In this special episode of CFI’s FinPod, we’re joined by our co-founder Scott Powell and founder of “The FP&A Guy,” Paul Barnhurst, to explore how AI, automation, and evolving skill sets reshape careers in FP&A, capital markets, and investment banking.

We discuss how tools like ChatGPT are already changing workflows, why Python and Excel are still essential to your skill set, how to stand out in the hiring process, and what finance professionals need to thrive by 2030.

Transcript

Meeyeon (00:11)
Hi everyone, and welcome to a very special episode. This is gonna mark our 100 episodes of the FinPod podcast at CFI. And this is gonna be an extra special episode because as you can tell here, if you’re watching on video, I have two wonderful guests with me here today. We have Paul Barnhurst, AKA the FP&A&A guy. And we have Scott Powell, the original gangster, one of the co-founders of CF.

And today we’re going to be doing something a little bit different. So mostly on our series, we’re always talking about what’s new at CFI and we’re learning about careers in finance and doing our most accessible coffee chats. But today we’re going to have a little bit of a turn and we’re going to do something special for, believe it or not, we’ve had 100 episodes. can’t believe we’ve done 100. I’ve not done all 100 episodes. So Anna did a couple of them. Hi, Anna.

Scott Powell (01:04)
Wow, that’s amazing.

Meeyeon (01:09)
but I’ve been doing them since I returned from Mat Leave in October. And yeah, I think it’s a great time to kind of pause and reflect, especially with so much changing in the industry. Our main topic that we wanna talk about today, which a lot of our audience has been curious about is just how AI generally is kind of creating the largest shift since the kind of digitalization of the world. So for example, I’m a millennial

who grew up with dial-up internet. Once the full speed cable internet came along, life just changed very dramatically. I grew up in a very different way than people I guess that were born in the 2000s have. I didn’t grow up with computers and tablets until I was much older. I think AI is the next biggest shift that we have here. And with that said, can’t think of having two more perfect guests because Paul has gone directly from working in

FP&A at AMEX, American Express, one of my favorite credit card issuers, the best points ever, to going and being like an entrepreneur slash influencer slash podcast host, things that were generally not like a career path, you know, 20 years ago, but now we have something.

Paul Barnhurst (02:16)
Thank you.

You can refer to me as just a big mouth. That’s pretty much what my career is now.

Meeyeon (02:36)
And then, on the other hand, have Scott, who has become, honestly, like I would say, I know trailblazer is not like, it’s kind of a cheesy word, but really because you’ve democratized a huge part of learning about finance. For example, I was in the investment banking analyst training program. I thought it was the most amazing learning experience I’ve had ever, especially on the professional side, being in person and having these really amazing instructors

Scott Powell (02:46)
Cheesy.

Meeyeon (03:06)
with 20 plus years of investment banking at top tier banks come in and teach me. But now that has been brought to you, everyone listening on your screen by people like Scott who have taken that and digitalized it and made it accessible at a price point that’s for everyone and that you can learn at your own pace. So two people that have done or participated in such landscape changing parts of 

general work. Couldn’t think of better people to have on the podcast for this. Now, I’m going to stop talking for a little bit because I’m going to ask, and this is going to be very brief, kind of like an elevator, not pitch, but what you would say in an elevator. If you were to think back very quickly and say in a couple of sentences, what got you into finance and what, for example, inspired you, to become an entrepreneur and where you are today?

And Scott, what got you into finance? What inspired you to create CFI?

Paul Barnhurst (04:09)
Right, so I fell in love with my finance class in grad school and decided that’s where I wanted to go. I switched from supply chain to finance and then what got me into my business, entrepreneurship was my undergrad. I did a business management degree with emphasis on entrepreneurship and I had like five opportunities that came together over a month of different things, training, consulting, influencing. I told my wife, I think I can turn this into a business. She looked at me like I was crazy and then we talked about it for six weeks and

She’s like, yeah, go for it. And so I started my own business and three years later, I haven’t gone bankrupt. So I’m still here.

Meeyeon (04:45)
I love it. That is such a tight, tight pitch. I love it.

Paul Barnhurst (04:49)
Said elevator, so I tried.

Meeyeon (04:51)
Hahaha.

Scott Powell (04:52)
That was only like five floors in the elevator. That was pretty good,

Paul Barnhurst (04:56)
Well, I’m not in New York.

Our buildings aren’t as tall.

Scott Powell (05:05)
So maybe I’ll just jump in. Here’s my elevator. I might be a bit longer. I’ll try to be concise, but you know me very well and I love to talk way too much. But long story short is I did economics at university, love numbers, and wanted to turn it into a career. And I was thinking, do I want to become an economist? But finance just felt more sexy, more interesting. And I happened to be living in England at the time, which is a big financial center. So,

it was like, it was sitting there and I thought, why not, let’s give it a try. And loved it. But one of the things I’ll tell you that’s really shaped my career is this, is that during my early career in finance, I was asked to teach new analysts on financial skills. And I realized that I loved the teaching even more than the role that I was in in finance. And so that’s from that point on, which was quite early on in my career, maybe six years into my career, I tried to segue into teaching,

teaching finance for a living. And ultimately, I started working teaching in the investment banks, teaching folks who are new analysts and associates. But my dream, because I’m a small-town kid from a working-class family, was how can I democratize this education so that people like me, who don’t grow up in New York or in a privileged family, can try and access those same jobs and get those same skills.

And that’s really the foundation of CFI, as you said, democratizing learning.

Meeyeon (06:36)
And the careers that you’ve both had, I would say that it’s…

It’s harder for people to have those careers today because not to say that it’s, for example, Paul has a very successful career in hosting podcasts and being an entrepreneur. It’s an extremely competitive space. And as time goes on and as our, not just finance industry, but the way that we work evolves with the aid of AI, those areas just become more and more competitive and increasingly difficult to stand out in.

And when it comes to e-learning, 10 years ago, this really didn’t exist. But now it’s hyper competitive in every facet of education, whether it’s learning to go on a website and say, hey, I want to the guitar. I want to learn the ukulele. I want to learn the flute. I want to learn the cello. Anything that you want to learn now is also an extremely competitive space to be in. To create another CFI today would be really challenging because CFI is established. We have other competitors out there.

So today, if we’re looking at how people enter into finance industry today, it is such a different lens that they have to live through than the one that I did and the one that you both did. And so I wanted to talk about today how we think AI is reshaping careers in finance very broadly. And I guess the first question I would love to pose to you both today is just, where do you think we’re seeing AI have the biggest impact already?

Paul Barnhurst (08:14)
Stop! All yours! I’ll let you go first.

Scott Powell (08:14)
Yeah, that’s

a hard one because that’s such a big question. But one of the things is that here at CFI, we’ve done a lot of talking about our approach to AI. What do we think about is going to happen to most jobs and finance as it relates to AI? And the big message that I still believe all our learners need to take to heart

is that they need to be leaning into AI because multiple aspects of jobs will change. I say multiple, I think about the way I use AI. I’ve used AI maybe 10, 15 times today for a myriad of tasks.

Meeyeon (08:59)
My gosh, tell us which one.

Scott Powell (09:03)
A couple of things. Well, first one was I just needed something rewritten. Right? I needed something rewritten and I thought I wrote something. Here’s my first draft. Clean it up and use my tone. And it’s, it allows me to work much faster. So something that would take me an hour. I got done in literally three minutes this morning. So a powerful productivity tool. Another way I used it was I was putting together, because now I’m in education,

was putting together a script for a role play for our future communications course. And that script, I knew exactly what I wanted the script to say, not verbatim, but kind of the tone, the words, but with the right prompts, the script that came out, I didn’t even have to edit. It was perfect. So anyway, I’m telling you this because I use AI all the time. And whether you are…

using Excel, you’re having to write a memo. Remember Paul, I talk way too much. I’ll just say one more thing. People think roles in finance are all just about numbers. Almost every role that I’ve ever encountered in finance requires excellent communication skills. And so when you think about AI, don’t just think about it as an ability to code Python quicker

or learn a new Excel function, but also think about how it can enhance the way you communicate to your stakeholders or clients. And I’ll stop talking, Paul.

Paul Barnhurst (10:42)
Yeah, I mean, I think what’s interesting is the biggest area we’ve seen AI help us today is not in the manual tasks. And what I mean is not many people are using it to clean up data yet. There are some situations where using it, but that’s not the main area it’s being used. Surprisingly enough, the biggest area it’s being used is on the area that we expected it to free us up to have more time on, creativity

and then summarization, right? Like give me 10 ideas for this. Give me 15 names for my podcast. You know, rewrite this email for me and make it more creative and fluffy or marketing-esque or whatever you want. And that’s where we’re seeing it lot. Excel is also a big one, writing formulas. I mean, they’re definitely, you know, helping with coding and all those two type of things. But I think a lot of what’s coming is the workflow and the agents and really saving us time on a lot of the

manual tasks that are more around data and maybe modeling and right now it’s helping us with great for summarization. Like you mentioned Scott, right? Writing a script. I’ve helped it. I’ve had them put together outlines for a course and then I go through and edit it or give me ideas and how to teach something because it can generate 30 ideas a lot quicker than I can. That’s for sure. And then I can look through them and go, okay, how do I want to tweak this or how does it help? So I think those are a lot of places we’re seeing.

And we’ll continue to see more and more on the data side as it really gets integrated into companies workflows.

Meeyeon (12:17)
That’s such a… So I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time because I interview people for our Member Spotlight podcast, Careers in Finance podcast, and I also get to talk to a lot of people that are fairly new to the workforce, so maybe two, three years into their career. I’ve had a lot of people that I’ve had the great fortune of being able to mentor that have worked at CFI and now have a great career in finance. For example, Annie, if she listens to this, she’ll know she’s being mentioned here.

So she was in traditional investment banking and energy and now she’s at a, she’s on the buy side. But the way that her workflow was when she was at CFI, maybe three years ago, versus where it is today is so different. And it’s the same thing for me. And I thought it was really interesting that Paul said the way that you thought AI would impact your workflow today is quite different because you would have thought that it would take away all the mundane repetitive things,

like getting a giant, I’m reflecting back on my days in capital markets, a huge Bloomberg data dump from all their fixed income bonds. And I have to look at, know, government issued, federal government issued securities and looking at all these like pricing anomalies, but that’s not really the way that at least I’ve seen AI impact finance. It really is on the creative side. And the way that,

you know, back then when I was in DCM, it would be creating pitch presentations, organizing and summarizing market data. But the idea of sitting in that desk, kind of figure it out by myself, is so different now. Cause now I have, it’s almost like a friend, but a really, really smart friend to ask everything to that will never judge you and will continuously learn from you

and be able to kind of like anticipate your questions and tailor your questions to you. I think that’s an incredible way that our workflow is changing. It’s like you’re always gonna have like a trainer with you regardless of what you’re doing. And I find that it’s really transformed the way that I work in so many ways, not just at CFI, for example, if I am doing a new exercise routine and I’m doing it, for example, like,

Paul Barnhurst (14:26)
Mm-hmm.

Meeyeon (14:41)
a postpartum mom, like give me like a 20 minute thing that I can do every day to get these types of results. I feel like AI has transformed that in such a dramatic way that when it comes to how it impacts people’s workflows and career paths, it’s quite intimidating. For example, the biggest question I think that we’ve all received over the past few years is which finance roles or skill sets do you think will be the most disrupted or turned obsolete

by AI and on the flip side, what do you think will become skills wise and role wise most in demand now that we have AI? So I guess to rephrase my question, which finance roles or skill sets do you think will be most disrupted or most in demand as AI becomes more and more integrated with us? We can go to Paul first for this one and then Scott.

Paul Barnhurst (15:36)
All right.

I mean, the biggest thing it’s going to require is we’re going to have to better soft skills. At the same time, it doesn’t eliminate the need to have technical skills. When you use AI, you just have to validate and be able to make sure things are right. And the more skills you have on the technical side, often the more you’re able to get out of gen AI. Like somebody who has a PhD in a subject is going to be

better position to validate, to get things out of the tool, to make sure the prompts are right. But at the same time, as it gets better and better and more of it’s in a workflow and it’s kind of press a button and get an answer, the soft skills, being able to interpret it, being able to communicate it, being able to help drive decision-making, being able to be strategic is going to become more and more important, especially in FP&A . But I’d say across all finance, right? There’ll be some roles that will be eliminated.

There’ll be roles that will be changed. There’ll be jobs that go away. There’ll be new jobs added, just like with the internet, just like with anything else. And the more we’re able to stand out on the soft skill side and use AI to make us more productive, the better position we are in for the future.

Scott Powell (16:51)
and I’ll just build on the productivity comment that Paul just made. I don’t see specific skills disappearing or roles. Paul’s alluded to this. If I’m going to, I’m gonna need those technical skills if I need to tell AI what I want technically. But what that AI prompt or AI tool is gonna allow me to do is do it much quicker. And there’s already an expectation

that people are using AI in their workplaces now, and I’d get everyone to reflect on how much more productive are you now than you were a couple years ago? I’m certainly a lot more productive. And I think that is just gonna escalate over time. Which means that, as Paul alluded to, there will be some job losses because if I’m five times more productive, maybe I don’t need that number of people. I’m gonna still need someone to do the job, but…

That person who’s doing that job is doing the work that used to take five people. So I personally think there’s technical and soft skills that together will always be needed. But what you need to be thinking about is using AI now to make yourself the most productive version of yourself.

Meeyeon (18:09)
And then taking it a step back, forget about productivity and getting more productive. Let’s talk about the people that are looking for their first jobs out of university, whether it’s undergraduate or a master’s degree program. This is their first time going into the workforce and they want to work in finance. If you were entering the industry today, what would you focus on learning if you were still, let’s say, in like second year university and had the time to basically

being an academic institution and just having the wonderful opportunity to take time to make your full-time career learning.

Scott?

Scott Powell (18:47)
Okay, so I’m gonna talk about it high level and then maybe Paul can go into some detail. For me, the key thing is, I’m gonna tell you a brief story about me. The brief story is this, I started my finance career before the internet. And so that had pros and cons. I couldn’t Google what the job entailed, what technical skills I needed. I didn’t have all that information at my fingertips, but,

I also didn’t have to compete with thousands of people for that job.

The internet has changed everything. And as Paul alluded earlier, we need to think about AI as just like the change that brought forth the internet. And with that change comes opportunities and some downsides. So now, our listeners right now could be applying to numerous jobs. They can get their skills online. But that’s made the whole job seeking a public…

that job seeking activity more stressful because now you’re competing with lots of different people.

key thing, and this is the message I wanted to get to, was that you need to be thinking about what sets you apart from the massive crowd that all have the same technical skills, all have similar resumes. What is it that you’re doing that sets yourself apart? And I could go into strategies for that, but that’s probably enough. Yeah, Paul? Yeah.

Meeyeon (20:18)
Yeah. And like one of the things I wanted to mention before we get to Paul is that I’ve heard from recruiters that things, you know, with AI productivity tools, one of the big things for especially new people that are new to their job for us is that when she reviews resumes and copper letters, she’s like, it’s insane because everyone is, everyone is the same. Everyone is great. Everyone is someone I would interview now. Before, if I had like 100 resumes from certain people and

they were all producing their own resume, their own cover letter, had to write every single line in there. She’s like, then it was easier for me to kind of decide like, okay, like this is the first group that I want to interview and then let’s see where things progress from there. So now it’s very challenging because I receive, let’s say all 100 people have now had access to a chat GPT or another type of productivity tool. She’s like, they’re all great. They all sound like people that I want to sit down with. So if…

So with that in mind, Paul, if you were entering the industry today, what skills would you focus on?

Paul Barnhurst (21:23)
Well, I think there’s a couple of things. First, I would find ways to put myself out there. So when somebody Googles me or whatever tool they’re using, they see that I’ve shared content. They’ve seen that I’m passionate about whatever I’m doing, whether it’s putting a project out there, whether it’s sharing something on LinkedIn, whether it’s trying to be on a podcast, whatever it might be, think building a little bit of an online brand presence will help you.

If you’re not comfortable with that, there’s other ways it can be done. But I think that’s one thing to stand out. And then as far as skills, it’s not so much about skills as it is about kind of trying to focus on skill stacking. What makes you unique to somebody else? Like I have a finance degree and I did it maybe a dual degree in data analytics. I had a minor in this. It’s trying to find a way that allows you to stand out and make you unique so that when they see it, they’re like, wow, this person has this and that

being able to train people really well and being really good at finance is a unique combination. Not everybody can do that. Or, you know, being great at storytelling and influencing. So find a way to make yourself stand out beyond the perfect created AI resume. And then the biggest thing is people are looking is don’t rely on just applying for jobs. Figure out how to network. Networking is not about asking people for stuff.

It’s about building genuine relationships. And then with those genuine relationships, you can get advice from people and sometimes talk to them about potential opportunities. And you never know where that’s going to lead. But generally that will lead to better results than sending out your resume to 100 companies and doing the pray and spray methodology.

Meeyeon (23:12)
Very recently heard about that terminology and I thought it was so funny.

Scott Powell (23:14)
Ha ha ha.

Paul Barnhurst (23:17)
I’ve done it.

Meeyeon (23:18)
I think we’ve all done it, definitely did it coming out of university. One other thing that I want to, I think this is the last big broad question I’m going to ask is what excites you most about AI and where it’s going to take finance in the next five to 10 years? Because I think we get really wrapped up in the, we come from the fear perspective of

is going to take away our jobs. Like, my gosh, my skills are going to become obsolete. If Microsoft Excel is no longer a skill, then where am I going to go? That’s all I have. Like, we come from this area of fear with AI lately. But I would love to turn that conversation around and hear from you. What excites you about AI and where it’s taking finance in the next, you know, like five or 10 years? Paul?

Paul Barnhurst (24:05)
It’s a big question. I think the thing that excites me most is just how rapidly it’s making our lives easier and more productive from a work standpoint. And what will that look like in five or ten years? Will I be able to ask it all kinds of questions about my data, to update forecasts almost, you know, instantaneously? And so I can really focus on how do I now take that to a deeper level

instead of spending 50% of my time cleaning data. How many have ever done that? Ever had those weeks where, you know, the Bloomberg file or whatever it may be where you’re like, you’re kidding me? They can spell Delta in 20 different ways. I had no idea. You know, and so I think, I think that’s the area that has me excited the most is really allowing us to get to a higher level and have a bigger impact

Meeyeon (24:48)
Ha.

Paul Barnhurst (25:00)
with the business, be more commercially strategic driven, whatever it may be, depending on your role. You know, I’m speaking to FP and A, but you know, in each of our roles, I think that’s the thing that has me most excited.

Scott Powell (25:12)
And for me, it’s something similar. It’s about the fact that the productivity that we get from the tools allows us to free up time. Now that free up time may be to go deeper, as Paul said, but it might be to be thinking more strategic, take on another project. So that ability to free up time creates possibilities, right? Because it gives us time to breathe, even just time to breathe.

Certainly when I started my finance career, I did so much number crunching for hours and hours on end that I felt like I was drowning sometimes. So just that ability to use AI to free up time is what gets me excited because it’s possibilities and those possibilities are endless and they’re gonna be different for different roles and different people.

Meeyeon (26:02)
And that’s, I feel that same way. I just think that AI has allowed, at least me personally over the past few months, to scale myself. The pace at which I work and the quality of work I produce, it’s allowed me to scale up faster. And I think that’s really interesting from a business perspective, because I think that when you’re starting a business today, all the research and due diligence that goes into that process and that commitment.

I think AI allows people to scale faster. And also speaking to the creativity piece, I think that Paul said, I think AI allows people to explore creative opportunities a lot more. Things that you would never would have think about are just accessible to you to explore at your fingertips.

Now, as a way to wrap up our podcast together, I’m going to ask you a couple of rapid-fire questions. And I think we’re going to go, we’re going to do Paul first rapid fire, and then we’re going to do Scott, same rapid fire questions. So the first question, this is one of three that I’m going to ask you. What’s your favorite tool that you’re using today that is AI driven?

Paul Barnhurst (27:14)
We’ll go ChatGPT. There’s plenty I’m using, but that’s probably the one I use the most.

Meeyeon (27:19)
And are there any interesting trends that you’re watching lately that are AI driven that you think are interesting?

Paul Barnhurst (27:26)
Yeah, I mean, I think there are a number out there. I think the biggest thing I like watching is just seeing the number of tools and applications that are coming and trying to keep an idea of where they’re heading, just watching the agents and different things.

Meeyeon (27:42)
And with AI coming into our lives, have you had any sort of of mindset shift lately in the past couple of years that you thought was kind of worthy of sharing?

Paul Barnhurst (27:54)
I don’t know if there’s been a specific mindset shift. I think for me, it’s just been more of constantly trying to think how can I use AI better? Like I’m realizing in some areas I feel like I’m falling behind and I need to spend more time, but sometimes I’m so busy. So the biggest thing for me is really trying to figure out how do I take better advantage of it,

constantly thinking how can I use it more to help me while still keeping those parts that make what I do unique. I don’t want to feel like I’m the exact same as anybody else, especially in content creation, because AI can create pretty good content, but people can also often tell if it’s all AI-generated. So it’s finding that balance.

Meeyeon (28:35)
And Scott, what is your favorite tool that you’re using?

Scott Powell (28:39)
Unfortunately, it’s the same as Paul’s ChatGPT. Listen, I even use it. I’m trying to improve my French. And literally this morning I also.

Paul Barnhurst (28:50)
Now,

actual French, are we saying that more in terms of the four-letter word French?

Scott Powell (28:55)
No, thanks.

Meeyeon (28:57)
Real French.

Scott Powell (28:58)
But unfortunately, it’s real, it’s boring, but real French. So this morning, I was basically said to chat GPT, I’m gonna go into French, please speak to me back in French. And then at the end, tell me in English what I did right and wrong. Right?

Meeyeon (29:14)
Is she gonna take the place of Duolingo for you?

Scott Powell (29:18)
All I’m going to say is it kind of goes to one of your points, my mindset change. The very first thing I worried about is how’s this going to change my job, the company, right? I approached it with an attitude of probably a bit of fear. And what my mindset change mindset change has really been is no, no, it’s like no, lean into this big time. And so if people are approaching this from fear, I’d encourage you to just flip it.

Think about productivity and abundance and how could this actually create possibilities for you? Because it’s natural to fear something that’s new or uncertain. And I can’t remember the other question.

Meeyeon (30:01)
And I can’t think of it.

And the other question was, are there any trends that you’re seeing with respect to AI lately that you think are worth following?

Scott Powell (30:12)
I think you need to, here’s my view. My view is there’s too many, there’s not a gigantic trend. Everyone’s trying left, right, and center new things with AI. And I encourage you to explore through like just go on a new site and hear what’s happening with whatever AI tool, try it out.

Meeyeon (30:35)
And I can’t think of a better way to close our podcast. And what I’m going to do is actually I’m going to give everyone a little nugget of wisdom that I received from one of my, actually like the most significant mentor I’ve had in my life and his name is Scott.

And he’s on this podcast right now. And it’s just to be open to the idea, be open, open-minded, open to possibility, open to change, and approach this AI shift with no fear, but just curiosity and excitement and just be open to the idea of change and just being open to the idea of change you’d be surprised at what could come your way and change your life.

So thank you to everyone for listening and tuning in, whether you’re seeing us on video here for our 100 episodes of FinPod Milestone Podcast. I hope that you’ve had a fun time listening to us on a topic that is very different from what we normally talk about but

I think it’s super useful and relevant to what we are all facing today. Till next time, till our 200 episodes. Thank you for joining us and we’ll see you in our next episode.