Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Head of Financial Planning and Analysis (Head of FP&A)

🎯 Role Definition

The Head of Financial Planning and Analysis (Head of FP&A) leads the FP&A organization and is accountable for end-to-end planning, budgeting, forecasting, financial modeling, management reporting, and strategic decision-support. This role partners closely with the CFO and cross-functional business leaders to translate strategy into measurable financial plans, deliver timely insights, optimize performance and capital allocation, and scale FP&A capabilities through systems, processes and talent.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Director / Director of FP&A, Corporate FP&A
Finance Director / Corporate Controller with strong planning experience
Strategic Finance or Corporate Development lead

Advancement To:

VP of Finance / VP of FP&A
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Head of Corporate Finance or Chief Strategy Officer

Lateral Moves:

Corporate Development / M&A Leader
Head of Investor Relations
Business Unit CFO or Finance Business Partner lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Own and lead the annual budgeting process, rolling forecasts and re-forecast cycles across revenue, cost of goods sold, operating expenses and capital expenditures, ensuring timely delivery and full business alignment.
Develop, maintain and continually improve robust financial models and drivers-based forecast models to support revenue planning, cash flow forecasting, scenario planning and strategic decisions.
Lead monthly and quarterly financial close analytics including variance analysis, explanations of drivers behind changes versus budget/forecast/prior year, and presentation of actionable insights to the executive team.
Design and deliver executive-level management reporting and board packs (board reporting, KPI scorecards, operating cadence materials) that highlight key trends, risks, opportunities and recommended actions.
Partner with the CFO and business leaders to set financial targets, topline plans and performance objectives, and to translate strategy into measurable financial and operational metrics.
Build, coach and manage a high-performing FP&A team—recruiting, developing career paths, conducting performance reviews and creating a culture of continuous improvement.
Own FP&A systems strategy and execution (e.g., Adaptive Insights, Anaplan, Hyperion, SAP BPC, Oracle EPM), including requirements gathering, vendor selection, implementation oversight and post-implementation governance.
Implement and oversee driver-based planning methodologies and scenario & sensitivity analysis to quantify business trade-offs and guide decision making for pricing, product investments, go-to-market plans and cost initiatives.
Provide financial leadership during strategic initiatives such as M&A, restructurings, capital raises and large-scale investments—leading diligence support, synergies modeling, integration planning and post-close tracking.
Create and maintain rolling 12–24 month cash flow forecasts, ensuring adequate cash runway, working capital optimization and alignment with treasury and capital allocation strategy.
Lead cross-functional financial reviews with Sales, Marketing, Product, Operations and HR to ensure accurate revenue recognition assumptions, quota and commission forecasting, pricing impact analysis and cost-to-serve visibility.
Drive continuous process improvement across FP&A workflows—standardizing templates, automating routine reporting, and increasing self-service analytics to improve speed, accuracy and scalability.
Partner with Accounting on IFRS/GAAP accounting impacts to ensure alignment between statutory results and management reporting; support audit and regulatory reporting as needed.
Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs), OKRs and leading indicators at corporate and business unit levels to enable performance management and early detection of deviations.
Act as the primary finance business partner to one or more operating functions, translating financial analysis into practical recommendations and holding teams accountable to financial objectives.
Develop pricing analytics and contribution margin analysis to support pricing strategy, promotions, product profitability, and channel economics.
Lead cost reduction and productivity initiatives—identifying opportunities, building business cases, measuring results and sustaining savings through governance and KPI tracking.
Oversee long-range strategic planning, including 3–5 year financial plans and capital allocation frameworks that support growth strategy and investor communications.
Represent finance to external stakeholders as required—supporting investor relations, banks, auditors and potential acquirers with crisp financial narratives and data-driven responses.
Ensure data integrity and governance in all FP&A outputs by defining clear data ownership, assumptions documentation and version control for models and reports.
Establish and maintain a robust forecasting cadence and meeting rhythm (monthly finance reviews, quarterly business reviews, board preparation) to drive accountability and timely decision-making.
Lead special projects including enterprise-wide system migrations, financial transformation initiatives, and business model pivots, ensuring they are delivered on time and within budget.
Mentor and upskill teams on advanced analytics, financial modeling best practices, and storytelling with data to elevate the organization’s analytical capability.
Build and maintain dashboards and visual analytics (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) that surface leading indicators, scenario outcomes and root-cause drivers for non-finance stakeholders.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Partner with IT to maintain secure, automated data flows between ERP, CRM and FP&A tools.
Provide subject matter expertise on finance process controls and internal policies for new product launches and commercial models.
Serve as an escalation point for complex financial inquiries and inter-departmental escalations.
Assist in the development and maintenance of finance playbooks, modeling templates and documentation of assumptions for auditability and transparency.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Strategic financial planning & analysis (FP&A) — end-to-end budgeting, forecasting, long-range planning and rolling forecasts.
Advanced financial modeling and driver-based modeling techniques for scenario and sensitivity analysis.
Expert-level Excel skills (pivot tables, advanced formulas, Power Query, VBA/macros) and financial model governance.
Experience with FP&A and EPM platforms such as Anaplan, Adaptive Insights, Oracle Hyperion, SAP BPC or similar.
Business intelligence and visualization tools — Power BI, Tableau, Looker (dashboard design and self-service analytics).
Strong understanding of accounting principles (GAAP/IFRS) and ability to reconcile management reporting to statutory financials.
SQL and data manipulation skills for extracting, transforming and validating large datasets.
Experience with ERP systems (SAP, Oracle, NetSuite) and integration of ERP data into planning workflows.
Cash flow forecasting, treasury coordination and working capital optimization experience.
M&A and transaction support skills — diligence modeling, integration planning, synergy tracking and valuation basics.
Cost accounting, contribution margin analysis, and pricing analytics.
Knowledge of KPI design, OKRs and performance management frameworks.
Process automation and workflow optimization, familiarity with RPA/ETL tools a plus.
Experience building and scaling finance teams, including hiring, mentoring and performance management.

Soft Skills

Executive presence and strong communication skills — able to present complex financial concepts clearly to boards and executive teams.
Strategic thinker with the ability to translate corporate strategy into financial plans and actions.
Strong business partnering and stakeholder management — persuasive, collaborative and influence-oriented.
Leadership and people management — coaching, developing and retaining top finance talent.
Critical thinking and problem solving — structured approach to ambiguous, high-impact problems.
High attention to detail, integrity and commitment to data accuracy and governance.
Results-oriented with strong prioritization and time management skills in a fast-paced environment.
Change management capability — driving adoption of new systems, processes and behaviors.
Comfortable working in ambiguous, high-growth or transformative situations.
Strong presentation and storytelling skills — crafting clear narratives and recommendations from complex datasets.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration, Mathematics or related field.

Preferred Education:

MBA, Master’s in Finance, CPA, or equivalent advanced degree/certification.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Finance
Accounting
Economics
Business Analytics / Data Science
Mathematics / Statistics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

10+ years of progressive FP&A / corporate finance experience with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role managing teams.

Preferred:

Experience in scaling FP&A for high-growth technology, SaaS, consumer or large enterprise environments.
Experience with public company reporting, investor relations or preparing board-level materials.
Proven track record implementing FP&A systems (Anaplan, Adaptive, Hyperion) and driving finance transformation.
Demonstrated success in M&A, integration or strategic capital allocation initiatives.