FP&A Today

We take a deep dive into the finances behind the agricultural and food beverage sector with Brad Mooney, Director of FP&A at California Dairies. FP&A drives success at California Dairies which produces 40 percent of California’s milk (300 family-owned and operated members ship 17billion pounds of high quality milk annually) and is a manufacturer of quality butter, fluid milk products, and milk powders (including Challenge and Danish Creamery and milk powder brand, DairyAmerica). In this episode former Marine Corps turned FP&A leader Brad Mooney talks:

Building the plane as we flew it building FP&A

The metrics of “Timing yield and supply”  at California Dairies 

The Four Ps in finance building

Effectiveness of planning  and forecasting in a supply-driven business 

My view of FP&A Development 

FP&A as therapist

In our first FP&A Today episode to cover the shipping, ports and haulage sector, we look at the FP&A powering Peel Ports Group, the second largest port operator in the UK, which manages the vital gateways powering the UK. Alex Roche has built the FP&A team at Peels Ports, based in Liverpool, England, which generates £800M spread across 10 divisions. The group has invested over £1.5 billion over the past decade in advanced logistics, cranes, warehouses, and terminal upgrades. Highlights of his nearly decade time at Peel Ports include Co-building the Group's FP&A function for a £400m-EBITDA multi-site, and developing formal evaluation models for two major commercial deals totalling £100m+, enabling better-informed investment decisions and a £7.5m increase in realised deal value 

 

In this episode:

The importance of volume in ports and how KPIs revolve around the metric

M&A at Peels Port and setting up the FP&A team and building models 

FP&A recommendations around vertical integration  with a new haulage business 

The power of teaching others coming up in finance and accounting

Why Simon Sinek was right and FP&A should start with why  

Board on Peace Brigades International UK as a finance trustee 

Two favorite Excel functions

Dan Newman

heads FP&A at RingCentral, a $2.5B public SaaS company (a platform for business phone, SMS, contact center, workforce engagement management, video collaboration, and messaging) , where he has overseen a  period of 10X growth. Discussing a career comprising consulting, being a financial analyst at Salesforce, private-equity-backed startups, Dan discusses building financial models towards a sale, navigating the shift from 30% growth to efficiency, and AI processes.

In this episode

Building the FP&A team at SchoolMessenger and pivoting to a sale 

Joining RingCentral at a $250m run rate and a six-person FP&A team towards $2.5billion

Why revenue is rarely as simple as it looks 

Business partnering in an age of efficiency in SaaS

Caroline McAuliffe is Senior Vice President, Head of Corporate Finance (FP&A and Procurement) at Fannie Mae. In its Q1 2026 results, the government-owned mortgage giant boasted 33 consecutive quarters of profitability and $3.7B in net income in the quarter—delivered by a team of 7,000 employees. In this episode Caroline reveals the FP&A mindset and processes behind this success.

The career progression from audit to controllership, and FP&A

Combining procurement and FP&A 

Shifting from an annual budget cycle to a 2-year rolling forecast

How AI is transforming repetitive low value work including AI “flash reports needed supporting 50 officers at Fannie Mae

Secrets to being a CTA (Challenging Trusted Advisor) at Fannie Mae

In the third in our series on finance business partnering we are joined by David Manela, who has had the role of CRO and CMO at Fiverr, Ideei, and Vivre. As managing partner and co-founder of Violet Growth he is in high-demand at some of the hottest scaling companies, designing a  growth operating system that “speaks the CFO’s language from day one”. It is tailored to companies spending more than $10m annually on marketing and sales - with digital as the main growth channel.
“Spending a dollar in marketing is no different than spending a dollar in infrastructure, on say a forklift that you might need for your warehouse. You need a return on a specific schedule, and you need a percentage of returns on that schedule. Don't start with a campaign, start with a financial goal.”

 

In this episode on the highlights and lowlights of the FP&A relationship with marketing, David talks:

 

His background from audit to marketing and P&L responsibility at companies 

Marketing as an “investment” not a “cost”

The power of getting a marketing forecast  based on cohort behavior 

Payback period and capital constraints at Fiverr

Disconnected and expensive mistakes in business partnering 

The power of AI in marketing and finance