as you need. Right? And so you know, if that, if you know ,accounting close is only allowing you one or two days to really review the actuals and report, you’re going to want to think, Hey accounting, how can we shave one more day off of this? Or how can I extend this two or three days? Think about that dynamic just from a reporting calendar perspective because what happens is then you layer in the IR calendar, right. And, you know, Bank of America’s conference doesn’t care when your company is reporting, right? And maybe someday your management team wants to go to that Bank of America conference. And in order to do that, you might have to report a little bit earlier, right? So you have got to be thinking about calendaring and giving yourself enough time to really feel confident in those forward looking statements.
Paul Barnhurst
No, I like that. Like how you talk about giving yourself enough time, but early on you mentioned, you know, make sure you hit the quarter, right? You don’t want to miss your guidance. We all see what happens on the market when you miss your guidance and how much valuations can drop
Cameron Janke
Mm-Hmm
Paul Barnhurst
And, you know, it reminds me, I was working for a company and we were exploring going public. You know, we were, we were very close. I remember we were finishing up a forecast and the CFO pulled us all into a room and, you know, kicked everybody else out that didn’t know what was going on and looked at the GM and said, are you sure you’re going to sign up for this number? Like you have to hit it. There’s no more of this missing, if this is what we’re going to be doing. And I remember we were, we were disagreeing on how much the number should come down. We were kind of debating and because I was like, there’s definitely some risk to this plan, you know, I had put together and knew it. And so I know you talked about it, had known the numbers and just worked through that to make sure we didn’t have three months, six months, whenever, you know, if it happened, we didn’t have a big surprise.
Under promise, over deliver is a key principle to live by when giving guidance.
Cameron Janke
Cameron Janke
Yeah. You know, under promise over deliver is a key principle to live by when giving guidance. Right. You want to make sure that you’re going to hit that number?
Paul Barnhurst
No, I like that. And the second thing I really kind of took away is, you know, pushing the things off your plate that you need to and planning your calendar appropriately. And sometimes that’s under your control. And some of it is really all about working with others. That’s where FP&A is influencing in this case, it’s accounting. It’s going to them and saying, okay, why am I getting this on work day seven? How can we move this up? What are your roadblocks and how do I help enable you to allow me to have the time I need to give management the answers? I know they’re going to ask.
Cameron Janke
Yep.
Paul Barnhurst
So that’s really good advice and it, you know, it sounds like, you know, one of the biggest things is knowing the consensus that’s out there, kind of what the street talks about, making sure you’re working toward that. You’re giving yourself the cushion to be able to hit your numbers, that you’re working to give yourself the time to be able to answer the question. So to me it feels like it kind of buttons up that process and it makes your focus different. There’s an external focus that isn’t there in the same way before the IPO.
Cameron Janke
Yep exactly. And, you know, I would just add one more, one more, more specific technical thing. You know, a lot of us think about what, you know, these, these sell side analysts, when they’re following companies, that they are perfect in their modeling. Right? And they’re perfect in their understanding. I had that false understanding where, you know, they understood us really well, but I will tell you a time where our consensus was so skewed that, you know, how could we be so far off in our forecast versus consensus? And you know, looking at their models, there were just formula errors. And so just by going and pointing out formula errors to a sell side and analyst changed consensus to where we were fine. Right? So I guess I would say is really, you know, your IR function will get to know your sell side analysts, you know, really well. Sure. But if you know your model well, and you can look at their model and, and see, you know, issues with it, it’ll pay huge dividends for you in just being able to manage their expectations.
Paul Barnhurst
Sure. I mean, and I think if you know the business, well, you should be able to pass. It should be able to pass the sniff test when you look at a model. If it doesn’t, then it’s a question of why, right? Yeah. Is there a mistake? Is there an assumption that’s off or is there some kind of formula mistake? And we’ve seen both, and sometimes it is a combination of both, right? So usually it is, you know, a little bit of both. Well, no, I really appreciate that on the IPO. So kind of moving on, I know, HealthEquity did a number of acquisitions during your time. There, I know WageWorks was one of the biggest they did, and they did a few others in different areas as they kind of consolidated and grew in the health benefits industry. So maybe, can you talk a little bit about the due diligence process? I know you went through that a few times. A little bit about the process and then be just some advice you would offer to other FP&A people that are either going through or going to go through that process.
Cameron Janke
Sure. So I would say from a due diligence perspective it depends on the organization, right? There could be a corpdev you know, an organization that’s doing all of that. And I would just say from that perspective, if there’s a corporate development group that is looking at companies, vetting companies entering into IOIs (indication of interests) you know, entering a due diligence, get close to them, right? Have regular, one-on-ones see how you can get, you know, if you’re not involved in due diligence, because typically, you know, you do want, you don’t want everyone in the organization to know that you’re doing an M&A deal and you don’t want everyone in the organization to be distracted. Right. Because a lot of these deals don’t happen. Right. So you don’t want to waste time and you want to focus on your core business, all those all good things.
The model for sure wont have been built to maintain and update, right? That’s typically what I’ve seen is it’s cool to build all these fancy models, but to actually maintain the model and refresh it on a regular recurring basis is where it wasn’t built for maintenance.
Cameron Janke
But if there is something where you can get you know, a quality of earnings reports or you know, get access to a data room and look at their model, things like that, where you want to get involved as an FP&A person because typically what Corpdev will go and do you know, due diligence in some deals and what could happen is they can just finish the deal. Everyone says, yay. They throw it over the wall and FP&A is left with, okay, what am I supposed to do with this model. One. The model for sure wont have been built to maintain and update, right? That’s typically what I’ve seen is it’s cool to build all these fancy models, but to actually maintain the model and refresh it on a regular recurring basis is where it wasn’t built for maintenance.
The model for sure wont have been built to maintain and update, right? That’s typically what I’ve seen is it’s cool to build all these fancy models, but to actually maintain the model and refresh it on a regular recurring basis is where it wasn’t built for maintenance.
Cameron Janke
And so, you know, that’s one thing that I would caution everyone to be thinking about. Secondly, when consultants are then in input into the process, they don’t know your business as well. Right. And you know, for example I’ve been in an environment where they might be thinking from, let’s say an earnings perspective, but earnings are defined differently by every company, right? Like every company might think of it from an EBITDA perspective. Some might think of it from an income perspective, some might think of it from a free cash flow perspective, whatever that might be. I found that base definitional phrases weren’t always aligned and they’re doing due diligence based off different definitions. Right. So getting aligned from that perspective is huge. But the biggest thing that I can I can say is, is you want to make sure that that model in your due diligence has at least been reviewed by you because you know, there’s so many times where I wish I would’ve at least just had the opportunity to really have a, a really good scrub of it to, you know, say my piece on certain areas.
Right. And highlight risks or opportunities from FP&A perspective. Because you know , I’m trying to walk a fine line of, you know, certain deals that have happened. I don’t want to say too much and I don’t want to, you know, get in trouble. But you want to know, plan for the unknown in deals, right? So there will always be good guys and bad guys, right. There’s going to be things that you will not find in due diligence of course. And have you appropriately planned for those unknowns? And then for those unknowns, does everyone concur and agree with, okay, like we’re going to be planning for these unknowns and that’s getting that understanding and baseline understanding across to the M&A team and team due diligence team is something that is difficult to do.
when you’re doing an M&A deal it depends on the type. You know, if there’s, if there’s synergies being planned for, if there are synergies being planned, I would say, make sure you are all in agreement of what the baseline is and what a synergy is.
Cameron Janke
But even if you just try to say your piece and be able to review things beforehand before it’s tossed over the wall, that is where I would say, you know, start there first. Secondly, sorry I’ve probably said so many different things. I am not on my second point, but maybe I’ll say lastly, is when you’re doing an M&A deal it depends on the type. You know, if there’s, if there’s synergies being planned for, if there are synergies being planned, I would say, make sure you are all in agreement of what the baseline is and what a synergy is. Those are so key in doing an M&A deal after the fact, you know, the day two. When You are ready to integrate and actually start merging these two companies together, you want to know what the baseline was and everyone is in agreement of what the baseline is the, the time or the, what it looks like that you’re measuring against for in perpetuity. And then what is a synergy? You know, not everyone is financially-minded in the business. That’s going to be putting these companies together and you want to make sure that what they think is a synergy is what you’re going to be counting as a synergy. And so those would be some of my last words of advice for any M&A deal.
Paul Barnhurst
Now, lots of great advice there. So just kind of to add a few things to that. You know, many companies obviously have the corporate M&A, so the enrollment of the involvement can be very different, right for FP&A depending on the company, sometimes FP&A can be the ones building the model. Sometimes you’re just reviewing it. Either way, you want to make sure you understand the assumptions that went into it. Like you mentioned, you want to make sure that you realize the model you’re getting is a deal model. And there is a big difference between a deal model and an operational model that you need to roll forward. And so you need to be prepared for that, whether it’s, if you’re involved in making it, trying to think through some of those things, so you can do it, or at least having reviewed it.
So you could start thinking when I get this on day two and they want to update these assumptions, how do I do it? So I think that’s great advice. The other thing I really liked is you’re going to miss stuff in the due diligence. So, you know, be prepared for that, make sure you line on the unknowns, the baseline and synergies. Because you know, sometimes deals get sprinkled with a lot of synergies and you look at it and go, okay, how is that achievable? So being willing to raise your voice before you get something and go, well, that’s not possible because you know, the reality is most deals don’t generate what people assumed they were going to at the time they did the deal
Cameron Janke
Mm-Hmm
Paul Barnhurst
So the more realistic I was going to say skeptical, but realistic, you can be the better because it will save you a headache down the road to explain why you have big misses, which are never fun.
Cameron Janke
Nope. Learn from the mistakes of others, right? Yeah,
Paul Barnhurst
Exactly. I mean, others have been through it and I think that’s great that people reach out to you on LinkedIn. I’m not surprised because you know, lots of companies, as they want to go to IPO, that’s often a new experience for somebody and it’s a little, it’s a scary experience, right. You’re kind of like, how am I going to get through that? So, you know, the M&A, and all that, just learn from others. So now we’re going to get into a little more what I would call kind of advice for people. A little more hard into FP&A. We’ve talked a little bit about IPO, M&A, and a little bit about you and your background. We’re going to switch gears here a little bit. So, you know you’ve had a couple different roles in FP&A, and had some teams. So how do you think about structuring a team for FP&A? Do you have a way you like to structure it? Like someone covers revenue expense, you know, kind of any, any thoughts just in general for somebody in a management role and structuring a team. How do you think about it?
Cameron Janke
Yeah. I know you did a good intro on that question because that’s exactly how I like to think about it. You know, revenue is huge to any organization, right? And you don’t want to get that wrong. Whether it be from just a peer review standpoint, telling the story, the forecast there might be a lot of projects where, you know, management might, might come to you and say, hey, like, how can we, you know, really juice, juice this up? You know, not, not, not from an unethical perspective, but like what are the opportunities here, right. And you need someone sitting on that. And it could be a team. And so, you know, I’ve, I’ve had a revenue FP&A team, you know, that’s their focus. And depending on the organization, they might include the, you know, the margin as well in that, right.
Cameron Janke
So, you know, the revenue and the COGS or revenue and direct expenses might all be in that team, depending on the organization, it might, might make sense, might not make sense. You know, that’s where you have to be flexible as an FP&A team and just be very collaborative and, you know, discuss things with one another and know that there’s no like, you know, lanes, and this is my lane and this is your lane, right? You can’t have that mindset in FP&A. And then I like to think of it as the business partners. And I know that’s a big, you know, theme in the FP&A realm these days or as I like to call them, you know, the mini CFOs of the business, right. So they’re, the individuals and their title could vary, right.
It could be financial analyst, senior financial analyst, finance manager, whatever. You know, the typical career path might be based on experience and knowledge, but you know, they would be the dotted line to whatever executive within the business. And this is the difficult part of workload and trying to figure that out because in some areas, some executives are more needy than others. But yet their budget might be, you know, very small. Or, you know, there might be some very large areas that are pretty simple in nature. So you know, the number of third party vendors and complex vendors, like the IT realm, you know, that would, you know, require more time to understand the contracts and the timing and things like that. There might be areas that are, you know, variable headcount in nature, which are more difficult and there’s this complex staffing model.
In building an FP&A Team, the verticals to fill would be revenue, business partnership and M&A or project related. And then systems piece
Cameron Janke
So you have to really just be, you know, communicative with your team on how to really assign those duties. Right. But all I’ve noticed is that those duties and assignments are changing. When you do find a good business partner, an executive fit, like you don’t want to change that, but you do have to reconfigure some things at times. So the mini CFOs are the business partners and they’re primarily expense driven. And then I start thinking about projects and systems. So you know, you mentioned, we talked about just previously that there was a lot of M&A activity at HealthEquity. Having someone that was M&A focused from a due diligence, you know, process. So I could put someone on the due diligence team so that they could be hearing all the conversations and, you know, being an early warning side, Hey, this, this is what I’m hearing.
Let’s, let’s make sure they understand from our perspective, what, you know, those type of conversations. But also on the integration stick front, there is so much time required from an integration standpoint and FP&A that, you know, having someone dedicated to that was key. And then as you get bigger, assistance, you know, type individual you know, someone who can go sit on those, you know ERP roadmap discussions. I know there have been, you know, a lot of discussions about the, you know, different systems that are out there, but when you find a system that you can use for planning, there might be someone necessarily dedicated to that. So M&A systems would be another area of, you know, the verticals so to speak. So the verticals could be revenue, business partnership and M&A or project related. And then systems are kind of how I would break it up or think about the team.
Paul Barnhurst
Sure. No, I like that. And I appreciate it. And, you know, like you mentioned every organization’s different and it changes as you grow. And I think you saw a lot of that. Like you mentioned systems, you know, Early on you have your ERP and then you, and you’re often starting in Excel and then you start to grow and say, okay, now I need a system to support this planning process. Right? And then, oh, well we need an analytics tool. Do I put in power BI? Do I put in Tableau? You know, what do we do here? And it explodes if you’re not careful. And you know, more and more FP&A departments and finances owning analytics, not always the case, sometimes it’s separate, but that’s just as critical as the data continues to grow and get that right.
So I, you know, appreciate being able to have somebody to focus on that. I think that’s really important. The, and like you mentioned revenue, sometimes it includes COGS. You know, you’re going to have your business partnering, your mini CFOs, and sometimes one hat’s wearing all of that, depending on the company size. And sometimes it’s many, and sometimes you have a whole corporate team and then you have business units. Right. So you just gotta think through it, what makes sense for the business and what makes sense for the point the business is at and where it’s going to be in 18 months. Like you mentioned earlier, trying to hire for what you need in the future, not just what you need today. So you’re not left short in six months and trying to justify another person and they don’t want to give you that support. I appreciate that. Some good advice there. So what would you say, you know, as you look at the FP&A landscape today, what do you think are the biggest challenges out there for FP&A professionals?
The team don’t want to be sending, you know, this spreadsheet back and forth between the analysts and themselves and things like that. And Google sheets, It solves collaboration, but it, has its own inherent issues. You need to find a solution is for an organization that will be helpful and just get that off the table
Cameron Janke
Cameron Janke
Yeah, I know it’s, it’s a really good question. I think I’ve had a lot of conversations recently with a lot of different companies and in understanding their processes, and also understanding, you know, with different business leaders within the business. And I would say, you know, flexible and easy to maintain tools in FP&A are key. And I feel like, there’s a lot of you know, confusion in the marketplace as far as what that is. Right? And so you can go a lot of different directions as far as a tool is out there, but most people are confused and not quite sure where to go. Excel will always be an option for, for companies, but it’s limited in its capabilities from collaboration is what I hear a lot, you know, you know, version control issues.
Cameron Janke
You know, how many times, you know, they, they don’t want to be sending, you know, this spreadsheet back and forth between the analysts and themselves and things like that. And, and, you know, even Google sheets, right? Yes. It solves collaboration, but it, you know, has its own inherent issues. And so you know, I think, you know, trying to find what that solution is for an organization will be helpful just so to get that off the table. Right. Yeah. And let’s start actually talking about the business and where it’s going and not worrying about a system and how to actually work with each other. Right? So that’s just a roadblock in it itself. I think there, you know, an FP&A is such a huge you know, quality for an individual is just someone, you know, like you were talking about, you know, here are the guidelines. I need you to go to the top of the mountain.
I don’t care how you get there. I just need you to get there. Right. Or I’ve heard it in a different term is, you know, I’m stubborn on vision, but flexible on journey. Right? So someone who understands that, and, you know, you can, you can find people who can get bogged down where they need to, they feel like they need to follow a process of ABC X,Y,Z, whatever it might be. And that’s, you know, but you want to get the right people in FP&A that they know that they need to get to the mountain. And if they had to add a switch back here and there, you know, they’ll figure it out and they’ll get around that obstacle. So I think it’s really building out the skillset in FP&A to build that knowledge base and also the skill of working in a lot of different environments that don’t have SOPs (standard operating procedures) and predetermined environments.
Cameron Janke
So I, I say the talent would be one. And then you know going along with the planning tool system perspective, you mentioned the analytics tool, but I would just say it’s the whole system map or ecosystem, right. So the ERP doesn’t really work well with the planning tool or the HRIS system (human resource information system) doesn’t work well with the planning tool. So it’s, it’s that whole dynamic of just the whole systems map and all the data, different data sources that we’ve got to figure out. And so those would be you know, two of them were systems related, you know, one planning, planning tools specific, then whole, each ecosystem, and then just the talent base of the FP&A organization, and building that framework, but also that mindset of the individuals in FP&A.
Paul Barnhurst
No, I think you hit the nail on the head on a couple things, getting the tech stack is so important right now in FP&A and a today, you know, getting it right. And that doesn’t mean you have to use a certain tool. There are lots of great tools out there, but you need to understand what you’re trying to accomplish. Like you said, flexible on the journey, but rigid on the vision. What do we need this to do at the end? How you get there you know, there’s dozens of ERPs, there’s plenty of analytics tools. There’s always Excel and you know, other pieces to that, but it’s figuring out how to get there today and how to get there for the future. And then talent, you know, CFOs have mentioned there’s some surveys out there over the last year that the role that’s hardest for them to hire right now is FP&A
Paul Barnhurst
And if you look, I saw an article that said the number of skills in just two years that are listed on the average job description for FP&A over the last two years has grown 20 something percent. I think it was like 23 or 25%. So there’s two or three more skills listed on the average job description than there were just two years ago before the pandemic, which tells you how rapidly it’s changing. Right. It’s a real challenge. So I appreciate that answer. So here’s kind of a little more a little more personal, ask you some questions here. We just got a few more to go, and we’ll kind of wrap up but as you look at your career, what would you say is the best achievement of yours? You know, an answer you would give in a job interview as an example, what would you say?
During my tenure, there was never a time where we paid, paid less than the hundred percent bonus pool, meaning that you’re hitting your operating plan targets so that you could pay out. And that, you know, I feel proud of just because it impacted so many different people from a financial standpoint.
Cameron Janke
Cameron Janke
Sure. I would give, I would give two. One from a leadership perspective and a people perspective, and I’d give one from more of a technical perspective. And one from a leader perspective is, you know, there’s, there’s one individual that I’ve been a mentor and a coach to, and just seeing his progress of where he started and where he is now. You know, he started as, as a, you know, an hourly individual entry level. And now as a director level,. And I just, you know, I could, I’m glad I could be on that journey and be part of it. It’s all his, his effort, but, you know, I feel like I, you know, that’s, that’s the biggest accomplishment is, you know, people interaction and people facing that, you know, for my career. From a technical perspective, it would be that, you know, HealthEquity has and had a run of 32 consecutive quarters of, of meeting or exceeding EBITDA consensus.
And so that, you know, there’s, there’s a reason, you know the business, but you also just, you know, planning and forecasting and guidance, you know. I used to have hair, but it’s taken a lot of effort, but, you know, that’s something I’m proud of. And then, you know, just on that, as well, as, you know, during my tenure, there was never a time where we paid, paid less than the hundred percent bonus pool which is also, you know, if you think about bonus targets, they’re set on you know, your operating plan. So meaning that you’re hitting your operating plan targets and so that you could pay out. And that, you know, I feel proud of just because it, you know, it impacted so many different people from a financial standpoint that I feel like, you know, I was part of that.
Paul Barnhurst
No, that’s great. And that, I mean, that’s an awesome accomplishment, 32 straight quarters. It can be tough to do, especially when they want growth and it’s not, you know, it’s not like you, it’s easy to sandbag to the street because you have the analyst and everything else looking at things. And they generally have an idea of what’s going on. And I love the first one on the people side. There’s nothing better than watching someone develop and grow and feel like you played a small role in that. You realize they have to do the work, but just being there for them it is very rewarding. So I really appreciate those two answers that you gave there. So what would you list as maybe the most challenging experience you’ve had in your career?
I’m like, this is not right. And I did not sleep that night. And I was like, should I just give up? Should I just not show up? You know, everyone goes through those irrational thoughts.
Cameron Janke
Cameron Janke
You will always make mistakes in a forecast, right? Like accept that fact, right? You will always make mistakes. And they always relate to making pretty large mistakes in, in a forecast is, is what I would say. You know, there’s, there’s several, I could list. One as an example, early on, I remember I was doing an EPS (Earnings per Share) forecast on the shared account. We had a pretty complicated calculation. We had a two class method for all you accountants out there. So you know, it was complicated to get the denominator. Right. And I remember looking at it after we had already given out our guidance and things like that. And I saw I’m like, this is not right. And I did not sleep that night. And I was like, should I just give up? Should I just not show up? You know, everyone goes through those irrational thoughts.
Cameron Janke
And I called up the CFO, sorry. The next day I just explained it to him. And his reaction was something that I will always remember, and I will try to remember. And he just said, okay. We will figure it out. And you know, we’ll work on this together. In the long story, you know, nothing happened. The business outperformed what it needed to do even to cover any mistake. It wasn’t even an issue in the long run. But I remember feeling so much anxiety and like just, you know, down on myself for making a mistake. But I really appreciated that CFO and how he reacted. He could have yelled and flew off the handle and you know, reprimanded me in a lot of different areas. But the way he reacted in the cool calm matter and acting as if we were on the same boat that we were on the same team and we’ll figure it out together was a lesson that I will always take with me as, as a leader.
Paul Barnhurst
I appreciate it. And I love that. I love your point. Forecasts are always wrong, right? They’re a predictive tool and we’re going to always make mistakes. I still remember the first subscription forecast I did. I hadn’t been given very good guidance at all. I had to build a whole new model and I didn’t take seasonality and consideration with the cancellations. And let’s just say, we came nowhere near hitting our numbers that year. And it was brutal. I learned a lot, you know. And fortunately the new CFO we had come in was very understanding. And we worked together and I became good friends with them, who taught me a ton. He was a leader like you mentioned there, but you know, it happens. You own it and you move forward. It’s all you can do. If you hide it, it never turns out well for you. I mean, that’s any advice I’d give to somebody young in your career when you make a mistake, just own it. Tell them what happened. Be honest and move on. Come with solutions when you can so that they know that you’re not just coming with problems.
Cameron Janke:
Confront the brutal facts, right?
Paul Barnhurst
No, that’s a great way to put it, I like that, to confront the brutal facts. All right. So here we’re going to get a little personal. What’s something that not many people know about you, maybe something they wouldn’t find online. If you know, they looked at your LinkedIn profile or other social media platforms.
Cameron Janke
That’s a tough question. That’s a tough question to answer. You know, well, on a personal side I have four boys and I am one of four boys and my last child, my last boy, he was due on my birthday so I was the fourth boy and my fourth boy was due on my birthday. Life has an interesting pattern. So pretty interesting. I always thought I would have four boys, and that actually turned out true. So but on a more, you know, unique perspective, I’m very into emergency preparedness. So I combine my Excel skills with my emergency preparedness. So I have a model on my emergency preparedness where I can tell you how many calories, if, you know, if my family were to eat, your intake, how long we could last with my current stock supply. I have an inventory, you know, module of, you know, how many, you know, when the inventory came in and, and how, you know, it’s life and you know, all sorts of labels on it.
Cameron Janke
So, it’s kind of a fun thing for me to just know that I’m good. So, it’s my it’s my everyone buys life insurance and, and car insurance. I buy that as well, but I also have insurance just from, for the unknown and from a food storage perspective.
Paul BarnhurstOh great. I mean, it’s always good to be prepared for those emergencies, whether it’s a job loss, you know, natural disaster, human made, calamity, whatever it may be. All we have to do is look around the world today and see all the uncertainty to know that being prepared is helpful. So that’s a great, great thing to share, and it’s a good, good thing to have. I can’t say I have a module or that level of detail on it, but I think that’s great. So, Alrighty. So next question here, what’s your favorite Excel function since everybody in finance has to use Excel pretty much. What is your favorite function and why?
Cameron Janke
Yeah, that’s a great question. I wish I had a favorite Excel function. I don’t. The principles of Excel that I like, well, first I would say I like quick keys, so shortcuts to make things quicker. So you don’t have to touch the mouse as much. So, those would be my first, you know, preferred things on, on the list. Okay.
Paul Barnhurst
So what’s a real quick, what’s a little known shortcut. One that’s not as common. Do you have one you can think of,
Cameron Janke
Well, I mean, just using the setting, them up at yourself at the top of the, oh my goodness. What’s the, at the top of the tool bar? Yeah. I, you know, where you can almost customize it yourself. So that, you know, I might have customized it myself to where I, for my preferences. So I don’t know if I necessarily want to quote one that I’ve set up that, you know, might give others pause you know, just control, left, open bracket, just know to, to follow, you know formulas.
Paul Barnhurst
That’s a life saver.
Cameron Janke
That’s a life saver. Yeah. I mean, I, I can’t really think of it. It’s one of those things where when you have a shortcut, you don’t actually think about what the actual shortcut is, you know, once you’ve learned it so much, like, I, I don’t even think I could quote a lot of the shortcuts that I, I use because they are just now second nature to me. Right. so that’s a sorry to, to not have a specific point
Paul Barnhurst
No, that’s totally fine. Funny story on the shortcuts. I worked with a guy that he said worked in investment banking, and he had done so many models that when he kind of stopped doing that, he would sit at the table and his fingers would make the movements just kind of tapping on the table for different control functions, because he had done it so long. Like just subconsciously.
so, you know, index match, SUMIFS are all fine. But once you start getting into complex macros and things like that, where, you know, the next person might not know how to maintain it, I start to pause and just think about it,
Cameron Janke
Cameron Janke
Yeah. Yeah, no, I believe it. I mean, Yeah. I don’t think I could coach you with the actual keys now. I just, it’s just second nature. I have seen, you know, certain individuals that have, you know, don’t need to touch the mouse. I’m not at that level at all. Although I am very envious of that skill. As far as Excel, you know, continuing, I am a big proponent of making the functions in a model not overly complicated though. So, you know, how many times have you gotten a model where someone built it, they left the organization and, and no one knows how to maintain it. That is, you know, one of my pet peeves in, in the FP&A realm. And so, you know, index match, you know, SUMIFS those, you know, those are all fine. But once you start getting into complex macros and things like that, where, you know, the next person might not know how to maintain, I start to pause and just think about it, you know? So if we’re building a one time model, you know, I’ll ask the question like, well we have to maintain this thing if so, like we need to simplify this. So those would just be some principles like how I think about Excel. So, you know, I might not be the best at super complex formulas. And that might be a reason why.
Paul Barnhurst
No, I mean, as I once heard it said, you know, complex is easy, easy is hard. It’s easier usually to build the complex model than to really do the homework upfront, think through how to make it simple. I’ve been guilty of it on more than one occasion. So I can, I can really appreciate that. It’s an important skill that takes time to learn.
Cameron Janke
Mm-Hmm
Paul Barnhurst
So last question here, I’ve really enjoyed the conversation and just kind of have one more question here before we let you go, so what advice would you have for our audience if they asked what they should do to become a better FP&A professional?
Cameron Janke
Sure. I mean, this might sound cheesy, but I feel like I have learned a lot just through validation just by following a lot of individuals on LinkedIn. Before I thought I was, you know, in the boat all by myself. I knew that was an irrational thought, but I just didn’t know if other people were having the same issues as me and were seeing the same things. And, you know, Paul, you were one of those first individuals where I found on LinkedIn and I, I was like, yes, like he’s going through the same thing as me. And like he’s learning these things and, you know just reading that different content has been so eye-opening for me. So I would say, find some of those FP&A influencers on LinkedIn. You know, I recommended, you know, recommended a lot of them to my team, you, and, you know, they said it has been very helpful.
So, you know, start seeking out the content, right. And seeking out individuals that are going through the same thing as you, either those individuals that are trying to get into FP&A, or true FP&A individuals and just learning from them. There’s so much more content out there to learn than there was 10 years ago and, you know, YouTube these podcasts, LinkedIn, I would just start, say, just start absorbing. And then the second part is, you know, the first question we started off was just, just start doing it, right? Start digging in, even if there’s an FP&A group in your area, and you’re not in FP&A and let’s say, you’re in accounting, you have access to all the information you need. And you could start analyzing things off to the side and eventually you will show your value. And so I guess that would be the advice that I would have for everyone is that just start doing it
Paul Barnhurst
Well, thank you. That’s great advice. And I mean, I think you’ve given a lot of great advice to our audience. You know, I’ve really enjoyed the podcast. I agree with you, great content, you know, hoping this podcast adds to that and that people learn from it. I know I’ve learned from you today and I’m sure our audience will learn from you and, you know, look forward to seeing, you know, you develop and grow kind of grow in your career and hopefully sometime down the road, we’ll have you on again. But I really appreciate your time today, Cameron, and for what you gave our audience. So thank you.
Cameron Janke
Thanks, Paul. I appreciate the conversation.