FP&A Meets AI: Skills That Matter

This episode of The Hackett Group’s “Gen AI Breakthrough” podcast, explores the evolving skill sets finance professionals need to thrive in the age of generative AI. Hosts Kimberly Myers Dennis and Sherri Liao discuss the impact of AI on finance talent, emphasizing data literacy, ethical decision-making, and digital business partnering to ensure organizations successfully integrate AI alongside human expertise.

Welcome to The Hackett Group’s “Gen AI Breakthrough” podcast, where top experts give actionable artificial intelligence (AI) insights, expert advice and strategies to achieve breakthrough business performance. This episode is hosted by Kimberly Myers Dennis, director of the Finance Executive Advisory practice at The Hackett Group, and Sherri Liao, principal and the EPM & BI Advisory practice lead at The Hackett Group. On today’s episode, Kimberly and Sherri discuss the effect generative AI (Gen AI) will have on finance talent and desirable skills, along with organizations implementing transitions between AI and human expertise.

To begin, Kimberly and Sherri talk about a recap of the last podcast where they focused on the technology aspects of Gen AI and the implications of that. Then, they discuss the new skills required for AI. Sherri mentions structuring and framing through available data with what they work with now. Many people are involved in financial projects with other team members, so people skills and being able to work on a team are crucial. Organizations will also be looking for creative innovation skills and mindset, along with people who like a challenge and are willing to try something new. Risks are involved with these new skills along with risk performance, so organizations need to understand how to manage and mitigate risks in a meaningful way. They will also look for future employees with emotional and behavioral intelligence in being able to critically consider how something will be received and influenced, and then being able to make suggestions in a productive way.

In terms of AI specifically with machines, they need people who will have social and ethical decision-making. Gen AI will still require humans to do work and someone who will pause in order to release and use information. Organizations will look for leadership to structure AI appropriately. These skills, especially ethical decision-making, will be essential not just for AI-related work, but for the whole finance ladder.

Many organizations will go through a transition period as they think about employing Gen AI in this space. We want companies to use AI responsibly and flexibly, and people with data literacy skills will be crucial with these new models. Valid, complete and consistent data to use will be needed to perform Gen AI work. In the early stages of developing these tools, we need someone to understand this model really well and also have project management skills. The traditional profile for these organizations is someone who has expertise, but the driving discovery is to have someone who can think differently with creativity and focus by thinking through what data could mean for the experience, customer, or their colleague. This touches on that behavioral intelligence side, which will be essential for finance organizations. AI will not replace humans at their current jobs, but it will augment them.

In addition to employees, digital business partners will also need to be trained to work collaboratively in the field. These companies are driving discovery pilots, and when they are thinking big, there will be seismic ripples. These changes and the playing field could drastically start in the next few years – or even in the next few months. There could also be machines that will think they are humans, so that is why that ethical skill set is also so important.

In conclusion, Sherri and Kimberly share their final thoughts. They discuss revisiting skills of interest to hone in on to invest in the next generation who will be operating in very different tools. They also suggest bringing your people along the way by setting expectations or having discussions about what will change and what that means for our people. The sooner we develop plans now, the more prepared for the future we will be.

Time stamps:

• 0:39 – Welcome to this episode hosted by Kimberly Myers Dennis and Sherri Liao.

• 2:29 – What are the new skills required for AI?

• 9:07 – The change in abilities and transition that will happen due to Gen AI.

• 13:58 – How do we train our digital business partners to have the same competencies and strengths so members of the same team can work together?

• 15:18 – Sherri and Kimberly share their final thoughts.