E21: Zack Fennessy Spotlight - FSF

Our guest this episode shares a lot in common with us as independent consultants and understands the challenges many face breaking into the ecosystem. During this conversation, Joe Van Bolderen talks with us about his climb through the ranks, his time off from the daily grind traveling the world, and his experience coming back and taking on the challenge of going independent/building his own team! We wish Joe the best on his new ventures but after getting to know more we are confident that he’ll find ways to provide value to his clients regardless. And if you’re interested in understanding this experience a little better, this episode is a great start.

Steven Barry is a proven mentor in the Anaplan community, but not only that, he brings so many other qualities to the table, both technical and strategically. Steven currently works for an Anaplan Partner, where he focuses on training and developing new Anaplan talent through structured learning content, advice and insights, and case study exercises. When he isn't teaching, he is helping drive growth for the Anaplan practice at Cervello.

Season 4 is here! To kick things off we host Chad Pyke from “The EPM Show” and CoThryve. In Chad's day-to-day, he strives to help companies build winning teams by connecting them with the right talent in the EPM Space as a Talent Partner at CoThryve. In this episode, Chad gives us insight into how to market yourself vertically in your career, what characteristics hiring decision makers look for, and much more! However, don't let first impressions deceive you. Once his daily work at CoThryve is done, Chad and his business partner Blake put on their super suits and host “The EPM Show” with the goal of giving Anaplan and EPM professionals an unfair career advantage. Don't miss the insights they have there either, as our discussion is just the tip of the iceberg! Stay tuned for Episode 2!

This week on "The Best Practice" we meet with Cyrus Sullivan, a good friend of ours from Anavate Partners. Cyrus is one of the founding members of Anavate and currently holds the title: Director of Partnerships. In this episode, Cyrus walks us through Anavate's contribution to the Anaplan Community through their college outreach program, Skill Factory training, and willingness to mentor new entrants to the connected planning space. If you are interested in how to get involved with Anaplan, this is quite the insightful episode for you! Enjoy!

For the first time, FSF welcomes a guest BACK to the podcast! David Smith joins the FSF team once again to discuss agnostic planning practices and share insights on the industry as a whole. This time around, David walks through when and how to choose your next planning platform, why Excel has stuck in the fight so long, and what his new adventure, Kaleidoscope, is up to these days. Always a pleasure to have the great, David Smith in our presence. This may become a yearly occurrence! Enjoy!

FSF is excited to announce a new partnership with Datarails! Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform for Excel users. It automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models. Join us as we introduce Annette DeYoung, a highly experienced FP&A Solutions Consultant at Datarails,and discuss how Datarails can address so many of your company's planning and forecasting issues with ease.

There are a ton of Anaplan customers out there, but few have the internal talent that our next guest has in regards to Anaplan knowledge and experience. Will Lederer is the FP&A, Business Technology Director at Okta. On top of architecting everything Anaplan related, last year Will led a technology tranformation project as his team and him were tasked with merging Okta's newly aqcuired company's (Auth0) data into their existing architecture. If that doesn't sound challenging enough, this was all required to be done while maintaining both finance team's ability to report consolidated basis... Needless to say, we are grateful to have someone with this experience on the podcast! Join us as Will walks us through that experience and outlines the approach/strategy he implemented to devise a solution to this problem and how Anaplan's flexibility made it the perfect tool for the challenge.

For the FIRST TIME on "The Best Practice", FSF Consulting Group invites one of their very own clients to the podcast! Geoff Lyn and Naomi Chan of MarVista Entertainment share their journey to Anaplan, the difficulties faced along the way, and how FSF Consulting Group assisted with model optimizations and overall user adoption for MVE's use of Anaplan. The relatability within this episode goes without mentioning. Many customers feel the same hesitancy and anxiety when choosing to switch from the familiar over to Anaplan, which can be complex especially in the early days. However, when it comes to achieving results for a use case as unique as the Entertainment Industry demands, Anaplan stands up to the test and delivers, as long as your implementation was designed to succeed. Enjoy this inside look into FSF as a Partner to an amazing Client!

Season 3 of "The Best Practice" podcast is finally HERE!!! We kick this season off with an amazing guest by the name of Luke Komiskey. Luke is the CEO and Founder of DataDrive, an organization dedicated to helping companies gain their ‘data advantage’ of actionable insights - without the hassle of managing data teams & tech. In this episode, Luke discusses: Data Strategy and when to get one The different data tools that can assist in your data journey His adventure around the world with his wife prior to starting DataDrive And much more about Data! Join in to learn more about Luke, Data, and how you can elevate your company with new insights!

Welcome back to "The Best Practice" podcast for Season 2, Episode 10! This week, we go behind the scenes with the podcast host, Zack Fennessy to hear his journey to Master Anaplanner and what this new title means to him in the greater Anaplan ecosystem. Tune in to hear a little bit about Zack's personal side as we continue the "Behind the Brand" series with FSF Consulting Group!