All Episodes

August 15, 2023 44 mins

Ashok Manthena has supported FP&A teams at some of the biggest and most well-known companies on the planet including Google, GAP, and Ingersoll Rand. This included a period at Google which was striking because of “the amount of resources available for finance” particularly when it comes to killing manual finance processes. He says there is an in-built DNA to “automate manual processes”. He says: “This bubbles up naturally when they find there is an, there is a manual process and everyone comes together and thinks about how to automate that process.” In a second career stage Ashok has been a leader in AI finance carrying out practical research, giving keynote speeches and providing practical advice on transforming businesses through the use of AI.

  • Rapid fire questions: Why I want to meet Gandhi – to doing Doing sensitivity analysis in ChatGPT 
  • Why we should all be embarrassed by the  stat that 70% of FP&A is spent on getting the data (vs only 30% on insights) 
  • The power of meetups meetups and the return of face to face meetings for finance learning 
  • What my career FP&A career at Google taught me 
  • The near future of automation and AI including running daily reports to the CFO 
  • Why data priority needs to be the #1 priority alongiside faster surfacing of data issues to leadership
  • How I became a leading AI finance speaker and writer and started a tech startup
  • Two ways AI is going to revolutionize FP&A Departments forever 
  • How ChatGPT will be a new interface for finance – practical examples 
  • The playbook for smaller finance teams and businesses to  thrive in the AI age
  • Advice to get started with AI in FP&A
  • The role of data science in the future of FP&A

FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails,the AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform.  Keep your own Excel financial models and spreadsheets and benefit from AI for data consolidation, reporting and planning.

Follow Ashok on LinkedIn

YouTube video of the episode

Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn 

Follow Datarails on LinkedIn

Mark as Played

Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Therapy Gecko

Therapy Gecko

An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.