Grab a beer and listen to this special episode. We are joined by Pavels Cvetkovs FP&A director at Carlsberg Group who reveals the formula of FP&A at the famous brand. Carlsberg was founded in 1847, has 140 brands, and 30,000 employees – and FP&A is core to their success, says Cvetkovs.
In this episode:
- How my career in the Big Four (and audit) served as “finance military school”
- Moving from business controller to FP&A
- The essence of Carlsberg – innovation in brewing and sustainability
- Distinct shareholder structure at Carlsberg run by Carlsberg foundation
- What’s so special about the beer and beverage industry and our FP&A practices
- Power of inventory management, sales seasonality, and supply chain and cost planning in brewing
- Forecasting and planning and achieving highest levels of collaboration
- FP&A set up and management of 10-20 KPIs at Carlsberg
- Business partnering as a mindset at Carlsberg
- Visiting sites in operations at Carlsberg
- Biggest challenges overcome in budget season
- Refining my financial modeling skills
Follow and connect with Pavels on Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavels-cvetkovs-471b231a
Full blog post and transcript
Glenn Hopper:
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Pavels Cvetkovs:
RAs. This is fp NA today.
Glenn Hopper:
Welcome to FP&A Today. I’m your host, Glenn Hopper. And joining us today is Pavels Cvetkovs, an accomplished finance professional with over a decade of expertise in FP&A a corporate finance and strategic planning. Pavels currently serves as the FP and a director at the Carlsberg Group, where he has played a pivotal role in driving the company’s financial health, strategic growth, and sustainability initiatives. With a career spanning finance roles in FP&A and supply chain, and M&A, Pavel’s has been at the forefront of innovation and operational excellence in finance. He brings a wealth of experience from companies like PwC and Ernst and Young and Gained experience being a co-founder of a small startup. We’re thrilled to dive into pavel’s journey and gain insights from his wealth of experience. Pavels welcome to the show.
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Thank you for having me here, <laugh>.
Glenn Hopper:
Let’s get started. Let’s, let’s dive in. Take me through your career and maybe going all the way back. Tell me how you got into fp and a in, in finance and, and take us up to where you are now.
Pavels Cvetkovs:
I think my finance, uh, career, uh, started to some extent accidentally I, finishing the school, um, finish school. I was not really sure actually where I would, I would like to go. And, and then, then I think what, what, how it’s usually happening. You, you look around, uh, what’s, what’s the inspiration of your classmates? And then, and then you probably try to copy, and I had one, uh, classmate who was very obsessed with, uh, in investments, uh, and, and, uh, financial markets. So I decided of why don’t I go actually to finance? So I decided to step in, in a finance program in a, in a bachelor. Uh, started with this, uh, overall understanding of, uh, how finance are organized and structured. And, um, very soon I realized that actually I would like to get a more practical experience. Uh, theory is always nice, but as you know, the, the practical experience is something which opens a full understanding on the area where, where you are going to work and, and develop.
Somehow I got to this, uh, feeling and understanding that the good start actually would be from the consultancy company. Um, so after the first grade, I actually started already working. I, I, I managed to find a part-time job. Uh, I joined an accounting, uh, company and, uh, started my, um, professional kind of experience in, in there. Very soon I realized that, um, there are actually better companies or actually the better moment where you can get, um, maybe more qualitative knowledge and experience. And, and, and one of the other that companies was, Ernst & Young, uh, big four company. And that’s how I, I joined that. I think I spent around four years, uh, working in auditing and, uh, assurance services. And, uh, after that, uh, somehow realized that I’m not, I’m not really willing anymore to continue with, with auditing field as such and, and having so many, uh, en engagements, uh, or, or projects.
Um, uh, in that time, uh, I, I had a, a great chance to, um, to see how many different industries, uh, are set up and especially as, as well as companies, and somehow decided that, uh, probably it’s a time now to move into one of the industry and start focusing specifically within one industry. That’s pretty much was my <laugh> my past to FP&A. That time, of course, it was not really explicit of p and a. I think it’s, uh, the first job I got was called a business controller. Yeah, typical business controller in, in finance, which was doing both, uh, main functions of, uh, controlling, uh, the financial performance, but also doing some planning. Today in, in, in many organizations, this controlling is also separated from financial planning activities.
Glenn Hopper:
I think that your background as doing audit and then controllership, I mean, that is a foundation and I think you can’t do good FP&A without a solid understanding of GAP or IFRS or the accounting principles and understanding, you know, the accrual side and all the, the details that go into building the foundation of the data you’re working with. Do you find that, um, you know, doing your FP&A, do you still, I know you moved on happily from audit, but do you find yourself kind of looking back to those days or looking back at controllership and scholarship and realizing that the skillset that you took from that is still applicable?
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Yeah, absolutely. I actually consider that the, the, the auditing experience, uh, or working for one of these big four companies is equally going to through the finance military school. Yeah, it’s, it’s actually, it’s so much information which you are exposed to and, and you learn it so quickly. I, I think that’s actually the, the, the most efficient way of, of, uh, getting through the practical understanding of what is accounting, what is management accounting, and as you mentioned, in international financial reporting standards or international accounting standards. So you get actually the, the, the, the knowledge, um, which is absolutely valuable for fp and a further, I guess. Um, and, uh, and, and that’s, that’s what I consider as a, as a probably a base, uh, because of course, at the end of the day, what FPNA does or expected to do is, is to, to, to be able to read the, the numbers and, and translate them in, in a meaningful, clear way to, to, to, to, to its stakeholders and top management. Of course, of course. It’s, it’s not gonna be only management reports where you extract this information from. Uh, um, so you, you, you should be able, you should be iterate with, with international financial boarding standards,
Glenn Hopper:
Going straight from audit to beer drinking. I wanna talk about Carlsburg group. So, uh, talk, tell us about, um, about your, your company, what Carlsburg Group does, and, um, kind of the essential things that finance people need to know about carlsburg and its industry. Because, you know, when we have guests on, I love to always hear about the different kind of KPIs we track and everything, and, and the approach at, at your company and just, um, across the, the industry to fp a
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Yeah, sure. It was a pleasure. So, Cosby Company, um, what it actually stands out, uh, for maybe from its peers, um, I think first it’s innovation and brewing, uh, big emphasis on sustainability. But what is also interesting, uh, to, to know, um, that the shareholder structure is, um, is a pretty dis instinct. Um, the, the company is largely controlled by Carlsberg Foundation. So, um, that unique setup differentiates it, uh, from, from many its peers in the global beer industry. So, uh, the foundation focuses on the long-term health and sustainability of the company. Back in the days founded by JC Jacobson, had the mission, uh, to support scientific research, uh, and art and, and culture. And, and also today dividends from, um, from Kosberg, uh, received by foundation. Uh, I used to fund this, uh, philanthropic, uh, activities. You can say that the, the shareholders are not only, uh, uh, chasing the, the purely profit, uh, but also, uh, support the, the broader societal contributions. It would be interesting to talk also about industry as such. ’cause as on your show, uh, Glen, there are many, uh, representative from, from different se uh, industries. And, and then when we talk about, uh, fp and a, then of course, um, it has its own specific within the industry. And maybe just briefly try to e explain you what, what’s so special about beer and beverage industry?
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, yeah.
Pavels Cvetkovs:
I, I think first of all, it’s, it’s a highly dynamic sector with its own specific practices, processes and, and also reporting requirements. So beverage companies share also common financial structures with, with other industries, but, but also face distinct challenges that shape the, the organization and reporting in beverage industry, financial organization typically aligns with, uh, global and regional scale of the company. Um, it’s, uh, operational structure can be as a, or is it centralized or decentralized, also probably correlates with the size of the company. And talking about global beverage companies, uh, like us, uh, we, we do have a centralized finance, uh, functions, uh, at corporate level, um, but also regional, um, finance teams overseeing specific, uh, geographies, talking about specific, uh, specifics in in finance area. The beverage industry faces unique challenges, uh, if we compare it to, to, to some other industries. Again, um, first of all, it’s around inventory management.
It’s about, uh, sales season, seasonality, and, and then of course, multicurrency operations. So just, uh, maybe picking up some examples. Um, on, on revenue, revenue streams, often in our industry, there are a mix of revenue streams, so it can be direct sales to retailers, distributors, or online platforms, or directly to stores or licensing. And typically also sales are followed by, um, a complex discounts compilation, which requires, uh, often solid, uh, accounting guidelines. And of course, uh, a good support from the systems. When it comes to cost accounting, <laugh> can be very complex, um, uh, especially when it comes to cost of goods sold. Um, so understanding and planning of those typically require also advanced ERP systems, um, uh, which, which can handle the complex cost allocations. Um, so overall supply chain finance area in, in, uh, beverage industry is, is a, is is a very standalone, unique area, uh, requires its own, uh, processes and, um, specific techniques in how, how you approach the cost planning and, and analysis as well. And of course, as you can imagine, the beverage companies, uh, are also capital intensive comp companies so often invest, uh, heavily in, in production plants and production lines and distribution networks. So, um, that, that creates necessity of having long-term demand planning, uh, on, on pret granular also level, for example, on the packaging level. Yeah, that’s, that’s just to give you an overview of how complex this <laugh> environment is.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And then I guess you add in there too, I mean, with perishable items, so you have the supply chain, you’re trying to, to forecast, you have inventory, you have, uh, you know, timestamps on the inventory, basically of <laugh> when it has to move by. So I, I imagine the forecasting is, is very difficult on, on that front.
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Yeah, yeah, true. And, and of course, the, the forecasting and budgeting process is the process, uh, which, which involves, uh, very high level of collaboration between the departments, either within the big finance department or departments, as you mentioned, between sales and, and, and logistics and production and marketing. It’s pretty heavy, heavy process, uh, when it comes to, to budgeting here. And, um, I, I, I think that’s, uh, that’s actually also one of the things which makes this, um, fp and a job and specifically in this industry, very, very much exciting.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And I guess let’s dig into that a little more about, um, so we’ve gotten through budget season now we’re in, uh, we’re fully into, into 2025. You guys are on calendar year, right?
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Yes.
Glenn Hopper:
Walk me through kind of the setup of fp and a and, and the sort of the philosophy and outputs, um, of, from your fp and a team.
Pavels Cvetkovs:
I think in this case, uh, we are pretty much, uh, consistent and, and pretty logical. So finance organization tries to, uh, to render services also following the, the, the, the structural, uh, setup. Um, so having a business partner in, in, in every, uh, function as, as, as mentioned before, production, logistics, marketing, sales, et cetera. Some, some business unit actually may have, um, more of, um, business partner roles, uh, within the, uh, department. Um, so it’s, it pretty much also correlates with, with the priorities and, and certain tasks, uh, which, which are defined by top management, um, in, in this specific business unit, as you can imagine. Therefore, the, when, when it comes to deliverables in, of fp and a, in, it’s also, it’s also different, of course, pretty much if we talk about KPIs in a single function, uh, I think the number can reach up to 10 20 KPIs.
And it’s, it’s not necessarily that all these KPIs would be, you know, tracked on the, let’s say on the top management level at the end of the day. Uh, of course, uh, uh, uh, I think performance management reporting, uh, which lands on the table of, um, of, um, executive, uh, committee or board is way more condensed. It does contain only, I think, traditional, so to say, maybe metrics like revenue growth and EBIT margin and, and something maybe about cost structures. Uh, while these functional KPIs, of course, are very vital and to be tracked and analyzed and, uh, and also planned, uh, properly, I think it’s very operational thing. The things related to production, to productivity or a, or, or efficiency or, you know, utilization or, or waste or health and safety, it’s in quality. So all, all these metrics are all important, but they are just, um, coming through maybe different stage of the, of the process.
Glenn Hopper:
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You mentioned, uh, business partnering, and I know we also talked about this a little bit before the show. I’ve been in, in finance since, uh, you know, be the invention of the telephone, I think <laugh>. Um, and so, you know, watching the, um, field evolve over the years, it’s, it’s only in recent years that we started hearing about business partnering, and it is, like we talked about before the show. It’s, it’s so important and I think your approach to it and the way you guys are doing it there. Could you walk me through sort of kind of your approach to business partnering and, and what benefits you see from it and kind of your, your best secrets to really being truly embedded with the, uh, with the other, uh, departments and organizations?
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Yeah, and, uh, maybe I would like also to explain it maybe from two, from two angles. Um, so first would be if, if you look at business parting from their organization point of view, or, or if you like, specifically top management point of view. So, uh, basically from the, from the angle where, where you need to understand how, uh, how to implement business partnering, uh, how, how to make it, uh, work. Um, what, what are these maybe prerequisites, what are these conditions which you, you need to take care about? Often when, when we talk about business partnering, it, it, it sounds like it’s something what you can easily adopt, but in a way, I, I see that business partnering is a, is a, first of all, it’s, it’s a mindset. It’s also behavior, but it’s also, uh, it’s a certain ways of working. And in order to understand what, what, what, how, how it should be actually executed, what, what are this main, what is the mission of the business partner, et cetera.
You of course need to understand, uh, as an organization what goals you would like, uh, to be addressed by business partnering. Also, what would be the, the governance in, in the company in order to also support this, let’s say, concept, uh, could, could work. That’s maybe the first thing. Um, another thing is, of course, um, it, it’s very hard to imagine how business partnering could work if you, if in an organization there is no such fundamental thing, like a, a proper data quality and, and availability, of course, uh, because as, as you may have heard, uh, business partnering implies that, uh, uh, finance people, they, they, uh, devote most of their time being a sparring partner for one or another business, uh, function or unit. It also depends on specifically which role. You also consider when you talk about business partnering. If you talk about CFO role, then of course it’s first of all, uh, partnering through CEO.
And in order to do that, uh, you, you, you would like, that support is also, uh, data-driven. So the, the insights which business partner could extract, they should be also data driven. So without this kind of ground, it’s very hard to imagine how, um, how that, uh, business partnering could happen. Talking from a point of view of a business partner as, as a role, I think there are key, key, um, skills or, or, or capabilities which, which are required. First of all, it’s of course analytical, um, uh, analytical capabilities should be, uh, supported by, by very strong business acumen because, uh, not understanding how your, um, company is, is, uh, earning money, how, uh, how your company is, is, uh, brewing, for example, how, how your company is delivering goods and, and, and stuff like that. So basically, uh, without proper understanding of in, in details how processes are set up, how they’re interlinked, um, how it’s all being translated, again, back on the paper, uh, in, in a ERP system, et cetera.
Um, I, I don’t see that that would make, um, ability to, uh, to provide with good data driven insights, um, to, to our stakeholders. Another skill, uh, which I, I find should or is critical for, uh, for, uh, a business partner role is ability to challenge and, um, not only challenge, but also show a direct direction, uh, to, to your stakeholders. Uh, and that, uh, that of course, uh, also should be supported by, by strong negotiation skills, uh, of course communication skills. That’s probably the key things, which I see when it comes to business partner.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, and I think it’s really evolved as the expectation in the role of finance and fp and a has evolved, where prior to talking about business partnering and prior to, um, fp and a branching off from controllership and being its own division, the idea was, you know, finance, you could be in this ivory tower of, you didn’t touch the rest of the business, you were just reporting the numbers. If it wasn’t in the general ledger, you didn’t care. And it was all about, you know, uh, making sure that, uh, everything was accounted for in, in the right place and that everything, you know, that we’re staying within budget and that we are calling out any variances to the budget and all that. And then I think over time, as you’ve seen, you know, there’s a lot more automation now, and there’s an expectation that beyond the automation, beyond being a cost center and beyond being a backward looking reporting group, you’ve gotta add some value to the business.
And you’re not gonna do that if you don’t get out and get into the business with operations, with marketing, with logistics, with, you know, all the different, uh, groups in the company. So it’s made us <laugh> as finance people. Yes, we are domain experts, um, in finance, but then we’re getting out and we have to understand the rest of the business. And I think that for a company moving to this, it’s difficult at first because there can be this sort of, um, you know, oh, the finance person doesn’t understand what we do, and they’re just gonna report things and they’re gonna make, make it, make us look bad by reporting numbers that we don’t agree with. So going in, in that, the partnership part is a real part of it, so you have to establish the trust of the group, and they have to trust you as well. So it’s, um, to be able to report, you know, decide together what are the KPIs, how are we defining them, how do we measure them, and all that. I’m wondering, and if, if you guys have been doing this for a while, was it hard initially to establish that trust and do the groups now? Do you feel like business partnering is working well and that the teams are, are happy to have a finance analyst, you know, kind of dedicated to them that understands they’re part of the business? Yeah,
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Absolutely. That’s what I also wanted maybe to say, uh, highlighting what, what are these prerequisites for business partnering organizations? So first of all, of course, top management or organization as such should foster this environment. And in, in Carlsberg for example, uh, I think it’s, it’s happening in a very good way. So if you are a business partner in, in one of the business functions and working in, in the brewery, it’s very appreciated. Uh, even strongly advised that, uh, you go in the field on a regular basis. If you work in a commercial function, you go together with, uh, sales representatives, uh, with merchandisers to see how they work, what do they do? Then of course, you discuss also, uh, uh, how, um, performance, uh, measurement is, is happening. Uh, what are the struggles? And, and, and the more questions you ask, the better the, the more knowledge you get and, and the be the better understanding you get, what, what, what could be improved?
What what is not really working equally, if it’s a, a supply chain function, you, you should get to the, uh, operations. You, you have to, uh, visit sites. You have to go and understand, uh, how, uh, production lines are working, how the process is, is, is set up, um, what are the roles there, who’s doing what and, and, and how. And, and again, try to make a link with the dashboards, which you see, or you prepare or you analyze and, and so that you have this, um, sequence or, um, a logical chain, uh, built first of all in, in, in, in your head to understand, uh, that I, I, I know what each of these KPIs mean. I know what are the consequences of, of, uh, having this, uh, KPI, for example, going up or down, um, and, and see this, uh, dependencies and interconnections. So definitely when we talk about business partnering, we, we, we are not just meaning that a, a a strong analyst sitting in the back office and, and, uh, digesting, uh, millions of data points. It’s, it’s first of all, a person who actually understands, who have seen how businesses operating, what does it mean
Glenn Hopper:
Exactly. And it adds so much more value. Alright, well, I wanna go into a, a group of questions. I wanna get your, your take on fp and a in general and talk about some of your experiences. I know, you know, we’re, uh, at, at the time of this recording, we’ve, everybody’s just gotten through budget season, we’re sort of stabilizing right now and, uh, and looking forward to the year and, um, and trying to figure out, you know, uh, next steps and, and the projects for the year and all that. But, um, you know, as we look back at budget season, I’m, uh, one, one thing that’s always, uh, fascinating when I talk to practitioners who’ve been doing this for a while, we love to hear about maybe some challenges that you’ve had to overcome. And I think just right, right, on the heels of budget season, is there a challenging budget experience that you can recall at any point in your career that, uh, you’d like to share with our listeners?
Pavels Cvetkovs:
<laugh>, in that question, probably I would not have any regional answer. <laugh>, when it comes, uh, to budgeting, what is, uh, often a, a, a a challenge is, um, well, let’s say it, it, it can be very much different. Uh, it, it first of all, of course, would be very much dependent on the, so to say, maturity of the team, uh, how, uh, how senior team is, how many, uh, budgeting, uh, maybe cycles you have gone over this through. Uh, so, uh, that, that would mean that you, you know, actually how to manage expectations, you know, how to prepare for the budgeting process upfront, uh, because of course, the planning phase or activities, uh, is, is I think taking a, uh, fundamental part of, of the budgeting, um, process, uh, uh, I mean, planning of activities, so how you are going to exactly run the budgeting cycle, who is go going to do what, how many meetings with whom you should have and, and et cetera, et cetera.
And of course, uh, devote enough time to understand that, um, alignment, uh, is, is gonna take place in time, uh, and with right people as, uh, right stakeholders. Yeah, the, the most maybe challenging experience. Well, <laugh>, I remember of course one year when, when, um, when we had to revise our demand plan five times, um, over a few weeks time, um, uh, and, and, uh, and it was all direct consequences of recalculating your, you know, profitability top line, and then being also able to, to recalculate or to review what, what, what implications does it have on your costs, uh, development and, and, and et cetera. I believe many of fp and a professionals have had similar kind of cases. So I, most, most probably I’ll not have any, any, any more <laugh> exciting story in, in this area.
Glenn Hopper:
It’s funny when you talk about that, I mean, I think it just talking about having to redo the demand and thinking about rolling it all the way through the budget, that’s where every year you try to get that model, so right, you’re trying to figure out, okay, this needs to be flexible because I’m gonna have to pull out all the drivers and drop, drop in a whole new model, and it’s, we’re gonna do this 31 times <laugh> over the next, you know, couple of months as, as we figure this out. And it’s every year a, uh, a challenge. But with technology, it’s, it’s getting a little, little bit easier. I mean, I’m did this long enough ago we’re, we, were doing everything in Excel, you know, <laugh> just with, with no help from really other, other software. So at least, uh, tech’s helping a little bit on that front.
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Yeah, absolutely. I think, of course, technology today is a, is a, is a big enabler in, in, in efficiency in the budgeting. It’s interesting that for some people, uh, there, there is no really, they don’t see a, a big difference between the budgeting and forecasting processes. And then, and that’s what makes eventually them actually to approach the budgeting process more as a forecasting process. So they, they, they tried, they really put their own maximum efforts on, on getting the, uh, accuracy close to a hundred percent. And, and, and, and you don’t try to detail every nitty gritty, uh, item in, in, in, in either it’s, uh, your demand plan or your cost, uh, planning and structure, which is of course having its own consequences. Again, when we talk about the challenging experience, my, um, professional career, I, I, I saw people were just burning out, uh, just because they, they, um, they didn’t have the right approach to the process doing more than expected or than, uh, doing, doing more than needed. And trying to, to, to go an extra mile was a very good intention. At the same time, not realizing that that’s actually not the, the objective of the, of the process.
Glenn Hopper:
It’s funny when you say that I spent most of my career in private equity back to companies with, with some PE analysts, just constantly just <laugh> getting all up and wanting me to explain every little thing and, and trying to go, you know, nine levels deeper on everything I did. So I, I fell victim a lot of times in my career to, um, there’s that saying that, um, what is it, the map is not the terrain, but you’d spend so much time in these models that that became the reality, and you would, rather than, you know, it was top down or bottom up budgeting or whatever the, the forecast was, became this just trying to find correlations and overcomplicate it with these internal drivers and external drivers and all that, and trying to fit what the business is gonna do to this model rather than something that accurately represents, you know, and then if, if the pe if, if they’re telling you this is your revenue growth target, these are your cost cutting. So you try to model everything and then jam the real world <laugh> into it. And it can be, it can be a nightmare, but I spent probably more time than I would care to admit, uh, in living in that reality <laugh>.
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Yeah. And, and that’s actually actually, uh, I would say, uh, very resonates, uh, to, to how I also used to work and actually probably currently working, because sometimes, uh, that much loving the, the analytical part of, of, of, yes, of, of this job is that you get obsessed with, with this, uh, crazy ideas that you, you try to, to, to build something complex, which is, uh, absolutely, uh, time consuming exercise. And then maybe it’s not even maybe adding value much to the, to the process. And again, talking about the objective of, of the, of the work that you should accomplish. But at the same time, you, you get so much fun and, and excitement out of this exercise that you, you sit the days and nights and, and working on this, um, uh, different models and, and trying to get these, uh, things in, in some better shape and also kind of challenge you challenge yourself on, on something more that, um, that eventually again, uh, it leads to some, uh, sometimes negative results that, uh, um, not only from the host point of view, but also, uh, from the expectations point of view. Because, um, that’s, um, that’s, I think where is there is a, maybe a, a, a, a a thin border is that you, you, you, you have to understand that this is minimum requirement, uh, what, what what is expected for me to deliver in this process and that that is, that, that are all nice to have things. And, uh, you have to balance with those.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And that, I mean, but to your point though, that’s, that’s why most of us, that’s why we are drawn to FP&A. It’s like, if you like the black and white nature of accounting with credits and debits and everything in a place, then that’s for you. But if you like to geek out on statistics and, and math and, and building out, uh, you know, just trying to build out these great models, I mean, that’s part of the reason that we, we come to fp and a, so, so I get it, and it is fine. And honestly it would be, uh, that’s why I, I do a lot of teaching now too, and, uh, and I love going through and, and explaining how to build models and use complicated, uh, forecasting techniques and, you know, seasonality and trend and, and all that that you put into models. It is, it is fun to do that, but sometimes can be a little too <laugh>, too removed from the, uh, from the real world. We’re getting close into time here, but I wanted to cover a couple of other questions. Um, so first off, you know, we, we talked a lot about where you’ve been and where your focus has been, but is there anything that’s, uh, kind of top of mind for you right now, something you’re trying to master or something you’re focusing on in your, uh, career right now?
Pavels Cvetkovs:
I, I have been continuously refining my financial modeling skills, but, but at this point of time, I think particularly interested in, in, in, in, uh, exploring different techniques to, to, to uncover the relationships between all possible multiple VA variables and, and, and to work on the, on, on this future trends prediction. So, uh, in other words, just trying to get some practical use of, of various regression analysis. It’s yeah, something, uh, which, which drives me a lot today.
Glenn Hopper:
Yep, yep. <laugh>, are you doing anything with, uh, AI or, or generative ai, any of the chat GPT or anything like that?
Pavels Cvetkovs:
No, not at this point of time. I actually tend to read a lot and, and hear a lot about it, but I, i, I still have not really found the, the practical way how to approach that. So yeah, something to, to, to, to, to work on.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s kind of a, a personal passion of mine is the only reason I ask. And it is interesting to see, I mean, there’s, you know, early on people were able to see very stark applications that of this is where you could use it in, in marketing or in, you know, uh, in other areas that are more, uh, qualitative than the sort of deterministic need that we have in, in finance. So, but I do, I mean, I, there’s, there’s movement there, so it’s gonna be interesting to see what happens with, with AI in, in finance the next couple years too. Alright, well a couple of, uh, a couple of personal questions to, uh, to close this out. There’s, um, first off, uh, we always love to ask our guest on, on the personal side, what’s something that, uh, not many people know about you, something that maybe we, uh, just by looking at your LinkedIn profile, we wouldn’t, wouldn’t know.
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Yeah, <laugh>, I’m, uh, I’m, I think I generally, I’m not really a, a, a social person. Yes, I do have some, uh, accounts in, in various social networks, but it’s not that I’m actually living though in, in there. Um, and also, um, uh, something maybe to, to to work on in, in future as well. But, um, well, I actually love coding. I I used to do programming, uh, when I was in school, um, over few years and yeah, at some, at some point I actually gave up. Um, it, it, it became somehow kind of pointless for me. I didn’t have a vision. Why, why I, I, I, I would be continuing doing that, but apparently, of course, uh, going through that type of learning and understanding, forming this structural, uh, systematic thinking that’s, uh, still left with me. If there is an, an a chance of, of of, of, uh, writing some script somewhere in relation to, to, to one of another, you know, uh, task, uh, which you could actually automate, uh, even for the personal stuff, for the,
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah.
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Private stuff, let’s say I actually take a chance and I do that. So it’s, I I I really enjoy that.
Glenn Hopper:
Were you, uh, were you ever a, a VBA guy in Excel?
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Yeah, yeah, I do that. Yeah.
Glenn Hopper:
That’s good. Yeah. And, uh, what about, what about Python in Excel?
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Um, no, not yet. I I, I’ve gone through the course at one point of time, but then I, I somehow could not really find, uh, practical use of, of, of applying this, uh, skills in, in, in, in my daily job. Um,
Glenn Hopper:
Same, I’m, I’m fascinated by it, and I think it is, I mean, a lot of people are gonna do great things with it, but I’ve, you know, I’m not really a programmer, but I’ve done some citizen development and can use some Python and I haven’t been able to figure out, you know, really where that use case is, um, uh, with Python in Excel and I think, but I think it’s gonna emerge just like copilot in Excel. I think copilot right now. You know, we don’t really u use it much. It’s kind of like a clippy the old, uh, <laugh> the old assistant from Microsoft Office. Um, but I think they are, I, I think they’re gonna get there and it’s gonna be interesting to see where it goes. And actually, speaking of Excel, yes, everybody’s favorite question. <laugh>, what is your favorite Excel function and why? <laugh> <laugh>,
Pavels Cvetkovs:
I, I would not maybe call it a favorite, uh, is, is, is would sound that I’m, I’m using it every day. The function called indirect, uh, at one point, uh, of, of my professional career actually helped me a lot to progress with complexity of my modeling solutions. Um, so for those maybe who have not used it in, in, in very much, um, it’s a volatile function, which means that, uh, every time you open the workbook, it recalculates the data. It, it definitely has pros and cons. So for example, when, when it comes to big data files, you, you would not be willing to have a lot of these, um, functions, uh, activate active in the workbook just because it’s really slows down the, the work with the file. But as, as the benefit of, of, of that is, uh, that you can set up the dynamic ranges. And, and I think that’s, that’s really, um, something to, to explore. If, if, if at some point you, you kind of stuck with your idea and you don’t see how you could, uh, you know, progress with, um, with specifically dynamic listing, uh, or, or conditional, uh, selection of something, uh, then just have a look at this function and, and especially it can be very good widely used with all the functions as in combination.
Glenn Hopper:
Great. Great. And we don’t, I don’t, I’m trying to think, I don’t know that I’ve gotten that response from someone before, and it’s been a while, uh, you know, uh, being out of the trenches as I have the past few years, you know, in CFO type roles, I’m not building the models like I used to. But, uh, yeah, thinking back that is, uh, in indirect is a, is a great response there. And now I, now I kind of wanna go play around with that again. <laugh> <laugh>. Well, Paval, that’s about it for the, uh, time that we have today. I really appreciate you coming on and, and sharing your, um, sharing your insights and, um, and being on the show. So thank you again. Yeah,
Pavels Cvetkovs:
Thank you very much, man.
