Stéphanie Herbots and Zoe Cooke: Mental health and Burnout in FP&A

For Stéphanie Herbots, a finance perfectionist, everything was going to plan. Stéphanie got her masters degree. Sailed into a career in finance. Controllership and FP&A roles for the most prestigious companies followed This included budgets and forecasting for a division of telecoms giant, Orange. 

Then it struck.

Stephanie faced a series of challenges in the midst of the 12th revision of the annual budget (no exaggeration!). Becoming a mum. Staff leaving. Being forced to pick up the slack for FP&A challenges with strict deadlines. Stephanie could not cope. 

Stephanie faced burnout and a spiral of low mental health she describes as “slow and vicious.She had no option but quit finance

In episode 8 of FP&A Today, discussion Stephanie speaks about her journey, with Zoe Cooke, FP&A Director at We are Social, who has been a powerful advocate of mental health in finance throughout her career. 

Leading the discussion FP&A Today host Paul Barnhurst, who himself has seen the impact of mental health first hand and is among those leading the drive for better recognition and transparency  among the FP&A profession. This wide-ranging conversation discusses

• The specific mental health challenges within the FP&A profession
• Proven advice to lead and cope with stress, burnout and mental health in finance
• The limits and challenges of forecasting in uncertain times
• How challenges with data and manual processes can be overcome

Follow Stéphanie Herbots on LinkedIn

Follow Zoe Cooke on LinkedIn 

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Read the Full Program Transcript

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube 

To suggest a great guest for the show, or if you would like to be the FP&A Pro being interviewed contact jonathan.m@datarails.com