September 13, 2022

Howard Tunnicliffe: How FP&A Drives Revenue at The Economist

42 minutes

Howard Tunnicliffe studied chemistry originally. Once he realized he “wasn’t the greatest experimental chemist ever” he made a switch to finance.

It was during an audit contractor role at US tech company Dell in 2007 that his eyes were opened to an unseen part of finance: the “rockstars of FP&A”. He saw FP&A as a place which joined “psychology” with the “nuts and bolts of how companies actually make money”.

Howard is now Head of FP&A in the subscriptions business at The Economist. The newspaper dates from 1843 and is consumed by 1,185,000 of the most highly influential subscribers in the world.

In this practical and frank episode, Howard reveals the inside story of his career in FP&A and how a revamped FP&A function has driven growth at The Economist.

Howard talks with Paul about:

How a relationship break up caused Howard to focus on soft skills that now define his career

How the FP&A team are told to find analysis and insights which contribute to paying back their salaries up to five-times

Moving core metrics from “volume” to “value” as a response to digitization of news

The importance of moving from hybrid roles to “centers of excellence” in finance

The key to successful business partnering with sales and marketing teams concentrating on drivers which bring sales

How FP&A managed a pricing strategy that increased total revenue by 15% and customer lifetime value by 20%

Though “unglamorous”, how listening in finance is key to all good finance work

Book recommendations to enhance soft skills that have transformed his career

His favorite Excel function!

Book Recommendations from Howard

Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism,

Brian Tracy, Eat That Frog

Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

Howard’s Courses

Grab these courses offered by Howard Tunnicliffe to improve your Soft Skills in Finance:

Become a Confident Networker

Leadership and Influencing

Follow Howard Tunnicliffe on LinkedIn

Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn

Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.

Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.

With Datarails you get improved data integrity and visibility helping your relationships with your internal business partners and external stakeholders; real-time latest version of all your company’s data in one place, with version control, audit trail and records, ensuring errors and multiple versions are avoided; the ability to let your data tell your story through proprietary, built-in visualization of critical KPIs in real-down; and drill-downs to answer questions on underlying data on the spot.

Get in touch at www.datarails.com

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Read the Blog and Full Program Transcript

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube

To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Leader being interviewed contact [email protected]

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By Glenn Hopper

4.8