Episode 211

Top FP&A business consultant Anders Liu-Lindberg joins FP&A Today four years after his first appearance on the show to talk about the radical changes in FP&A and CFO transformation over that period. In the time since, Anders has cemented his reputation as one of the most in-demand consultants for finance transformation, sharing his practical, on-the-ground experience.

• 4 years on: what's changed in FP&A transformation
• How career-minded FP&A professionals are enjoying the best era ever
• A real example of a finance transformation that didn't land
• 3 metrics to measure the impact of business partnering
• Why CFOs should obsess over value

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Further reading/listening

Communicating Financials to Executives: by Anders Liu-Lindberg (Author), Christian Frantz Hansen 

FP&A Today: More than 12 ERP implementations later…Cindy Vindasius

Peter McKenzie, GM at a Blackstone portfolio company, professor at IESE Business School, and speaker at 50+ conferences across the world, talks frankly about executive presence for finance professionals, developed through 25+ years of C-suite experience   He coaches FP&A teams and CFOs on what exactly separates the executives who get recognised from the ones who don't (Communicate with influence, not just authority and focus on strategy and what boards actually want). 

In this episode

• What the board reads (and skips) in a board deck 
• What “business partnership” actually means 
• What knowing the numbers means 
• How to draw a narrative “red line” 
• Now that AI writes a competent narrative, what's the role for finance? 

Colin Moss worked for more than 10 years at Mars, which produces some of the world's best-loved brands including Royal Canin, M&M’s and Snickers. In this role, he partnered with the global Finance leadership team to design to stand up the new FinTech function, strengthening the connection between Finance and IT and leading a portfolio of 40+ initiatives, establishing resource and financial management disciplines (before that he was at famed confectionary maker Cadbury). In 2025 he took the leap to set up his own business, CM Strategies working  with organisations navigating growth and complexity, helping them redesign how the finance department partners with the business and builds capability .

His message about the function of FP&A is resonant and powerful:

“One  of the ways that I've seen it described is that your business, and  leadership team is, is the “head”, and FP&A is the “neck” because FP&A is showing that team where to look. In this context, FP&A is helping what's the context we're operating in? What's the strategy that we're executing against? And what does that mean for where we focus? What do we put our attention on? And that can be showing up in what KPIs we look at, but also what processes we need to improve.?”

In this episode

• Path to creation of my own business (in a “hard to leave” business)
• Early audit roles as the foundation of my career
• My early lessons about business partnership at Cadbury and Mars 
• Lessons from global finance transformation at Mars including KPI design and management reporting
• Power of judgement in FP&A 

Find out more about CM Strategies at  www.cmstrategies.co.uk