From being the First kid in her family to finish high school, Swati Bagri began as a role as auditor at Deloitte (“I did what any 17-year-old smart kid would do. I just followed my friends”). At Deloitte she discovered a “love of finance” realizing it’s “what I want to do for the rest of my life”.

Swati cemented her FP&A career at some of the world’s biggest brands: Nestlé, Mars, Amazon, and Kraft Heinz. At these giants she absorbed and built a playbook to get from “good” to “great” FP&A. Behing the success of FP&A at these teams, she explains is 3 things: strategic planning and forecasting, technology and risk management.

In this episode Swati talks about:

• Finance transformation as a significant part of her role (the slippery term of “finance transformation” defined as the “effective use of technology to free up people’s time”)
• How predictive analytics was used at Nestlé from rainfall data, and the wider playbook of building financial models with consumers in mind
• Hyperinflationary markets like Turkey and Egypt and FP&A and the lessons learned
• Business partnering roles at Amazon and Nestlé and what I have learned about successful relationship building towards common objectives
• Co-founding The Strategy Story (including learning about Marriage insurance for wedding days)
• Start by Explaining the P&L and coaching non-finance folk
• War stories – annual planning cycles
• FP&A-led transformation at an ecommerce marketplace business and getting buy-in from senior management through a data story
• The power of podcasts to keep your at the top of your finance game
• Sky Jumping and my favorite Excel function

Connect with Swati Bagri on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/swatibagri/

Book a mentoring session with Swati at https://topmate.io/swatibagri

We host our first ever FP&A guest from the US casino and gambling sector with the head of FP&A at Genting Americas, a world leader in casinos and lodging with luxurious loactions in Las Vegas, Bimini, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom.

Bill Singh is VP FP&A of Genting Americas, part of the world’s largest Destination Resort operator operating as Resorts World . Genting boasting five public companies capitalized at $45 billion and employing more than 50,000 people worldwide. This episode reveals their inside FP&A game including metrics such as “win per unit per day” tacking the “hold”. Bill is strategic leader with more than a decade leading FP&A and providing insights on skills and budgeting management, to insider advice about gaming.

In this episode:

• Getting an unexpected offer of an FP&A role at a casino in Nevada
• Why FP&A at the “nexus of data and decision-making” is an “ultimate” career path
• Critical skills you must develop in FP&A
• Giving “X+1” in your FP&A answers
• Salesmanship in FP&A
• FP&A metrics: “Win per unit per day and hold”
• Lodging: occupancy, your ADR, your revenue per available room
• Odds and statistics from tables, games and FP&A modeling
• Insider advice about gaming (including “Don’t play a game right by the door”)
• The power of leading budget for the operating side and the capital budget for all divisions +lessons from 10 years of budgeting
• The impact of AI in getting answers faster for operators
• MATCH+TEMPO – My favorite Excel function and lessons from drumming

Follow and connect with Bill Singh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billsinghprofile/

What’s the connection between FP&A and Taylor Swift? To answer we are joined by Michael Stotland, Vice President of FP&A at AEG Presents.

AEG Presents is one of the largest live music companies in the world, and most famously the concert promoter behind the $1 billion dollar revenue Eras Tour by Taylor Swift: the highest grossing tour of all time. For good measure, Stotland’s FP&A team also supports the tours of Paul McCartney, Katy Perry Elton John, and the Rolling Stones, and 25 music festivals, including the iconic Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, along with Stagecoach, the New Orleans Jazz Fest, hangout Fest, electric Forest, and Firefly.

In this blockbuster episode, we want to teach you how FP&A feels (apologies to Swifties): Michael Stotland VP of FP&A at AEG reveals in conversation with host Glenn Hopper:

• How growing up in Los Angeles the entertainment industry the entertainment industry was a natural choice, and starting my career at MGM
• Spreading my wings at 20th Century Fox
• Building up the FP&A function at MarVista (a TV and movie production company showcasing nearly 2,500 hours of content) and the story behind a facing a “fantastic year” during COVID FP&A leadership at AEG helping live entertainment “ return from the abyss”
• “Seeing the financials bounce” back as pent up demand was realized
• Pulling external data into daily FP&A work
• Heatmaps on beer costs and price of living as part of FP&A planning
• Managing 3 areas of FP&A at AEG: General, systems and business strategy units
• The FP&A dimension of Taylor Swift Eras Tour
• Using local macroeconomics to impact business decision-making – from the UK to Singapore and the US
• How Television revenues and licensing of big movies saves movie studios
• FP&A swiftness when Kanye West bowed out at the last minute at Coachella
• Using AI to look at past events and ticket sales and performance on a contribution margin basis
• Looking to optimize how we do FP&A and ambitions to become CFO
• Links between FP&A and my triathlon career

Connect with Michael Stotland Vice President, Financial Planning & Analysis at AEG Presents: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikestotland/

Further Reading:

Rolling Stone: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Is the Highest-Grossing of All Time and First-Ever to Hit $1 Billion

Investopedia: Swiftonomics: The Economic Influence of Taylor Swift

Datarails Blog: How FP&A makes Huge Hollywood Hits