Executive Perspective
The Best FP&A Certifications and Courses To Advance Your Career in 2024
Looking to advance your FP&A career in 2024? Here are the nine best FP&A certifications and courses to choose from.
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How many podcasts do you listen to?
If you’re like many people today, you have a long list of them you turn to when you’re doing chores, walking the dog or on your morning commute.
In fact, one study found that in 2023, 42% of Americans aged 12 and older have listened to a podcast over the last month—and a full 31% have listened to a podcast over the past week. The study shows those numbers are growing too—rising significantly over the last decade.
Today, there are plenty of well-produced podcasts for CFOs to choose from, across a variety of fields. And that includes finance.
There's also a wide range educational resources that to finance leaders and CFOs - from conferences to courses, these resources are targeted specifically to the topics they care about.
We like podcasts because the best CFO podcasts are informative and engaging—combining interviews, insights and best practices that listeners can directly apply to their own roles.
Don’t know where to start? Well, we’ve rounded up a list of some of the best podcasts for finance leaders to get you going.
The CFO Show, sponsored by Vena, is the new CFO weekly podcast hosted by our own CFO, Melissa Howatson—also joined by co-host Tom Seegmiller, Vena’s Vice President of FP&A. Launched in September 2023, the podcast explores current financial and business topics, industry best practices, economic trends and more—featuring interviews with a range of business and finance leaders. Plus, it’s the only active CFO podcast hosted by a current CFO.
“My goal as host of The CFO Show is that finance and business professionals will find insightful, timely commentary on the biggest issues in finance and business that will help them grow in their careers,” Melissa told listeners when the podcast was released.
To round out your podcasts in rotation, here are 17 more suggestions, offering everything from thought leadership and strategic insights to interviews and engaging stories. These podcasts are all excellent resources for finance leaders—and for the finance professionals who hope to become leaders in the future.
Put out by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), AFP Conversations talks to corporate treasury and finance executives, getting their takes on some of the biggest news, challenges and strategic insights from the world of finance. The podcast covers topics around financial technology, FP&A, budgeting, forecasting, career development and more.
Hannah Munro, Managing Director of the UK-based consultancy itas, is the host of CFO 4.0. This CFO podcast is focused on the future of finance and the ways in which the CFO role is shifting as a result. Through expert interviews and insights, it’s aimed at helping finance professionals transform their “data, processes and people” to keep up in this evolving landscape.
Designed for the financial professional who also wants a good book recommendation, the podcast CFO Bookshelf looks at books in the business and financial realm. Hosted by Mark Gandy—a business coach—it features interviews with authors and thought leaders, exploring the pages of the books in question and the finance management topics that emerge. It also offers career advice, explores each writer’s process and gets authors’ takes on the topics they’ve written about.
CFO Playbook is a CFO weekly podcast put out by Soldo, a company that specializes in prepaid company cards and automated expense software. Offering insights and strategies for the modern CFO, it features interviews with global experts that include CFOs, CEOs, academics, journalists and authors. Hosted by Fran Badenhorst, UK Content Lead with Soldo, it offers practical advice and real-life experience on topics like goal setting, team management, technology, processes and people.
CFO Talks is a South African podcast put out by CFO Club Africa, a community of over 5,000 finance executives. Hosted by Yolandi Fourie, the head of CFO Club Africa, it features a rotation of guests offering their insights on a variety of finance- and business-related topics. Recent episodes have explored ESG, being a woman in finance and how to deal with career setbacks.
Hosted by Jack Sweeney, founding editor of Consulting Magazine, CFO Thought Leader features interviews with CFOs and financial professionals. It delves into their stories and experiences, explores the challenges they’ve faced and the opportunities they’ve benefited from, as well as their successes and failures—and looks at how all of those are shaping their viewpoints as CFOs and financial leaders today.
Building efficiency in your team, creating time for strategy and getting better results are subjects any CFO is invested in—and they’re the topics that CFO Weekly explores regularly. The CFO Weekly podcast is put out by Personiv, a finance and accounting services provider. Host Megan Weis interviews a range of financial professionals to talk about everything from the changing role of finance to nurturing future finance leaders.
Put out by CFO Connect, a global community for finance leaders, the CFO podcast CFO Yeah! introduces listeners to financial leaders coming from a range of fast-growing companies. It looks at their journey and explores how they reached the office of CFO, but also digs into the journeys of the companies they work for—exploring what it is that sets them apart and how they grew so quickly.
Count Me In is a podcast distributed by The Association of Accountants and Financial Professionals in Business, an organization focused on advancing the interests of management, accounting and finance professionals. Hosted by Adam Larson, it explores thought leadership around accounting and finance, and features work being done by its members. Some of the themes it focuses on include technology, data analytics and business transformation.
The “FM” in FM Podcast stands for Financial Management Magazine, which puts out this podcast alongside the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. Hosted by journalist Neil Amato, it features interviews with business and financial leaders and explores topics related to accounting. That includes governance, technology, strategy and advice for those new to the field.
Calling itself “the podcast for finance leaders,” the GrowCFO Show is a long-running CFO weekly podcast hosted by chartered accountant and GrowCFO COO Kevin Appleby. It explores the world of finance professionals, with content driven by its listeners. Recent episodes have explored everything from how to develop your FP&A skills and how to prepare for an IPO, to the current state of the finance job market and how to recruit better people faster.
McKinsey & Company’s podcast, Inside the Strategy Room, gathers experts including senior managers and board directors to discuss how to create successful finance and business strategies. Hosted by Sean Brown, Director of Communications at McKinsey & Company, recent episodes have featured topics like ESG, investor relations and AI.
The modern CFO searches out the resources and knowledge they need to adapt to the ever-changing finance landscape—and The Modern CFO podcast explores exactly those topics. Through interviews with finance leaders, host Andrew Seski looks at the subjects that matter most to CFOs today and the strategies that will help them keep up with every new obstacle that comes their way.
Featuring thought leadership from the experts at PwC, the PwC Accounting Podcast explores a variety of topics relevant to today’s financial professionals. Hosted by Heather Horn, PwC’s National Office thought leader, the podcast helps finance professionals stay informed on the things that matter to them, diving into topics like taxes and ESG, the global economy and current economic outlooks.
A follow up to its popular FinOps Today podcast, Recession-Proof is distributed by Ramp, a corporate card and finance operations software provider. Hosted by Alex Song, Ramp’s VP of Finance & Capital Markets, and Kimia Hamidi, Ramp’s Head of Savings, this podcast explores current economic conditions through the eyes of finance leaders, looking at what they’re doing to stay ahead and how they stay agile through market uncertainties.
Hosted by former CFO Steve Coughran, the Strategic Financial Leadership podcast looks at business strategy, corporate finance and economics. Combining conversations with business and finance professionals with discussions on current trends and innovations, it unveils new strategic insights and goals for teams in the corporate finance world.
Sharing first-hand accounts straight from the mouths of global finance leaders, Strength in the Numbers offers listeners practical advice and lessons from the field. It’s focused on providing mentorship to financial professionals just starting out in the industry of finance and words of wisdom to those further along in their journey. Hosted by author and coach Andrew Codd, it explores the current trends and biggest challenges in the world of finance, and how experienced professionals are applying new technologies and business models.
Education is key to personal and professional growth, and podcasts like the ones above offer a variety of viewpoints to learn from—all in a way that’s engaging and will keep you listening from week to week.
So if you’re looking to up your game as a CFO or give yourself an advantage on your path towards finance leadership, the best CFO podcasts are an excellent way to get started and a good supplement to FP&A courses.
So get out your earbuds and start listening now!