FP&A and product-led growth at Adobe

Product led growth is a business strategy and philosophy that puts the product at the center and the key driver for customer acquisition, activation, adoption, and retention.  Parth Kulkarni, Head of FP&A, Adobe Express, recounts his chance to reimagine FP&A using product-led growth. He explains the process leading the FP&A team powering Adobe Express – a major new AI-driven product at the software giant (Adobe is competing with companies such as Canva and Microsoft Designer).

Kulkarni says: “We optimized different parts of the customer journey  by adopting product led growth. From an FP&A perspective it was a fantastic opportunity for me and my team to reimagine the way that we approached financial planning and, and supported the business.”

Describing the approach of FP&A underpinned by product-led growth, he says: “We tend to forecast based on historicals. But here we took a much more bottoms up approach in our modeling, starting with building forecasts and projections around every single critical upstream metric – whether it’s acquisitions, how customers are really engaging with the product, or what kind of conversion rates are we seeing in the product, or what kind of retention we are seeing. I got the opportunity to actually understand the customer journey, translate that into a financial model, and then build my financial planning around that.

Kulkarni, with training and a background in engineering,  recounts his path to FP&A and why a background in data analytics is a perfect route to a top job.

In this episode:

• Kulkarni’s path from Data analytics to FP&A as Senior Manager of FP&A at eBay – business partnering with the Merchandising / Shipping & Logistics Business and Product Teams. Followed by his career at Adobe.
• Moving from analytics to FP&A and why it is a perfect route
• Four proven pillars to become a successful FP&A professional 
• The tested formula to get a seat at the table in finance 
• My framework for analyzing data to get the juiciest insights – SCQA framework explained
• My aha moment in FP&A automating ecommerce/holiday space reports 
• Tabla playing and love of Indian classical music
• Steve Jobs and what we can learn about his relentless desire to understand the consumer

The SCQA framework explained by Parth

Follow Parth Kulkarni on LinkedIn

Catch the full episode on YouTube