The Real Job of FP&A: 40% Numbers, 60% Influence

The best FP&A professionals don't just explain the numbers. They understand the business well enough to influence it. Gauri Tambe, Head of Finance & Accounting at Genezen, joins FP&A Today to explore what finance looks like inside the world of cell and gene therapy. Scientific uncertainty, capital-intensive programs, customer funding risk, strict quality requirements, and constantly changing timelines mean that simply consolidating the numbers is not enough. For Gauri, understanding the day-to-day operations of the business is fundamental to being an effective finance leader. Gauri estimates that only 40% of her role is running and reporting the numbers, while the other 60% is influence: aligning sales with operational capacity, helping R&D and supply chain make better decisions, building contractual protections around uncertain programs, and keeping teams focused on the same business outcomes. She also shares how Genezen uses probability-weighted pipelines, weekly flash reporting, and a 13-week cash plan to manage uncertainty. The broader lesson for FP&A is that you have to become a strong business professional before becoming an effective finance professional. As AI is increasingly used for reporting and analysis, understanding operations, challenging assumptions, influencing people, and knowing what is happening behind the numbers is becoming more valuable. Key Moments ● FP&A has to understand how the business actually operates. In a high-risk environment, knowing the numbers without understanding operations makes it difficult to identify the real risks and opportunities. ● Influence can matter more than reporting. Gauri describes her role as roughly 40% running the numbers and 60% influencing R&D, operations, sales, and supply chain. ● Finance connects the organization. When sales forecasts demand that operations cannot deliver, finance is uniquely positioned to bring teams together and reconcile ambition with capacity. ● Forecasting uncertainty needs more than one forecast. Pipeline probabilities, contractual protections, bad-debt reserves, weekly flash reporting, and cash planning all work together. ● Contracts are part of financial planning. Upfront payments, cancellation provisions, and stage gates can protect capacity and capital when customer programs change unexpectedly. ● Cash can tell a different story from the P&L. Finance teams should challenge a strong-looking P&L by asking whether the same strength is actually showing up in the bank. ● How Genezen operates as a finance function with five people in accounting and a team of two in FP&A. ● AI raises the expectations placed on finance professionals. If reporting and basic analysis can increasingly be automated, junior finance professionals need to develop operational understanding, critical thinking, and cross-functional experience earlier in their careers. Timestamps 08:18 - Why finance leaders need to understand operations, not just the numbers 11:13 - Gauri's 40% numbers, 60% influence philosophy 19:00 - When strategic misalignment needs a meeting, not an email 28:03 - Using contracts and cancellation clauses to protect against revenue risk 31:27 - How Genezen uses 50-90% probabilities to forecast its opportunity pipeline 41:35 - Weekly flash reporting and managing a 13-week cash outlook 50:41 - Why a good finance professional must first be a good business professional 56:30 - Stop relying on your P&L and look at your cash flow statement Earn CPE Credit If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit https://earmarkcpe.com/fpa. Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate. Further Reading/Listening Gauri Tambe & the Genezen Leadership Team https://www.genezen.com/about-us/meet-the-team/ Genezen - Cell & Gene Therapy CDMO https://www.genezen.com/ Pitt Hopkins Research Foundation https://pitthopkins.org/ Sarah discusses her daughter's Pitt Hopkins diagnosis in the episode and the role foundation-funded research can play in advancing rare-disease therapies