INTRODUCTION TO THE CO-AUTHOR

Lisa is a co-founder of a consulting firm that works with management teams to create confident decisions backed by data.  She uses financial modelling as a way to help her clients articulate their vision, bring colour through the numbers and break the strategy down into actionable steps.

Her company name, Effigy Consulting, is based around our belief that a financial model is a representation of the business:  The model is a safe space where you can test a business model and assumptions rather than destroying the actual business.

Very few 😬 finance professionals have what it takes to build a good financial model, but if you use a few short steps you can find 👀 those diamonds👷 in the rough.

It's like changing someones title to Finance Business Partner and expect them 😁 to suddenly add value and build good models.

It doesn't work 👎that way, never will!

Without the right training and hiring you will just be running on the same tredmill 😵 with the same people with the same skills gap😱.

Being an advanced excel user📈(not that anyone can succintly explain exactly what that means) helps, but its certainly not the only criteria.☝

Forecasting does not guarantee you will be great at financial modelling. 😱

Just because you can drive a car doesn't mean you can be a Formula 1 race car driver. 🚗

Playing T20 cricket doesn't guarantee you will be a great test cricketer. 😁

The same goes for forecasting and financial modelling. 📊 📈 📉

#FinancialModelling #Finance #FutureofFinance

Is all this tech talk and Finance Transformation getting a bit much? 😵

Where do you start and stop? 🚦

There is so much on offer from RPA to Analytics to Modelling. 📈

Read my co-authored 🙌 article with Anders to learn more and demystify all the jargon and pick some practical solutions you can try. 👍

#finance #futureoffinance #analytics #Excel #cloud #digitization #FinancialModelling

I often get direct messages on LinkedIn from people asking me for either a job, career advice or helping them understand financial modelling and how do they apply for jobs in Australia, thinking Australia is immune to accountants losing jobs or unable to get them.

I wrote this blog to help the many that are lost in this fast evolving work force.

3 years ago I stepped out of the corporate world and became, what I didn't realise at the time, a virtual CFO for Banjo (Fintech lender).

I don't really like the word VCFO but it's what we have for now so let's just roll with it. Probably a blog on its own.

This post is some more tips and tricks I learnt along the way and especially clearly proving the Power of One = Power of None.

I hope you can learn from my mistakes.

Over the past year I've met many finance professionals as part of our FOFM world tour and future of finance workshops.

Despite all the hype of digital finance transformation and the rise of analytics and advanced AI and ML there is one thing that still concerns me deeply about our ability to adopt change, innovation and better Excel skills.

I'm not even referring to adopting new tools and technologies (many of which will radically change our work today and are here now) but changing how we use our existing tools.

This is a technical architectural blog on the best system archicture for future of finance. It has to be Agile and yes, have a bit of Excel mixed in the middle.

Enjoy

This is a passionate topic of mine so join me in a jousting sessions with Christopher Argent and Andrew Codd on a video recorded podcast - Strength in the Numbers show.

It is guaranteed to be a blast !

This blog is an update to one I did previously on the skills relating to financial modelling.

This blog also covers off on the other aspects to consider when closing the gap on this skill.

Ever heard of the term Monte Carlo Simulation. Its more than just an awesome casino its a much better way to make forecasting decisions.

Want to know more? 

Read this blog and you will change your mind about decision making.