The Four Stages of World-Class FP&A with Datadog’s AJ Ljubich

**CJ Gustafson** (0:00)
I think both of us have been in positions before where we're looked at rightly or wrongly as kind of the no department.

**AJ Ljubich** (0:05)
I don't see us as the no people at all. I see us as the yes but people where we want to spend money and we want to invest, but we just want to understand where that money is going, what the thesis on the payback is going to look like, what we think we're getting for that money and being able to measure it and actually tell what's working versus what's not.

**CJ Gustafson** (0:21)
You've been a part of both the Datadog IPO and the UiPath. You actually called them like a branding event.

**AJ Ljubich** (0:27)
It can have go-to-market benefits, right? Because it kind of brings the whole ethos and the company brand into the mainstream, right? So then people might start asking you about it and there's more awareness around the company and the brand. So there are tangible payoffs. I have some parts of my group that are more aligned to the business, like out working with them. And I have some that are more insularly focused on finance. They're like, well, if I just had that thing, then I'd be able to unlock a lot of opportunity. And I'm like, guys, I'm having this exact same conversation with your peer on the other side.

**CJ Gustafson** (0:56)
That's so funny. It's like the Spider-Man pointing meme where they're both like, I want to do that. And they're like, but I want to do that. Is this thing on?

**AJ Ljubich** (1:06)
Yesterday's price is not today's price. Hey.

**CJ Gustafson** (1:17)
Welcome back to Run the Numbers. My name is CJ. I'm what, I think I'm a recovering tech CFO at this point. So I've got my buddy AJ Ljubich, SVP of FP&A at Datadog. Yes, I've been such a huge fan of Datadog for a while because I come from the Boston area originally, Boston, and that's where Datadog, it started. This is the deepest of deep dives we've ever done on FP&A. He's probably the best FP&A leader I've ever spoken to. He has all these frameworks around the maturity cycle of a high performing FP&A team. What's really cool about AJ is he also spent time on the sell side as a banker.
He was the one on all these earnings calls asking questions before he made the shift over to the operator side. Once he got over to the operator side, he helped take both Datadog and UiPath public. His IPO experience watching from the sell side and quizzing everybody, and then actually as a practitioner taking two companies public, two high profile companies. He helped take Datadog public, then he took a tour of duty at UiPath helping to take them public, and came back to Datadog where he now runs their FP&A team. AJ also talks about the intersection of investor relations and FP&A. I've written about this extensively over the past month or so, how the roles are blending a bit and how the profile of a high performing investor relations professional has changed. If you're an FP&A and you want to learn how the pros really do it, you're going to love this episode.
AJ, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

**AJ Ljubich** (2:44)
Thanks for having me, CJ.

**CJ Gustafson** (2:45)
I never thought I'd be able to do a show where the host and the guests accumulate only four letters.

**AJ Ljubich** (2:50)
I know. I like it. What is your actual government name?

**CJ Gustafson** (2:54)
My government name is Carl John.

**AJ Ljubich** (2:56)
I'm an Alexander Joseph.

**CJ Gustafson** (2:57)
Four-letter boys are here to shake things up. I'm so excited to have you on because we had a blast at Rillet's conference where we did that pen.

**AJ Ljubich** (3:05)
Yeah, it was great. I feel like I actually learned a lot from other finance leaders.

**CJ Gustafson** (3:08)
Your answers were just so authentic about how you're using AI, how you're running your team and your background on how you've helped take two companies public. Maybe just to kick things off here, AJ, you said something that really struck me. You said that FP&A should operate more like a product team than a reporting function. And I was like, that's beautiful. FP&A as a product team. Can you break that down for me?

**AJ Ljubich** (3:30)
I think of FP&A in its best case. We really act as the connective tissue across the organization and through different data sets as well. The way that we structure our team is I have essentially five sub teams that are all partnered within every department of the organization, so we have full coverage across the org. And the reality too is that we have access to really all the data, which is very rare within an organization. We have all the customer data, all the revenue data, all the usage data, all the expense data, all the headcount data. And it's very rare that any team within an organization has that much access. So how we actually leverage that and utilize it really is to make sure that the different departments understand how they're operating in context of the whole company. Also that they're talking to each other so that the way that the resource allocated and growing is consistent across different departments. And it gives them a little bit of a guiding light back to the financials and the numbers at the end of the day. So I think it is somewhat analogous to a product organization where they're kind of the intersection of engineers who are actually building and making the product. And then the commercial side of the house, which are those that are actually selling the product and the customers that are utilizing it. And there's this constant sort of feedback loop across all those different pieces. We kind of sit at a similar intersection where at the end of the day, we're finance people and we have access to all this data and we're managing the financials. But we're really supporting the organization and achieving its objectives and growing together.