From FP&A Analyst to Private Equity Operator with Alex Fabry: The Day-2 Lunch That Changed Everything

What does great F&A look like? Tell me what it looks like to you. - It's highly context dependent. And I say that I'll get a quick example. So a CFO I worked with in the last couple years. He had his own model. Like his own spreadsheet and only he worked on. It had all the best metrics and everything. That was his thing. For me in private equity, like pensions, firemen, it's good people that are funding these sometimes bad investments. It's weird, I sometimes I didn't really feel noble for it, but that's what kept me going when I was feeling as the noble at times. It's like, well, I'm helping grandma, you know. What are some of the key metrics you guys looked at it? - Working in the travel industry was cool. 'Cause yeah, our biggest metric was, we call PVs or passengers board it. So I had in front of me 40 different airlines around the world and all their passengers each month and could see and do all these charts. And so one of my first started my first year as responsible for the like data processing costs. This was about $100 million overall. And we still use ink even to this day. They still use main phrase for some of the GDS and some of the PSS. - FPNA guy here and I'm excited to introduce you to our title sponsor, Meet Campfire. The AI native ERP built for modern finance and accounting teams. Automate revenue, streamline your clothes and centralize accounting all on one unified platform. Learn more today by going to campfire.ai. That is campfire.ai. Are you tired of being seen as just a spreadsheet person while others get a seat at the table? Well then, welcome to FPNA on lock where finance meets strategy. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, the FPNA guy. Each week we bring you conversations and practical advice from thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners who are reshaping the role of FPNA in today's business role. Together, we'll uncover the strategies and experiences that separate good FPNA professionals from great ones, helping you elevate your career and drive strategic impact. Speaking of strategic impact, our title sponsor is campfire. The ERP that's helping modern finance teams close fast and scale faster. Today's guest is someone who's earned that coveted seat at the table. I'm excited to welcome Alex Fabri. Alex, welcome to the show. Thank you, happy to be here. Yeah, really excited to have you. So let me give a little bit of Alex's background and then we'll get going. Alex began his career in FPNA roles at Saber and Active Network, where he supported multi-billion dollar business units, managed complex budgets, and played a key role in the $1.2 billion sale of active to global payments. His experience in financial planning, pricing, and deal execution laid the groundwork for a broader career and strategy consulting and ultimately private equity. After earning his MBA from Kellogg, Alex joined BCG, then served as a vice president at Charles Bank Capital Partners, where he worked with CEOs and CFOs on value creation projects within the $18 billion firm. Today, he's the founder and managing partner of KFA, a private investment and advisory firm focused on growing and scaling businesses in St. Louis. His journey from FPNA to private equity offers a playbook for how foundational finance roles can open doors to leadership, investing, and entrepreneurship. Love the background, really excited to have you with us today, Alex. Thank you, Paul. I love your content and everything you're putting out there. So I'm really excited to connect that. Thanks, I'm looking forward to this conversation. So let's get started. Tell me, Alex, what is grade FPNA? It's getting a job done. That's it, getting the job done. Can you elaborate? You have a story behind that. What do you mean when you say getting the job done? The story, it was February of 2017. I wake up in my apartment in Dallas about 6, 6, 30. First thing I do is always check my email. Go in and I see this email for Ed about Puerto Rico debt collection. And the GM and my business unit just forwarded to me. And I scroll down and the CEO and the CFO are like, oh, he's pretty big. He can go get it. So I scroll down at the email from my GM that says, all you're all cleared to go, go where? So I get shower, go head to the office, and find the GM. And he says, oh yeah, we have this outstanding debt in Puerto Rico. If we get it, it'll be cash revenue recognition. This was right in Q1. If we had gotten this money, it would show growth in the court. So it was really important that we went and got it. He's like, oh, you can just go down to Puerto Rico tonight. What? He's like, yeah, go get packed. So I go back home, get my suitcase, find the travel woman to book the flight, because it was too late to even book it. Get on the flight, go through Miami and walk out at 11 p.m. in Puerto Rico. The next day, I go and try to collect debt. I'm an old town sand lawn like face to face with this race organizer, one of our customers who owed us money. They didn't have any money, as always. It was not a good negotiation. They were unhappy with our product, almost churned. I'm negotiating back and forth. I got a sales person who speaks Spanish with me. So we end up leaving. We didn't get any of the money. So didn't collect any of the debt. And my amigo says, hey, do you want to go to the cock fights? And it was like, what, the cock fights? Those are legal. He's like, yeah, they're legal in all US territories. And there's one bread by our hotel. So we go to the cock fights. And this was an economic lesson in open air betting, because they have these chickens that are doing their thing. And then people are sort of going back and forth with different bets. And they serve chicken tenders even at the place. It was a whole a whole steam in Puerto Rico in sand lawn. So I flew home that day. This was like a 36 hour trip, you know, it was barely there. My GM understood I didn't get the job done. But he did recognize that I went there without questioning a last minute notice. I mean, I think that's probably my most memorable FPNA experience. And they forever called me the Puerto Rico debt collector. Since then, even though I did not actually collect the debt. That's a great story. So my debt collection story, I think people will appreciate this when I shared it before is we had a customer that was like 20% of this business units revenue. They owed us like five, six months back of revenue. It was in the six figures, a big number. And I told the business, I'm like, look, if they don't pay us, we're shutting them off. I got approval to tell them that like we're done. Because they kept trying, well, this, they're disputing this and that, I'm okay. Fine, they can dispute the $15,000. But as a rest, if I don't have it by such and such a date, we're just turning them off. We're done. We're not a charity. I got a day or two later, I come into the office and person up front goes, hey, we have this FedEx package for you. And I go and open it and they had addressed it to me instead of our, you know, billing team or payables team. And open it up and it was a check for $100,000. It was addressed to the business. I was hoping to be addressed to me. But that was kind of my debt collection experience that I picked up to check and I walked it over to our team like here, you guys take care of this. They're never quite expecting to have that big of a check put on my desk. So I didn't quite have to fly. Didn't go watch a bunch of clock fights and be sent halfway around the world, so to speak. But that was my debt collection experience. - I love that. The epilogue to my story is later that year, that Puerto Rico story became my main essay for my application at Kellogg. And frankly, I think it's the only reason I got it. 'Cause nobody else went to the clock fights. Nobody else went to collect debt. And I learned a lot of humility in that. 'Cause I thought I was invincible. I could do anything. I'll go to Puerto Rico, I'll collect the debt. Of course, I'm not gonna be able to do that. Like, I'm this 20-something year old kid. And so, I don't know, I was a really good life experience I think for me as well. - Yeah, that's great. I love that you use that for your essay and that's a fun story. So thank you for sharing that one. - So really, that kind of great epite is, was going through an analyze of those processes, shortening those time frames so you could focus on the business. - Yeah. I mean, the other example, I'm sure you're familiar, how many closed meetings have you done? Was that a regular thing for you? - More than I care to remember. - Yeah. (laughing) So yeah, I remember somebody left after three years and I was like, that was 36 closed meetings. You just did. But I think it was, when I was an active, a good example, as an active network, we were in the middle of our sale process, probably like two months left. And we were barely closing the books. Like, 'cause we were focused so much on doing that and all the diligence, requests, and everything. And I remember that the numbers were tracking budget forecast pretty, pretty closely. And we, I think we did the whole meeting in 15 minutes, the CFO didn't ask one question. 'Cause we just had it down. Everybody had their part, knew the variances and what was happening. Forecast was pretty clear. And like, it was just super efficient. And it was almost like we didn't need the meeting. In some ways. - Yeah, no, and when you said how many closed I've done, I was thinking I had one where we had closed for each of our different business units with accounting and we had the close with the business so we had most of all different. Then you often had corporate. So I think I had one company where I was probably doing Ken Close meetings a month. Between all the different units and stuff life supported. So it's in the hundreds. - Yeah. Well, and even, 'cause we would do closed meeting then like the forecast meeting a few days later, then the cash flow meeting. And then that, I think for two, three, and then you had the long range planning. But one like, SVP, a finance they worked with, the way he ran his closed meetings was like, he was talking at everybody. Like he was reading the deck, telling you what he thought and then going at people with questions, versus like maybe the classic like presenting to somebody. And honestly, it worked really well 'cause you came really ready 'cause you didn't know what he was gonna push on this night. - And I like that. I've definitely been in meetings where, you know, it's conversations with the business. Not hey, we're just gonna present the numbers. Like, hey, what are you doing about this? What's the follow up? How do we fix that? Those to me are the best meeting. That's how it should be with the business. It's a little different if you're meeting with accounting, it's much more of those closed meetings where Where's this a cruel? Why does this number look way different than I expected help me understand So that we could make sure it was right before we went to the business and got all those questions ourselves because the numbers were wrong We've all been there. We've all gone through a month closing your look at numbers going. There's no way this can be right if it is. I'm screwed Yeah, and one time in those meetings that same BQ SVP of finance dropped like I feel like the biggest gem for me It's like he's like what I want to know guys is what happened? Why did it happen? We'll it happen again It's like that's your whole job. I just do that well Yeah, I I sum it up a little differently the framework. I love is okay Tell me what happened then you got the so what so Why do I care that that happened now what what does it mean for the business going forward? What what what should we be doing are there things we need to change is there you know So I kind of that predictive side and I think the what's getting automated more and yeah, that's becoming pretty routine I've seen different tools. I can do a pretty dark Pretty darn good job of it if you have good data Of telling you the what your job now as well the now what the so what that's what the business needs your help with Yeah, and I know in all of that. I didn't say be a great business partner I I told you have to be a great business partner to be in great FBA, but I feel so much more than that Well, I think again, it looks different being a business partner. It's different depending on the business It's it's about them out you, you know No, I completely agree the type of business partner. You know, that's why it's really hard You know, you see finance degrees, but you see very few And you know, it's really not a degree program for FBA. It's funny for accounting It is very different company. We're seeing more and more certificates. And yes, there's There is base work you have to do at every company and things you have to understand But it can vary a lot of what your task and what it looks like depending on where you work I agree on that on that topic Why do you think because I don't know the answer to this a university hasn't fully picked up FBA because corporate finances and every finance degree, but that's movie on Miller You know, like the little higher level than fp net. So I do think several universities offer an fp net course now Okay, part of the challenge is If you haven't had experience in fp and a how does the professor really teach that corporate finance investment banking all those other areas are a lot I think a lot easier a lot more structured a lot more similar for somebody who's just gone through education to be the teacher most of these Programs are usually part of an MBA their one course on fp and a and I'd say all the ones I'm aware of are cop by practitioners It doesn't surprise me. So I think that's that's the challenge But we're seeing like you know work online partnered with Wall Street prep for their new fp and a certificate You know see if I source you know a lot of the training organizations and a fp offered different programs with fp and a and so we're definitely seeing more and more of a demand of that and I think we'll start to see More courses offered by university at some point some university will try to create a full specialization, but I'm not aware of one yet Yeah, I do think the valuation courses are financial statement analysis can actually be a close cousin of fp and a because instead of value Business your value of project for me the fun part of fp and a yeah definitely value that there's a lot of stuff that you get in a You know the modeling course you do a financial modeling course, right? That's core fp and a take a course on learning excel We all have to know it. So I definitely think there's a lot of Things that you can get in your general degree that can help the valuations any kind of your strategy course should help Right if you're doing good fp and a you should be thinking strategically even if you're not Formulating strategy you're still making sure your plan links back to it and then the execution happens of the strategy Yeah, so I want to ask a question Yeah, look at your LinkedIn profile and you recently shared about the best finance lecture you ever had and I really liked this You said you mentioned how the teacher wrote on the board Did all corporate finance boils down to three questions? Can you tell our audience what those three questions were what you should invest in? How should we pay for it and what should we do with the cash when it comes back? You know, what did that do for you? You mentioned how that kind of was like, you know, just really an eye opening moment for you I got to break down a little secret. That's more of an apocryphal story. I just I can't I can't let you Sitting in this class. So I did take the professor who this is his theory. It's Mitchell Peterson at Kellogg great amazing professor I don't remember if he wrote it on the board But he definitely gave me a document which I found like a week ago and I wrote this that he had it and So so that that was the the first part. I guess the question was about Yeah, just kind of how I talk through those three. How did that kind of guide you because at the end of the day, right if we think of Fp and a First what should we invest in? I think that's kind of a core question and any analysis we do Where they come to us and say hey, I want to build a a new plan or we should expand into this country That first question we have ourselves is this something we should invest in and I think but even before That that's where core fp and a really comes in the budgeting the planning how much are we making what levers do we have for margin How do we create more EBITDA what's up go get you know all of those things then inform what I call the fun part of You know, should we get this new office in India and really expand should we push on this project in a new business You made this kind of risky like all of those things come together and I think sometimes in the budget and planning cycle Fp didn't get lost in that and not really think about like we really need to grow the business not just keep track of it Yeah, I definitely think there's a lot of times it's easy in fp and a to get caught up as we're a report function Which yes, we have a lot of reporting The last stuff we have to keep track of but if that's all you're doing just call yourself fp and r and don't don't call yourself fp and a Yeah, because it's that's not really fp and a that's why I said planning and you're reporting which I think is really where we started And the analysis has become much more operational and strategic focus fp and a guy here and I want to share a brief message from our title sponsor campfire The ERP that's helping modern finance teams close fast and scale faster Finance is changing fast. Are you keeping up? Campfire is hosting the first ever AI summit for finance leaders in San Francisco and you're invited Finance forward will bring together a hundred and fifty plus of the brightest minds in finance and operations Featuring powerhouse speakers from snowflake Purcell and foropic and more you'll get expert lead discussions hands-on sessions and real world playbooks Designed to help you put AI to work immediately. Can't make it to San Francisco. No problem You can sign up to receive exclusive tailored post-conference content aimed at equipping you for the future of finance Learn more about this camp miss event at campfire summit dot AI anti-tier original question like number two as I looked at these again And that's what I love doing with honestly my favorite part of school is thinking about it because I can look at notes It just jogs things and the number two. How should we pay for it? So that's one I got to know really well in private equity when I'm sure In 2022 mostly because we had already pretty highly levered you know capital structures for these companies And I got in there private equity levers things when I first learned the term leverage I think it was probably like 2013 because in college we didn't call leverage go get you know bonds So it was like no more than 4x like anything over 4x is bad Like I don't think I was in the company under like 7x Like in the last three years and so that's where I don't know when that changed But I guess we thought like cash flow will never decline But once it does then it gets really tight. What do you do like you only have somebody levers to people cut investment You know or do a liability management exercise another topic I write a quarter bit about Unlinked in that FBA will touch that because of sort of the process around it dealing with the creditors But yeah, I don't know that one That maybe think differently about finance the whole debt thing is a very interesting I think we could do a whole episode on that but I'll get your thoughts and so I work for company There's quite highly debt leverage you know private equity on and they were even higher now So they tried to go public last year. I think they've tried a few times It's but you know public knowledge out there. They've tried a few different items and none of them have worked out And so they released the s1 is they're getting ready to go public $2 billion company you want to guess what their interest expense was? Wait, what was the two billion top line or even at what's yeah top line revenue revenues about around two billion You ever take you know 50 million maybe a hundred million at most, but could have been just over two 500 million The two i hundred the prior year eight high eight something was 40 something percent of revenue Yeah, you're look What are the 300 margins like 50 percent or something how did they actually they were oh okay But still That's a scary number. I don't care even to be yeah, they're even done margins were in the high 40s 50s And they're still solvent. They're still going They are they still managed to survive they had quite a cat quite a cash flow before they levered everything up to but You see that number you think I don't want any part of that right that's a pretty crazy Interest expense now there was some refinance within that a little higher that year because they it's restructuring something So I think it came get owed come down so some the next year, but none the less. That's not a pretty number. - But on the other side. - If you're reading their bonds or ring the junk right now on the public bonds. - But on the other side of that, that yield is going to pension funds invested in private credit or the lender is. - They're paying right now or something like that. - Yeah, that would, for me, in private equity, like it's police, the pensions, firemen. It's good people that are funding these sometimes bad investments. And it's weird, I didn't really feel noble for it, but that's what kept me going when I was feeling less than noble. At times, it's like, well, I'm helping grandma, you know? - Yeah, I know, I hear you. So, I think we talked, how do you pay for it? You get the questions, a debt, is it equity? And then always, what should you do with the cash to come back? How do you reinvest it? And I think that is such an interesting question. And that gets much broader to strategy and treasury. And there's lots of people beyond just F P and A there. But F P and A plays a role, right? You know, look at Microsoft and any company the first few years, they're paying no dividends and dumping everything back. And then at some point, it's like, hey, do we pay dividends? 'Cause with every dollar, you need to earn more than whatever cost you for that dollar at the end of the day. Or you got a problem, you're not sustainable in the long run. - I waited average cost a capital. I think this one really dovetails in with a real lesson, I think for any one in F P and A, is that you need to have a point of view. And on where should we put the cash back? Like do you believe in this project? Or do you believe in a dividend or debt pay down? Like in, 'cause in F P and A, you kind of get to touch everything. Like you're working with treasury and capital markets or working with the business unit, you're working with the CFO CEO. Like, and that's what I love about F P and A. The access I had at a very young age to like the top levels of management, even in a 10,000 person company, just 'cause I have the spreadsheet that everybody wanted to see. - Yep, you do not need to. You definitely get access to people beyond the level of many other functions. Like, you know, many, if you're a software analyst coding, you know, you're probably not in meetings with the CEO or CFO at all, and there's a chance you could be as an analyst in F P and A. You may not always be, but you generally definitely have access to more senior leaders. And I love that, it's great, 'cause you get to learn from them and start to realize what makes a great senior leader, 'cause we see the ones that you're like, all right, I don't know how they got that chair. And you see others like, I wanna emulate what they do. - Did you ever figure out what the secret was to getting in that chair? - I don't think there is, I don't think there is a secret. I think it depends on culture. Some cultures are around nepotism. So it's who you know, and what you do. And others, it really comes to healthy cultures. It comes down to performance and relationships. And I would even almost put relationships in many places first, but the great companies also have performance. Like I interviewed recently, and this episode will come out after, but a Gary Ridge, who is a CEO of WD 40, and his culture, his engagement scores were in the 90% for employees. 93% over his career. And so there's somebody that they're really promoting people on the right things and creating that right culture. And it was just fascinating to hear him talk about it and what he did. 'Cause you master it on tapping into people, making sure they're happy, and helping them grow in their career. I mean, you have to have a 93% engagement rate. That's on herd of. - I don't know. - You can figure out all the answers, let me know. We'll bottle it and sell it. - I saw a high level of competence in every senior leader. I didn't always like them, but I kinda understood differently, but if you're exactly right, it depends on how they climbed and who took them under their wing when they were 27 and it felt like we were stuff like that, so. - It does. In general, I'd say, you know, the trends you see among senior leaders, especially the good ones, they understand it's about relationships. They're able to think quickly and boil complex concepts down to easy manageable bites into something in simplicity, and they generally have a really good ability to tie what's happening operationally to what that means for the financial side of a company. Even if they don't have to be in finance, but they have that ability to bring it back. 'Cause at the end of the day, it could be a great idea, but if it doesn't make financial sense, it's no longer a great idea. - Well, I don't have the numbers. - All right, well, let's talk a little bit about our earlier career. The start was Saber working in FPNA. What was it you enjoyed about FPNA? You know, you started your career there. Talk a little bit about that before you went into private equity and consulting and all these other places. - Yeah, so I think, so I started a graduate in December of 2012 from Texas Tech for undergrad and then started in January at Saber. And honestly, for the first, call it year, maybe, a year, I didn't really like it. It was not fitting me very well. I had what they call attention to detail issues, which in FPNA does not work very well. - Oh, it doesn't. - I wasn't great at taking notes. I was handed a lot of processes. I kind of figured them out, but there would be mistakes here and there, some that mattered more than others. But I figured out, but I started to like it because I figured out how to start automating some of the things I was doing with my spreadsheets, my models, even my decks. By the time I left in 2016, I had the full monthly board deck completely automated from my Excel spreadsheet, all the text, all the numbers. It was like one click update. It was done. Now I had to do a lot of spreadsheet work to get it there and pull in different data sources. But for me, that was like the puzzle. And I just loved automating as much as I can, so. - Ah, so did you learn macros? What were we talking about automation? - So no, I never learned how to use VBA. I would sometimes like get already made macros and paste them in. Here, I got an ad in called Mac Advocates. I think about 2014. And then, anyway, my modeling on fire, just the levels, I still use it today. I guess I'm over a decade on it. Now, I'll use it for the rest of my life. I'll be 85 and I'll have that subscription. - Yeah, they're owned by corporate finance institute now. - Okay, yeah, okay. So I love that tool. So it was that and then it just was thinking about the repetitive tasks that I did. And most of my work as a financial analyst, even senior financial analyst, was pretty much monthly by year. - Forever. - Yeah. - And it was like, there were for variances, there were like, there'd be 10 things that could go wrong. I didn't know which 10 and I'd have to write stories. But I figured out I could rank and do formulas in logic. I kind of learned that I was very good at logic, which I never learned in school. I figured that out for Excel, if weirdly, is that sounds. But that helped me just think through the rules base of what can happen to basically quicker output on all my deliverables. - Yeah, no make sense. Don't curious, obviously you were in the travel airline in particular, you spent all the time supporting airline, but the travel industry, what are some of the key metrics you guys looked at at Saver? - Yeah, so working in the travel industry was cool, 'cause yeah, our biggest metric was we call PVs or passengers boarded. So I had in front of me 40 different airlines around the world and all their passengers each month and could see into all these charts. And so one of, when I first started, my first year was responsible for the data processing costs. This was about $100 million line overall. And we still use, I think even to this day, they still use mainframes for some of the GDS and some of the PSS. - Well, wouldn't surprise me at all if that's nice. - Yeah, 'cause this was Saver actually owned it. They did a really interesting transaction, 2000 to EDS to spin it out and HP bought it. And then they were paying for the service. And this is when I learned how to do rate volume calculations was on this and like multi-tree rate volumes to break down all the factors that could be increasing or decreasing. And now I just really liked the math and the simplicity. It was more spatial than just like sort of a static spreadsheet. So that was fun department. - Yeah, I got to do a lot of, so I support, I work in the business on the travel side at American Express Business Travel for our global distribution team, global supplier relations as we called it, which GDS was a part of that. And I ran a ton of reports where I moved into the FPNA role, a ton around city pairs. What was the average cost for those flights? How many were there, which airline? Did they grow it over the prior period? What's their market share? All kinds of different things. So yeah, I can definitely relate. That was my big thing. And then also on the G, okay. Well was our revenue per transaction booked from Sabre or whoever the other big players are in that space, right? We had I think three different GDSs. - So you've been really taught me how to look at mix in like variances because if you had a flight in Europe, it was usually more expensive than the US. And like the incentive rates were different based on where it was booked and all this stuff. So you really had to let break out the rate volume mix component. - Long haul, short haul, yep. - Yeah. - So that's where I still have trouble with the math on rate volume mix. Maybe you're a killer at it. But I feel like that's one of the like secrets of FPNA that people only know through like a partnership. Somebody teaching them how to do this. - Yeah, you have to understand, 100%. You need to understand rate volume mix. There's different ways to do it. Sometimes you're looking at gross profit. Sometimes it's a revenue and different things. But it is true to understand how much of volume impact, how much is price impacting this? How much is our cost impacting this? And being able to understand what's driving your variants. Was it a volume issue? Was it a price issue? Was it a cost issue? Doing that is invaluable. And yes, there's to I still have to look at the formulas. And I'm, well, I don't do typical FB, I haven't done typical FBNA now for almost five years 'cause last role I had, I wasn't doing budgeting and forecasting. I was helping make the support to business to make a transition to SaaS and coordinating between all the different groups of how all the new metrics would look and all the reports. And so I didn't do budget forecasts for savings. I did a lot of sell stuff and reported in the FBNA. So I've even been almost five years since I've had a month and close. So I'm a little rusty. - Can you still model, are you still a champion? - Yeah, I still model. I'm not as good as I was, but I still model a fair amount of 'em. I took the AFM last year. I'm supposed to be taking the CFM, although I need to actually study for it. All right. So next question here. So you made the switch after going to grad school, you switched from FBNA, you went into consulting, and then you moved on to private equity. Kind of walk me through that. What was the change? Was it just, and wanted to do something different, felt like, you know, hey, I can't see myself staying long-term or FBNA or just walk a little bit through that. - Yeah, so it really starts back in 2013, right? When I started it at Saber. So the CFO went to the same undergrad as me, guy named Mark Miller. He's actually the, he's the CEO of Goosehead Insurance now, interesting career path. But he took me out to lunch 'cause I was the only other Texas tech guy on the finance team. That was my second day of work. And we sit down, I remember I was born this like really wrinkled shirt. I think people in the office would make it fun. Yeah, I'd know it. And he had a dress or anything. - Yeah, I took, I'm a late bloomer. I'm still blooming, I think, overall. But he, first thing he says is about, he's like, so where do you want to go to grad school? And I kind of look at him like, I just graduated from school. Like, I gotta go back to school. And he's like, yeah, he's like, you work here for three years, then you go to HBS, then you go to McKinsey, and then you go to private equity. And I was like, (laughing) what's McKinsey? I didn't know what McKinsey was. And like, private equity, like the boys are us people, like, what do you mean? Like, what do I have to do? So that's where the conversation started. He explained to me and there was actually a guy, he was the president of the business unit. Just like me a decade before, it started as a financial analyst. And literally done that. Went to HBS, went to McKinsey, and then now he's the president of the company. So he was like, well, just do what that guy did. I was like, okay. So that like started me on this like, when I ended up being a five year journey, it was supposed to be a three, as you heard in the story, to go to business school. So it was sort of like work. I felt like I had this first half of my career and then there was gonna be a second half. The consulting and private equity came a little later, but so I went to, I worked for three years, then applied to grad schools, got denied, and didn't get in. So I had to like, I was like, what do I do? That was kind of a blow. But waited another two years, switch companies, sold the company, and then applied again, 'cause I just felt like, I never will have this chance again to do this. If I wait 10 years, you'll never be. So that's why I applied to Kellogg, and luckily I got in. And that's where the business will part of it. Got it. Makes a lot of sense. From curious, we have people in FPNA listening who may want to switch kind of work in private equity. A lot of people, how do I get into private equity? How did you get into private equity, and what advice would you offer for them? Obviously you did some consulting, you did the grad school, those all help, but maybe walk through a little bit of how you kind of got into private equity, and what advice you'd give to somebody who wants to, be more in private equity. Yeah, I think my favorite part about my private equity story is the only reason I really got to work for like a Boston middle market private equity firm is because of my FPNA experience. And funny enough, they were actually got to see the resumes of every other person they interviewed for this role. It was like 15 people. No one else was an analyst in private equity. They were Ivy League schools and other stuff, you know, consulting for eight years. Like I stood out because I had been like the job that these kids honestly frankly wouldn't have wanted out of undergrad. As bad as that, that sounds, but you know, they were investment bankers or consultants. Yeah, they all wanted to be in the embed. Everybody thinks out of grad, out of school, I need to go into investment thinking. It's kind of a sexy. Usually don't think FPNA sexy. Yeah, exactly. So that's, I was, 'cause I didn't have, I went to sort of a lower tier undergrad and you know, lower ranked undergrad, I loved it. But I here have access. I had commercial banking jobs and I had my FPNA job was like the only one and like it wasn't a big thing. So I hear your goal wasn't a topical where you're gonna go work on Wall Street. It's not the typical path anyway. You can get there, but it's not typical. Exactly. And I even, even at Saber, I held like a little bit of a chip on my shoulder because I was working with kids from Rice and some other better schools. And I sort of was like, well, I'm not, I'm not better than them, but I'm not as bad as I should be. Sort of like where I put myself. Yeah, kind of feel a bit of imposter syndrome, which I mean, I don't know if I even shaken that today. Like I think it might be a little bit good for me to be a little bit of an imposter. Never feel like I've quite gotten it. But yeah, I mean, back to getting into private equity. I think there's two paths. And if FPNA, you can go to do what I did. Go to business school, go work for a consulting firm or a bank, and then get to pee. Now that path is not for everyone. And for a lot of people, it makes zero sense. If you've got a question. It was literally depending on where you're adding your career. It's like, I am doing that. Exactly. Yeah, if there's a million good reasons why people shouldn't do that. And like it's very expensive, all these things. So the path in without that is through networking. And really through working with private equity sponsors. So go get a poorco job in a sponsor you respect. You really want to get in. Figure out any way to get contact with them. Ideally working for them, not like a cop chat. But through that years and years, like then you may get an opportunity. 'Cause it's all about tying. And like these things come up randomly sometimes. And just getting those step-up opportunities. I think that's the key. But the problem is it's a hard career path to get in. There's not that many spots in private equity. And frankly, I think most people will be better off doing other stuff. Like it doesn't benefit the world as much as education or some other things you could do. Even what I think what you're doing, Paul, like. So that's where I'm like, I don't want to encourage more people to do it. But if you really want to do that, you can get in for doing really good finance work. And just sort of. I'd say even sometimes, you know, with the right PE, if you're a critical person in FPNA, in a company where you've helped turn it around and really grow it and they see your value on the PE, they may tap you for a role. Say, hey, you want to come over and do this or that. I've seen that happen to people. And agree with you. You have to decide, is that really what you want? I mean, personally, I worked for a couple of private equities. And some of the experiences I had, I'm like, okay, never again in certain areas and others, you know, were decent. But I never felt like, wow, I'm changing the world by working for this private equity. Not to say they're bad. Not their wonderful people, there's a lot of good things. But I don't think, you know, most people look at private equity and think, that's the area where I want to change the world, so to speak. When I think of private equity, like 90% of the deals are really good, create a lot of value for a lot of people, give good jobs from employees. Then there's 10%, 8% that you don't know about that are really bad and awful. People get fired and spat. 2% that you do find out about. And everyone thinks because of the two, the 90s bad or the 100th, the whole thing's bad. Like it is really about the operators and people and how they treat their employees, I think, more than anything. - Yeah, I mean, private equity at the end of the day is just another way to fund a business. Is really what, right? It's an investment, some are active, some are passive, some are semi, you know, all different levels. But at the end of the day, that's kind of how I think of private equity. It's just, it's another way to fund a business. So we won't get into, I have other opinions on that. We can argue how good it is for society and all that stuff. But we'll leave that for another podcast. I don't think that really fits into FPNA. So you want to know my opinion on that? Someone can DM me and we'll have that conversation. But kind of coming back to this, you always were like working in private equity operations. And what are some of the things that maybe FPNA help prepare you for? Maybe talk a little bit of kind of, what's that like? - Yeah, so first the difference is there's no cycle, there's no monthly cadence. Often you're doing something different every single day. There'll be projects and timelines. But you can be working across three or four businesses in a week, traveling the two or three cities, potentially even, like it's very different from that. There really is a yes or mentality needed. And I'm saying this is like a good thing. You need to do this, like you're the person there that like when something needs to get done, you go get it done or trace it down. That's the thing. But where FPNA prepared me really well for is, hey, I understood the monthly cycle. I knew how a finance team should work. And there, whenever if I needed to understand certain results or certain data, I could know what days to talk to people on because they have more time. Or that kind of thing. I also knew like I need to get to the database that I can query in Tableau or in Power BI. I know how to hook it up. Like so I can speak their language, even though my job is now completely different. And also I should mention this earlier, like the best friend of any private equity VP is the head of FPNA at their company. 'Cause if you head of FPNA screws up, the VP's life is nightmare. 'Cause there's all this reporting, the needs, all this stuff. So like they have to be linked well. - Yeah, there is the closed relationship between the PE and whoever's leading FPNA. honestly mo- bruh. Particularly VP more senior FPNA people actually really enjoy working with the private equity firm Mm-hmm and that that is cool too because like I would find I would ping something to somebody just thinking It's like a small random thing before you know it I have somebody two levels above pinging me being like hey, what do you need all this stuff? And like got anything I say even though I was like kind of junior in the private equity side would they would take really seriously Which I felt bad about most of the time because it wasn't that urgent whatever I was doing I was just trying to oh I remember being the one in the chain sometimes a hey the PE can you get this information Everybody drops everything and Sometimes it was urgent and other times you found oh they set on that for a month I'm sure glad I rushed to do that today. Yeah, I agree with you on the whole best friend thing and it was kind of like You know the PE person a good FPNA is their best friend the one I always say FPNA's best friend is a good account Right, you kind of have that chain y'all need those people that make it critical for you to do your job So what other skills would you say what are kind of this key skill somebody needs if they want to be a peaky operate? Yeah, and FPNA is a lot about the quant and the numbers PE operations is 100% about the people and How do you organize people against projects and initiatives to move things for it because when I would come into a business I had no team no one reporting to me no one having to do anything I say really I mean I could go up to the board because I'm basically with the board. I'm coming out the board parachuting down So it was all about like just building like real genuine relationships with people where they could trust me They knew I had the same goals and like things that they had and just I guess just getting them to do things What the new lens I got from private equity was that board Room dynamic because I had made budgets down a budget to prove by the board before but I was in that meeting really You know, I never really bid in but I got to sit in their multiple board meetings cross multiple companies and kind of see how like the FPNA Documents are interpreted in a room and I think for most people they'd realize how few of the pages get read Just read and then second like how few pages are actually understood by the people in the board room and 80 pages of the 100 page board that court needed so why do we do them but no one says that you know that was really eye opening for sure I'm sure that was and I'm sure there's so few people listening going You mean I spent all the time on the board deck nobody even reads it Don't tell them that you just depressed a bunch of people I'm scared the board deck is a good forcing function Because even though when I say we didn't need those pages like we actually might have needed them because if something was wrong We would have heard about right it was just sort of now was reporting the news. So I don't think a hundred's needed Most of it could be like a dashboard that people can look at if they need it versus the PowerPoint, which it takes forever But I do see the value somewhat of the board deck. All right. Well, there you go. Alex had board decks suck Well there yeah, there's some startup. I think some actor some famous actor some like kill the board deck Star up. We got him fight club check it out truth thing. Well, there you go everybody can go out and yeah if you go lap Or chat GPT or whatever the search engine is today I know exactly who knows Want to ask you you recently shared about posting on LinkedIn you mentioned how you did a over a hundred posts over a 12 week period What was your takeaway from that experience? I'm just kind of curious Yeah, so actually the whole reason I made that post and counted the hundred was because of you Paul Because when we chat to prepare for this podcast you mentioned that you had done 500 in the past and for me The thought of doing 500 was so hard and long and I was like I I got to cap this at and so I hit 90 days And that's why I did it because now I feel like I had more freedom to not post because I sort of was like oh I did my thing But the the biggest takeaway in the coolest thing that happened in posting is I got featured in Matt Levine's newsletter the Bloomberg finance One and it was just because I emailed him randomly one thing I wrote Like it was like hey thought you may think this is interesting and then the next day I suddenly get like a thousand views on article and I don't I usually get like 50 or 100 views sure And so I was like what is the hour of those messed up how is this even happening and then I realized it was at the bottom of the The newsletter and I that was just the metaphor for a posting on LinkedIn in general Which is something I just kind of randomly started thought it would be fun and it became really fun But just to everyone like just shoot a shot, you know If you if they don't email back or in the same spot as you are right now But you might be in the place that could like literally change your life right it goes back to the whole statement You miss every shot you don't take what do you have to lose? It's why I'm a ball hog on the basketball court I play but I was younger. I never played competitively, but I haven't I love basketball But I don't on the topic of LinkedIn Through this LinkedIn posting I had some coffee chats and one guy invited me to basketball on Sunday And we start playing and he he manages to elbow me right here Got a little cut. Yeah, I see it So if you're not watching this on video go watch it and you can see the cut Yeah, he elbows me and it was a clean play. I was sort of going and he got in front of me with totally fine But I started bleeding and then I was thinking I was like doing this podcast. It's like it's had to happen right now um Before I want to be on video. I'm not usually on video. I like phone calls personally So it's just I'll look at this way, you know, when it drops and have a good laugh. So Oh, I've had sometimes when I've had things where I'm here. Yeah, that's not gonna look pretty All right, so I want to move into our fpna section So how this works is we're looking for cutting a relatively quick dancers. Yep There's four questions or kind of standard questions. Just want to get your thoughts So the first question is what is the number one technical skill The fpna professional should master 100% it's modeling Excel modeling beat the master all right. So excel and modeling those are the two most common answers we get Sometimes it's sometimes it's financial modeling, but some combination that is very very common shocker, right? Although we're starting to get more and more AI As that continues to grow What what I would say too is modeling can make you make better power points If you're a better model or you make simpler things It then can go in the deck and be like the whole page and it's perfect So that's what I found. It's just like a structured way of thinking when I say modeling, I guess Yeah, you know, I think there's something to be said for that inch nor who's the executive director of fmi says Far and away the number one problem with models is designed it almost always comes back to design learning how to design financial models can also help in other areas because You know, there's there's structure their framework to be able to design a good PowerPoint or design a good whatever it might be So I hear you. What about that soft skill? I think it's it's mixed the mix of inspiring versus monitoring director ports Elaborate a little bit on that on it if you could so it I mean management is is hard We'll go too much into that but Like you have to get people excited about the work while also like making sure they're like doing the right thing And not not slacking off and that part of the inspiring part is that but You know if you're just an inspirational leader it can be everybody's happy, but you might not No one's gonna get anything done if you can't really like there's no incentives and those kind of the state of the care at the stick there Versus if you're just a jerk monitoring like hey slack me everything you did today every day and you put it in there like probably I'm gonna leave that company right yeah, and nobody likes a micromanager Exactly So right thank you. So if Excel removed one feature tomorrow which one would cause you the most panic Well, I kind of already said it and I can give you another one if this doesn't work, but the ability to have add-ins Like whenever I touch Excel without macabacus it I'm like hit the keys nothing happens like no My formats is not cycle it So I would do that when I is that fairer say or I have I have a fairer. So your biggest thing is the add-in got it Not that word a format I'm a big formatting um I don't know the right word for this like Format and jerk like if you could be an unformat spreadsheet. I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you format it Which Excel mistake taught you the biggest lesson that you've made over you through. How do you avoid it now? Yeah So that was when I was managing travel and incidentals expenses in my first year This is an attention to detail thing I left in a plug for two months The plug was supposed to take travel expenses down one month and then I forgot I did the model from the next month So stayed in so then we were like double and I had the oops who had to tell my manager about it Who then did to tell the you know BP about it and I was crushed like obviously it it killed me everybody life went on It wasn't that really epic of a deal and grand scheme with anything but What I learned was I got to check things like six times and for me that's I literally need six now I needed six until I automated until I had checks better checks in place that I didn't need to the check at six times And that was for me that was the big unlock enough getting it for everything learning to build automated checks Yeah, cuz I I'm at OCD, but I like I'll come back three times checking my garage doors closed kind of thing Like I just that's just me a little bit. I get nervous, you know, I'm human I guess Well, I'm glad you're human. I was hoping we weren't interviewing an alien area Although if you were an alien I could really advertise this that was so different All right, let's move into the get to know you section. What are you doing? You're free time. What's the hobby your passion? You have So pick up all probably is the top bucket in my life. I've gotten really into it I was a fastball player, but I don't do that as much but I think the the most more surprising one is actually I love producing music and playing the piano That's really my one of my favorite like just stress relieving things of just doing it got into it in college and kept it going so cool so we got piano and pickleball I like it all right if you could only speaking of music if you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life what song would you pick and why so I almost want to ask you first what song you think I would pay I'm not sure honestly and when you said piano I'm like would you go with something classical because then it kind of you can you know manage it in almost any background versus some really loud song that certain spots you'd be like all right that's driving me crazy so I'm going to go with something classical okay yeah you're not right there it would be lucid dreams by juice world so a rap song but it's actually a sample of sting there's this like shape of your heart I think by sting that kind of day yeah I know that I'm a big sting fan so I know okay I know that song yeah he lost like probably two-thirds of his publishing just by sampling that because sting all these is super stingy on that but I know I was 2019 was a very transformative year for me just personally and that song kind of got me through it I'd probably listen to it I don't know a couple hundred dozen times and then juice world that rapper die at the end of 2019 you were just so to me it was almost a weird way like that chapter closed 2019 it's been like my future since then so that's why that song kind of stays with me yeah definitely not the song I would guess but hey you know RIP juice world I got I got always shout that out he was a amazing talent gone to see all right there we go never thought I'd get a rapper RIP on the show but hey we we cover everything here all right if you could have dinner with one person in the world today will you take into dinner they have to be alive as soon can be dead go either way live our dead I'll let you pick I read that as a lot I think I'm going with Howard marks the oak tree founder why so he does these letters of your red Howard marks letter I have me off day yeah I publish some I think either quarterly or maybe monthly it's a big writer and he just he's really fascinating the way he looks at finance and like the macro economy and world view and he he's one of the few people that Warren Buffett says whenever he publishes something I read it immediately so to me that's even a step above or if you can do and you're going to make me feel guilty if Warren says to read it and I I know nothing chose the I'm I'm an educated thanks a lot maybe it's good your oak tree does like a distressed debt they're not always the best person in the world oak tree is a firm so distressed debt can be a very tough situation and you can have very onerous terms in those environments when you're helping people survive no question about that but no that would be fascinating I have to go read one of his letters if you can offer one piece of advice to our audience kind of a parting advice to be a better business partner what would you give him yeah and I think I would call this my overall advice to anybody in FPNA as well as like you got to find your edge and in the context of being a business partner find your edge for you can help them the most where they're not helping themselves or they're not looking at things like where you can really provide value to them and like for me that was like modeling was an edge I had automation was an edge I had so I did that to speed up things so I could have more time to be a better business partner and just just really figure figure that out I mean I think I said this before too it's about them being a business partner is about them it's not about you and that's I think we have to think I think those are two great biases one is finding your edge finding kind of your superpower so to speak whatever it is that allows you to be better do things faster and then remembering it's about them make sense all right so if someone wants to learn more about you potentially get in touch after listening to this maybe they want to listen to some music or something you know wraps on after they get in touch with you well just to be clear all the rap music I've ever made has been purged from the internet you cannot find it there's nowhere and if you do I will talk to you I'll pay you money I don't even know if you can find it for me where it still is but that's locked up in my safe at my house but yeah LinkedIn's a good spot it's Alex Dash Fabry med linked in or Alex at colerfabry.com.co L-L-E-R Fabry.com so so yeah I love I have a link on my LinkedIn page book an appointment I've all my morning slots open anyone wants if they can have it I love chatting with new random people so please feel free to reach out I love F-P-N-A and be called fan too yeah well thank you and thank you Alex Fabry I appreciate it you can go to LinkedIn and find them there thank you for carving out some time today and excited to share this with my audience so thanks again for spending an hour with me here thank you a lot of fun if you enjoyed the show please leave us a five star rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice this allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe as a reminder you can earn CPE credit by going to earmark CPE.com downloading the app taking a short quiz and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the F-PAC certification take the quiz on earmark and contact me the show host for further details