Glenn Hopper: Using ChatGPT to Build an FP&A Tool and What Happened Next

Many CFOs preach about keeping up with technological change. But CFO Glenn Hopper went a step further. As ChatGPT talk reached fever pitch he was ready with a proof of concept for an FP&A version of Chat GPT. For good measure he also provided 30 pages of documentation about the process (“Application of ChatGPT to Build an FP&A Tool”) - to acclaim among FP&A professionals.

Hopper, a serial startup CFO, and U.S. Navy veteran who earned a master’s degree at Harvard says: “I wanted to see if someone with just a base understanding of the underlying technology could use artificial intelligence to first off build a tool that would help automate some of the FP&A processes and secondly, get to a way where you could use that tool to interact with your company's financial data.”

In this episode Glenn Hopper discusses

His unusual transition to CFO, moving from journalism in the Navy to product manager.
How a passion for writing helps to formulate projects and challenges in finance
His experience with financial transformation in finance companies and the lessons he learned from the experience – as set out in his book Deep Finance
How having a mathematical and analytical mindset is crucial for anyone in FP&A
How his biggest corporate failure (missing a $1.5million invoice in budget preparation) was essentially his “origin story” to becoming a transformative CFO
How he wrote a feature film – a low budget horror movie, The Hanged Man which streamed on Netflix
His favorite Excel function
Links from the show

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