Picture this: a 28-year-old Controller is spending his Friday evening rewriting a paragraph about a $12,000 unfavorable office supplies variance. At a $16 million publishing company. And he’s on his fourth draft.

So much of the chatter right now is about AI changing what analysts do. But as I mentioned in a previous series of The Statement, I actually believe AI is going to eliminate a significant portion of what analysts are hired for in the first place.

There is a widespread belief in this space that AI is going to kill Excel. I want to be direct: I think that’s wrong. ​ I get prodded on this regularly on LinkedIn, where salespeople who work at software companies tell me that Excel can’t scale.

This issue shifts to the market that many finance professionals have turned to instead: online courses, training platforms, and self-paced learning. The outlook here is not much better. In some ways it’s more precarious. I hope my rationale explains why I take the position that I am.

Some of the “college is dying” conversation dramatically overstates what’s actually happening. Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Kellogg, Wharton and their peers are not disappearing. Not anytime soon.

I teach data analytics at the graduate level and I genuinely love that work. So before I go further, let me be clear: I am not anti-college. I am anti-autopilot. And the autopilot assumption — that a four-year degree is the default next step for almost every young person…

In recent editions of The Statement newsletter, I’ve shared how I believe the structure of management consulting, public accounting, and investment banking firms is about to change dramatically. Most notably, it’s going to upend the status quo of billable hours (shifting instead to value-based billing).

Effective finance operations are often seamless and unobtrusive. Data flows efficiently, models update automatically, cash timing is predictable, and leaders receive timely, reliable answers. When finance processes break down, inefficiencies become apparent throughout the organization.

When I go into a new client and am tasked with putting together cash flow projections or rolling forecasts, one of the most material elements is capital expenditures (capex). Capex is obviously more than hard-coded spreadsheet entries in Excel.