Episode 215

The most expensive finance hire can be the one that looks senior enough to feel safe but solves the wrong problem.

Tom Hunter of Story Recruitment joins FP&A Today to explain why the first finance hire at a startup is often not a CFO. Story Recruitment focuses on first-CFO and first-finance-hire searches for Australian tech, fintech and deeptech startups, and Tom also hosts The CFO Track Podcast. His starting point is simple: before choosing a title, define the financial problem the business actually needs someone to solve.

That often means building the basics first. Tom describes financial controls, governance and reliable reporting as the foundation that FP&A and strategy have to sit on. He also shares an example of a founder who included GST in ARR, overstating revenue and contributing to a chain of due-diligence concerns that ultimately cost the company its lead investor. For growing businesses, the finance function itself becomes a signal of how organized and decision-ready the company really is.

The back half of the conversation looks at how the finance skill set is changing. As AI and better tooling reduce the moat around some technical work, communication, commercial judgment, project management and the ability to influence better decisions become more valuable. Tom argues that finance professionals should not see themselves as ticket takers or back-office support. The strongest finance people operate as commercial enablers who understand the problem, explain the numbers and help move the business forward.

Key Moments

• Build the foundation before the forecast. Controls, governance and reliable reporting need to be in place before FP&A can confidently layer forecasting and strategy on top.
• The first finance hire is usually not a CFO. A Controller, Head of Finance, VP Finance or fractional leader may be a better fit depending on the company’s stage, scale and complexity.
• Investors judge the finance function as a signal. Clean models, trustworthy reporting and an organized data room can influence how investors perceive the broader business.
• Write the job around the problem. Rank the financial challenges the business needs solved, then build the role and job description around those priorities rather than around a prestige title.
• Candidates need to prove outcomes. The strongest finance candidates can explain what problem they faced, how they approached it and what changed as a result.
• Communication is becoming more valuable. As AI and tooling take on more technical work, finance professionals who can communicate clearly, influence stakeholders and lead decisions become more differentiated.
• Stay proactive in your career. Continuous learning and volunteering for opportunities gives finance professionals more control than waiting for promotions, vacancies or recruiters.
• Finance should be the commercial enabler. The best CFOs and FP&A leaders help the business make better decisions instead of operating only as a reporting or support function.
  
  

Timestamps

03:45 - Why controls and reporting come before FP&A and strategy
09:01 - Why investors see the finance function as a signal of how organized the business is
10:23 - The ARR reporting mistake that helped cost a founder the lead investor
16:04 - Do you actually need a CFO - or even a full-time finance hire?
20:02 - Build the finance role around the business problem it needs to solve
26:26 - Why communication is becoming one of the most important finance skills
37:17 - Staying relevant by learning, leveling up and being proactive
52:12 - Why the best CFOs are commercial enablers, not ticket takers

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Further Reading/Listening

About Tom Hunter

Tom Hunter, Story Recruitment - first-CFO and first-finance-hire search for Australian tech, fintech and deeptech startups. Host of The CFO Track Podcast.

You can find Tom at:
https://storyrecruitment.com.au

Tom on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-hunter-story/

Story Recruitment:
https://storyrecruitment.com.au

Anders Liu-Lindberg on finance funding its own transformation:
https://youtu.be/G892qsanpwQ?si=ZUupn7Pw4M6dgHTf

Building FP&A from scratch isn't primarily a spreadsheet problem. It's a people, process, and alignment problem.

Katelyn Stienen, Director of FP&A at Good Day Farms and a top-16 finisher at the Excel World Championship, joins FP&A Today to share what happens when you walk into a five-year-old business with more than 170 legal entities, around 10,000 budget lines, no dedicated planning system, and department heads who have never worked with a structured P&L. After experiencing established finance processes at much older organizations, Katelyn is now building the FP&A function from the ground up.

One of her biggest lessons was that introducing FP&A is not as simple as sending out a budget template. Katelyn had to establish what a budget actually means, connect operational budgets with the numbers being communicated to leadership and investors, and create a common financial playbook across the business. She explains why bottom-up planning creates better accountability, why finance should approach variance conversations as investigators rather than enforcers, and how seemingly small misses across individual entities can become material when consolidated.

The conversation also explores planning inside the highly regulated cannabis industry, when a growing company is ready for dedicated FP&A software, and how better systems can shift finance away from simply collecting numbers and toward understanding what is driving them. For Katelyn, the real job of FP&A is turning the stories coming from the business into numbers - and being able to explain why reality ultimately differed from the forecast.


Key Moments

● Building FP&A from zero starts with financial understanding, not templates. Before introducing a detailed budget, finance needs to understand how department leaders currently think about spending, forecasting, and accountability.
● The business needs one financial playbook. Operational teams cannot manage against one version of the numbers while leadership and investors work from another. FP&A has to connect the two. 
● Bottom-up budgeting creates better conversations. Greater line-item detail gives finance something concrete to challenge, explain, and manage with department leaders rather than simply holding them to a top-down target.
● FP&A should investigate, not assign blame. Katelyn shares her Director of Finance's description of finance as "reporters" trying to understand what happened rather than punish teams for missing a number. 
● Small variances can become significant at scale. An expense miss that looked insignificant at individual stores became a roughly $50,000 variance once Katelyn consolidated it across the organization. 
● Complex businesses require scenario thinking. Different regulations, tax treatments, markets, and operating models across states mean FP&A has to combine financial modeling with knowledge from legal, operational, and commercial teams.
● Technology should move FP&A from gathering numbers to asking better questions. With stronger reporting and consolidation in place, finance can spend less time finding the numbers and more time understanding what is driving them.
● Forecast accuracy is not the whole story. Katelyn would rather miss a forecast and be able to explain exactly why than hit the number without understanding what drove the result.


Timestamps

09:51 - What established companies taught Katelyn about what good finance processes look like
16:44 - "I'm starting at absolute zero": building a budgeting process where none existed
19:13 - Getting operations and leadership onto the same financial playbook
24:25 - Why FP&A should be "reporters," not a function that assigns blame
29:56 - Managing reporting and planning complexity across more than 170 entities
39:37 - Turning business stories and market knowledge into numbers and forecasts
42:09 - When is a company ready for dedicated FP&A planning software?
53:09 - Would you rather be lucky or good? Rethinking forecast accuracy


Earn CPE Credit

If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit earmarkcpe.com/fpa. Download the app,
take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate.


Further Reading/Listening

Katelyn Stienen - LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katelyn-stienen/

For FP&A, the most dangerous revenue number may be the one that looks credible enough not to question.

A $100 million acquisition was just three weeks from closing. The target had been audited, the opinion had come back clean, and the deal looked compelling. Then Devon Coombs, CPA, spent a weekend digging through the contracts and came back with a very different conclusion: the revenue story did not match the contractual rights and cash flows underneath it.

In this episode of FP&A Today, Devon explains why FP&A cannot automatically treat invoicing as revenue, how principal-versus-agent decisions can make the same transaction appear as either $100 or $3 of reported revenue, and why worsening cash flow can reveal problems that a strong top line hides. The conversation also looks ahead to AI and consumption-based pricing, where minimum commitments, usage, overages, invoicing cadence, and contract structure can make forecasting and revenue recognition substantially more complex.

The bigger lesson for FP&A is simple: understanding revenue means understanding the contracts and economics behind the number, not just the number itself.

Key Moments

• Revenue and cash flow need to tell a coherent story. Rising revenue and income should trigger questions when operating cash outflows continue to deteriorate.
• An invoice is not automatically revenue. Recognition depends on contractual rights, performance obligations, and when those obligations are actually satisfied.
• Gross versus net revenue can dramatically change the top line. The same $100 transaction could result in $100 or $3 of reported revenue depending on the company's role in the transaction.
• Good diligence starts before management explains the numbers. Devon describes looking at the financials first, forming an independent view, and then going directly to the underlying contracts.
• Contracts are an FP&A input, not only an accounting or legal document. Pricing, billing, and commercial terms can materially affect forecasts and the economics FP&A is trying to model.
• Standardization reduces revenue risk. Clearer offerings, pricing structures, contracts, and RevRec processes make it easier to scale without discovering problems during a transaction.
• AI and consumption pricing are changing the forecasting problem. Minimum commitments, overages, usage, breakage, and billing cadence can produce very different revenue patterns.
• Finance teams need a revenue architecture strategy. FP&A should understand how pricing, contracts, billing, revenue recognition, and forecasting fit together as one system.

Timestamps

05:29 — Should the same transaction produce $100 of revenue or $3?
08:15 — Why invoicing does not necessarily equal revenue
12:30 — The $100M acquisition everyone wanted to move forward with
17:58 — Devon's diligence method: start with the numbers, then read the contracts
18:42 — How the buyer avoided a $100M mistake
40:40 — Why SaaS, AI, and consumption-based pricing are changing the revenue model
48:45 — Practical steps for aligning offerings, contracts, and RevRec
56:05 — The revenue architecture question every FP&A team should be asking


Earn CPE Credits

If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit earmarkcpe.com/fpna. Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate.

Further Reading/Listening

Devon Coombs — Website & Resources:
https://www.devoncoombs.com/

Connect with Devon on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/devoncoombs/

The 10 Laws of Finance:
https://www.devoncoombs.com/book