Future of FP&A + AI - with Melissa Howatson, CFO Vena Solutions

**Ray Rike** (0:00)
Hello, I'm Ray Wright, Founder and CEO of Benchmarkit, and your host of the Metrics That Measure Up podcast. We talked to a wide variety of the top B2B SaaS and Cloud thought leaders, CEOs, executives, investors, and people just like you to discuss the metrics and benchmarks they use to make metrics informed and benchmark validated decisions. Now, on to today's show. Welcome to today's episode of the Metrics That Measure Up podcast. Today, we are joined by Melissa Howatson, the Chief Financial Officer of Vena Solutions. We'll be covering four primary topics with Melissa today, including the latest trends in FP&A, specific to B2B SaaS, AI and finance, the importance of change management, the metrics that matter to a CFO at $100 million ARR and above, and lastly, measuring the impact of a podcast. So with that, Melissa, would you please take a moment to give a brief overview of your journey to becoming a guest here on the Metrics that Measure Up podcast?

**Melissa Howatson** (1:18)
Absolutely. And Ray, thanks so much for having me on today. Really looking forward to it. So, you know, it was probably similar to lots of accounting professionals. I started with one of the big four accounting firms. I myself started at KPMG, which set a great foundation for my career. From there, I moved into the automotive industry, spent some time in automotive and manufacturing, and then I moved into technology, and that's where I spend my time today. I worked for a couple of different technology companies. Most recently, I was at a company called D2L or Desire2Learn, which is an education technology company. Took that company public in 2021, and now today I'm with Vena, as you mentioned, and we are a solution that sells into the Office of Finance. So it's fun to get to work for a company where I am also the target customer.

**Ray Rike** (2:09)
Well, I am so looking forward to this conversation because I often, first thing I always like to do is look at the career path of CFOs, and I see two common paths, right? From that CPA accounting controller side versus the FP&A side. And here I have someone who grew up through the accounting and controller side, at an FP&A company. So let me ask you this question. It's five minutes before the board meeting. You've got all your metrics, CAC, CAC ratio, Burn, NRR, and then someone asks, why is pipeline coverage down in Q2? Suddenly, you're juggling six dashboards in one very outdated spreadsheet. DriveTrain helps you connect your plans to your performance with real-time answers so you're always one step ahead. Built for CFOs who want to lead with insight, DriveTrain is an AI-native business planning platform that helps finance teams' budget smarter, forecast faster, and report with confidence. See in action at drivetrain.ai/metrics. Get two months free and 50% off implementation for a limited time for Metrics at Measure Up listeners. That's drivetrain.ai/metrics.
As a CFO at a B2B SaaS company that just happens to provide an FP&A solution to a wide variety of companies, including a lot of B2B SaaS companies, how have you seen FP&A change over the past two to three years?

**Melissa Howatson** (3:42)
Boy, I think a lot of things have changed. And, you know, for me, it's interesting because I think FP&A has been at the forefront of a lot of the change. But I also think that controllership and other parts broadly finance is following a lot of the same changes. You know, I used to be more of a back office function. In FP&A, it was set a budget, sometimes forget it, sometimes dust it off more frequently and keep it up to date. You'd have interaction with the business, but it was a little more limited. You needed to be focused on being good with numbers.
And I think today, more than ever, FP&A and more broadly finance, we're becoming more strategic partner with the business. We have a responsibility to start helping to be the compass for our organizations, set the pace, be looking around the corners. And so I think it's an exciting time to be in FP&A. And along with that, though, comes different skill sets that were not as important a couple of years ago. You need those business partnering skill sets. You need that mindset, that curiosity that comes with if you're going to help the business, you have to be curious and ask questions so you know where to show up and how you can help. And you need to be able to not just take the numbers, but have a way of bringing the numbers to life by telling a strong story, influencing so that people can see what you see and being able to communicate that. So a lot of those soft skills that mattered somewhat a number of years ago, they matter a lot today in terms of our ability to then be able to be that strategic partner and have a seat at the table.