AFP Conversations

According to a recent survey published in Forbes, data scientists spend nearly 80 percent of their time collecting and cleaning data, and only 20 percent actually using it. Emily Huang, CEO and co-founder of fintech startup idaciti, thinks that 80:20 ratio has to flip, and she has a solution. In the latest edition of AFP Conversations, Huang discusses how idaciti parses public financial filings fr...

Libor is going away in 2021 and treasury and finance executives are slowly making preparations. One item on their to-do list is fallback language. That's the wording to indicate the rate that corporates would… fall back on in the event a Libor-related loan is still around after Libor sunsets at the end of 2021. Fortunately for finance executives, the Alternative Reference Rates Committee, which is...

One reason why we find it so hard to focus is because we are so busy trying to be productive. Trying to squeeze as much out of the moment as possible. And there are so many things to do at any moment. So how do we prioritize? Chris Bailey has been called a "productivity mastermind" by Fast Company. He is the international bestselling author of two books -- Hyperfocus and The Productivity Project -...

Avi Goldfarb is the Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare and a Professor of Marketing at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He is also Chief Data Scientist at the Creative Destruction Lab, Senior Editor at Marketing Science, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and President of Goldfarb Analytics Corporation. In his new book, "Pre...

Bryan Lapidus, FP&A, is the Director of the FP&A practice at the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP). Lapidus has worked in financial planning and analysis for American Express and Fannie Mae. He's also worked in risk management which gives him a bit of a unique perspective on forecasting. Also a prolific author and blogger, his work can be found at AFPonline.org, The Digitalist, Oracle...

Libor, the world's most important number, is going away in 2021. But according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, banks and corporates have been slow to move away from the rate – even as regulators are uncharacteristically ahead of schedule in creating alternatives. So why are finance executives dragging their feet? Laurie Brignac has some thoughts. Brignac is the chief investment officer an...

From 2004 to 2008, Fran Townsend served as Assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and she chaired the Homeland Security Council. Townsend spent 13 years at the U.S. Department of Justice under the administrations of President George H. W. Bush, President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush. Today, Townsend is a director on the board of three public...

Payments fraud reached a new high last year. Again.  According to the 2019 AFP Payments Fraud & Control Survey, 82 percent of organizations reported payments fraud incidents in 2018. That beat the previous high of 78 percent set in 2017. As always, the AFP Payments Fraud & Control Survey is underwritten by J.P. Morgan. You can download the entire report at AFPonline.org/paymentsfraud . Why is paym...

Has blockchain lost its mojo? Today's guests on AFP Conversations podcast disagree. Dr. Sean Stein Smith is an assistant professor at the City University of New York, certified public accountant, and a member of the advisory board of the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance. Roberto Cruz Jr., is a certified treasury professional and Treasury Director for the North American Parent Subsidiary of Suez Nor...

U.S. companies built their cash reserves at a much slower pace in the first quarter of the year than in the last quarter of 2018, according to the AFP Corporate Cash Indicators ® . What does that mean for the domestic economy? Kevin Kane, Managing Director with BMO, joins AFP Conversations host Ira Apfel to give his thoughts on the state of corporate cash.  The CCI is a quarterly survey of senior...

In part two of a two-part interview executive coach Chip Colbert joins host Jim Kaitz for a special AFP Conversations: Leadership Series podcast. Colbert led an executive coaching series at AFP 2018. He was so well received that he and his executive coaching series will return to AFP 2019 this October in Boston. Read Colbert's top 10 leadership traits .  Working with Starfish Leadership and the Fu...

There is so much going on in the payments space today – mobile, digital, blockchain, and more. But let's not forget Real Time Payments, which launched a little over a year ago. Developed by The Clearing House and its 25 owner banks, RTP is the first new payments infrastructure in the U.S. in more than 40 years. The first real-time payment occurred on November 13, 2017 and was a $3.50 transfer betw...

In part one of a two-part interview (look for the second half next week), executive coach Chip Colbert joins host Jim Kaitz for a special AFP Conversations: Leadership Series podcast. Working with Starfish Leadership and the Fully Charged Institute, which he co-founded, Chip Colbert has coached hundreds of leaders in numerous organizations to help them improve their performance. He's also the Mana...

Are you an extrovert or an introvert? In the finance world we tend to associate expertise with extroverts. They can command a room and dominate a presentation with their confidences. Introverts? They're too quiet, and not charismatic enough. They sit in their cubicles and take orders. John Sanchez disagrees. He thinks we've got it all backwards. In fact, he believes introverts have innate abilitie...

There's a ton of new technology out there in treasury and finance world, and you only have so much time in the day to read up about them. More important, treasury and finance professionals only have so much money to spend on them. Even more important, customers will only care about a few of them -- if any. So what's a treasury and finance professional to do?  That's the question for today's guests...

Today on the podcast: Fighting low-tech payments fraud. With all the focus on fintech these days it's no surprise that when it comes to payments fraud treasury and finance professionals tend to focus on hi-tech fraud like business email compromise and phishing. But there's plenty of old-fashioned low-tech fraud that you may have forgotten about. Stuff like embezzlement. And check fraud – which was...

Have you ever wished you could do a better job persuading -- especially at work? Today's guest, Lynne Franklin, is all about helping people do a better job of persuading. Franklin spoke at AFP 2018 in a session titled "Practical Neuroscience: How to Get More People to Agree with You." Please leave a review of AFP Conversations -- it helps other people find the podcast!

Scott Salmirs, CEO of ABM Industries, joins host Jim Kaitz for a special AFP Conversations: Leadership Series podcast. As the CEO of a 110-year-old company with $6.4 billion in annual revenue and 140,000 employees around the world, Salmirs can discuss many things. But this chat focused on digital transformation: How does the CEO of a venerable facilities management firm navigate the wrenching chan...

With a background in finance and IT, guest Tom Blakeley is uniquely qualified to discuss the impact of robotic process automation on FP&A. A director with Performance Architects, Blakeley helps FP&A teams create RPA for their reporting and forecasting. Blakeley will lead a session at FinNext, March 17 to 19, in Las Vegas. Learn more at www. FinNext.org. Please leave a review of AFP Conversations -...

What does digital disruption mean for finance and FP&A? And how can finance and FP&A professionals navigate the transformation? Brian Mehr, has some thoughts. Mehr is a vice president at Southern New Hampshire University, where he leads their FP&A department. He's also a speaker at FinNext, March 17-19, in Las Vegas. Mehr spoke to AFP Conversations host Ira Apfel about how he and his team have red...

Stephen Hogan is Vice President Regional Treasury Asia Pacific for Deutsche Post DHL. He's responsible for all treasury, risk and corporate finance-related activities in the Asia Pacific region for Deutsche Post DHL and leads a team that covers more than 140 entities across 41 countries. Reached at his office in Singapore, Hogan spoke to AFP Conversations host Ira Apfel about the challenges he fac...

The right metrics can drive greater profitability. The wrong metrics can lead your organization down the wrong path. Dave Stark and Maik Henkel explain how metrics can mislead, and how they can be updated to become more relevant. They also discuss how to match KPIs with what decision-makers need to know and when they need to know it. Stark is president of Analysis Team, Inc. and Henkel is Senior M...

Anders Sorman-Nilsson spoke to AFP Conversations host Ira Apfel about digital disruption. Sorman-Nilsson is the author of "Digilogue: How to Win the Digital Minds and Analogue Hearts of Tomorrow's Customers." He discussed how companies and finance teams can bridge that digital divide. Sorman-Nilsson will keynote FinNext 2019 this March in Las Vegas. Learn more at www. FinNext.org. Please leave a r...

It's no secret that e-commerce is overtaking traditional brick and mortar retail. So what does that mean for finance and FP&A? Frank Chou talks to AFP Conversations host Ira Apfel about the unique challenges finance and FP&A face in supporting companies' e-commerce efforts, and how he addressed them in his previous roles at Amazon and Chewy. Chou is a senior FP&A Manager with H&T Battery Component...

It's a New Year's Resolution for finance executives: They plan to deploy corporate cash in 2019, according to the AFP Corporate Cash Indicators, underwritten by BMO. But saying they will draw down reserves on capex, buybacks, dividends and debt payments is one thing -- doing so is another. Kevin Kane, Managing Director with BMO, joins AFP Conversations host Ira Apfel to give his thoughts on the st...