John Cappadona's guest appearances

John Cappadona

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For the past two years, we've been living in constant uncertainty. The conditions we're living in these days make it exceptionally difficult to create business plans for the future. However, our today's guest knows a secret. John Cappadona, the Chief Financial Officer at School of Rock, will share the critical component in planning for the future successfully.In this episode, we discuss:- Managing the pandemic challenges- Setting up successful scenario planning and forecasting- Strategic planningLearn more about John and School of Rock:John Cappadona's LinkedInSchool of Rock's WebsiteEpisode resources:Personiv's WebsitePersoniv on LinkedInPersoniv on FacebookPersoniv on TwitterIf you enjoyed this episode then please either:Follow, rate, and review on Apple PodcastsFollow on SpotifyCFO Weekly is hand crafted by our friends over at: fame.soPrevious guests include: Jack McCullough of The CFO Leadership Council, Sarah Spoja of Tipalti, Ken ''Mr. Biz'' Wentworth of Mr. Biz Solutions, Bryan Lapidus of Association for Financial Professionals, Jeremey Foster of Talroo, Ian Schnoor of Financial Modeling Institute, John Cappadona of School of Rock, Chris Caprio of Focus Technology and Amy Myrland of Capitol Bank. Check out our three most downloaded episodes:Strategic Planning and Forecasting for the Future w/ John CappadonaMastering Financial Modeling for Top Business Decisions w/ Ian SchnoorLearning the Best Practices of an M&amp;A Finance Process w/ Liz Hosman and Mark MillerIf you are interested in joining CFO Weekly as a guest, please complete this form: fame.so/cfo-guest

For the past two years, we've been living in constant uncertainty. The conditions we're living in these days make it exceptionally difficult to create business plans for the future.  However, our today's guest knows a secret. John Cappadona, the Chief Financial Officer at School of Rock, will share the critical component in planning for the future successfully. In this episode, we discuss: - Managing the pandemic challenges - Setting up successful scenario planning and forecasting - Strategic planning Learn more about John and School of Rock: <ul><li>John Cappadona's <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncappadona/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a></li><li>School of Rock's <a href="https://www.schoolofrock.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Website</a></li></ul>Episode resources: <ul><li>Personiv's <a href="https://www.personiv.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Website</a></li><li>Personiv on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/personiv" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a></li><li>Personiv on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/personiv/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook</a></li><li>Personiv on <a href="https://twitter.com/personiv?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li></ul>If you enjoyed this episode then please either: <ul><li>Follow, rate, and review on <a href="https://apple.co/3GfVdnF" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a></li><li>Follow on <a href="https://spoti.fi/3lWbQfR" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a></li></ul>CFO Weekly is hand crafted by our friends over at: <a href="https://www.fame.so/?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=bcast&amp;utm_campaign=masters-of-community-with-david-spinks?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=bcast&amp;utm_campaign=confessions-of-a-b2b-marketer" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">fame.so</a> Previous guests include: Jack McCullough of The CFO Leadership Council, Sarah Spoja of Tipalti, Ken ''Mr. Biz'' Wentworth of Mr. Biz Solutions, Bryan Lapidus of Association for Financial Professionals, Jeremey Foster of Talroo, Ian Schnoor of Financial Modeling Institute, John Cappadona of School of Rock, Chris Caprio of Focus Technology and Amy Myrland of Capitol Bank.  Check out our three most downloaded episodes: <ul><li><a href="https://podcasts.bcast.fm/e/5nzy2vl8-strategic-planning-and-forecasting-for-the-future-w-john-cappadona" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Strategic Planning and Forecasting for the Future w/ John Cappadona</a></li><li><a href="https://podcasts.bcast.fm/e/m84kyryn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mastering Financial Modeling for Top Business Decisions w/ Ian Schnoor</a></li><li><a href="https://podcasts.bcast.fm/e/v851r158-learning-the-best-practices-of-an-m-a-finance-process-with-liz-hosman-and-mark-miller" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Learning the Best Practices of an M&amp;A Finance Process w/ Liz Hosman and Mark Miller</a></li></ul>If you are interested in joining CFO Weekly as a guest, please complete this form: <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScP2qqnpr7GoTcTC2G1Z5jWVC0srl11AzGhnRMMnjI-zlTK-A/viewform" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">fame.so/cfo-guest</a>

Strategic Planning and Forecasting for the Future w/ John Cappadona

Gurdip, Justin &amp; John wrap up their coverage of the 1973 TV Special "Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite" including memorable numbers like "An American Trilogy" and "What Now My Love" before beaming over to Song of the Week. John selects "Help Me" from the "Promised Land" album, recorded at the 1973 Stax Sessions, Gurdip goes all-in on "Make Me Know It" from 1960's "Elvis is Back!" and Justin closes us out with tales of "Hard Knocks," the attempt to recapture the rebel Elvis image in 1964's "Roustabout."  If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at Patreon.com/TCBCast. If you are unable to support us via Patreon, but want to support us another way, please make sure to leave a positive review or share our show on social media. Every positive review helps our rankings so that other likeminded listeners can find us. Thanks!

Gurdip, Justin &amp; John wrap up their coverage of the 1973 TV Special "Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite" including memorable numbers like "An American Trilogy" and "What Now My Love" before beaming over to Song of the Week. John selects "Help Me" from the "Promised Land" album, recorded at the 1973 Stax Sessions, Gurdip goes all-in on "Make Me Know It" from 1960's "Elvis is Back!" and Justin closes us out with tales of "Hard Knocks," the attempt to recapture the rebel Elvis image in 1964's "Roustabout."  If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at <a href="http://Patreon.com/TCBCast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Patreon.com/TCBCast</a>. If you are unable to support us via Patreon, but want to support us another way, please make sure to leave a positive review or share our show on social media. Every positive review helps our rankings so that other likeminded listeners can find us. Thanks!

TCBCast 175: Aloha From Hawaii, Part 2 feat. John Cappadona

Unlike the music artists and instructors recruited by School of Rock to provide music lessons at its 270 locations around the globe, John Cappadona was first hired by the firm to provide a crash course in accounting.  “The day I joined, my controller and I walked through the door together not knowing anything,” explains Cappadona, who stepped into the CFO role at School of Rock shortly after its CEO, Rob Price, moved the music lesson provider’s headquarters to the Boston area. Says Cappadona: “For the first couple of months, it took us almost 25 days to close the books—and we needed to shorten that number in order to start making decisions sooner.” Next, Cappadona set out to enhance the management team’s visibility into the business. “We wouldn’t have known that we were going to run into an iceberg until we hit it,” comments Cappadona, who adds that while his team did not come across any icebergs, the company’s sales reporting numbers were just not visible enough. After making a number of accountant hires, Cappadona says, he became focused on developing School of Rock’s FP&amp;A function to better reveal the performance at its 270 locations—49 of which were company-owned. The company’s finance team keeps a close eye on the number of new students as well as School of Rock’s net promoter score. Still, when it comes to measuring customer behavior, Cappadona believes that as a consequence of the pandemic, School of Rock‘s lines of sight into customer behaviors are poised to grow rapidly. “We are deriving 100 percent of our revenue right now from something that did not exist 2 months ago. We were an in-person education business. We had to pivot immediately to deliver a remote solution,” says Cappadona, who recorded an episode with CFO Thought Leader in early May 2020. As it turns out, a customer lesson delivered remotely would appear to be a nice complement to School of Rock’s in-person lessons. Notes Cappadona: “At the end of the day, the mission is really the same—and it’s our sense of community that sets us apart.” –Jack Sweeney   CFOTL: Tell us about a finance strategic moment … Cappadona: I’ll tell you about my time at WB Mason, where I was really charged with bringing up the FP&amp;A department, with creating it. Previously, they really hadn’t had the sort of financial insights coming forth that they needed. What really comes to mind is Hurricane Sandy, or Superstorm Sandy, which hit the East Coast hard, as you may recall. WB Mason was primarily focused in the Northeast, so pretty much all of our operations were out of business for several days. We had to quickly engage our forecast models, and there were some tough decisions that we had to make. We had to shore up costs because we had bank covenants that we had to maintain, and we had to make sure that given the decreased revenue, our cost structure was going to be fine. This was one of those strategic moments when we had to look ahead to say, “Well, when are these businesses going to be coming back?” It was very similar to what we’re facing today with the pandemic. Now I’m digging back into my bag of tricks just as I did seven or eight years ago when I was trying to model things out. There was a lot of pressure to do the work and get the answers right. What I’ve found is that you’re never going to have all the answers. You have got to make the decision based on what you know at the time and monitor it. And then if you’ve got to course correct, course correct. That’s the approach that we’ve been using here. If we had waited to get all of our data in to make sure that we knew every answer, we still wouldn’t have a remote offering right now. School of Rock is now remote, and we did that it in 12 days. So if you’re going to fail, fail quickly and move on.

Unlike the music artists and instructors recruited by School of Rock to provide music lessons at its 270 locations around the globe, John Cappadona was first hired by the firm to provide a crash course in accounting. <a href="https://app.monstercampaigns.com/c/kqhh57qyfo94v0vnovj5/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> “The day I joined, my controller and I walked through the door together not knowing anything,” explains Cappadona, who stepped into the CFO role at School of Rock shortly after its CEO, Rob Price, moved the music lesson provider’s headquarters to the Boston area. Says Cappadona: “For the first couple of months, it took us almost 25 days to close the books—and we needed to shorten that number in order to start making decisions sooner.” Next, Cappadona set out to enhance the management team’s visibility into the business. “We wouldn’t have known that we were going to run into an iceberg until we hit it,” comments Cappadona, who adds that while his team did not come across any icebergs, the company’s sales reporting numbers were just not visible enough. After making a number of accountant hires, Cappadona says, he became focused on developing School of Rock’s FP&amp;A function to better reveal the performance at its 270 locations—49 of which were company-owned. The company’s finance team keeps a close eye on the number of new students as well as School of Rock’s net promoter score. Still, when it comes to measuring customer behavior, Cappadona believes that as a consequence of the pandemic, School of Rock‘s lines of sight into customer behaviors are poised to grow rapidly. “We are deriving 100 percent of our revenue right now from something that did not exist 2 months ago. We were an in-person education business. We had to pivot immediately to deliver a remote solution,” says Cappadona, who recorded an episode with CFO Thought Leader in early May 2020. As it turns out, a customer lesson delivered remotely would appear to be a nice complement to School of Rock’s in-person lessons. Notes Cappadona: “At the end of the day, the mission is really the same—and it’s our sense of community that sets us apart.” –Jack Sweeney CFOTL: Tell us about a finance strategic moment … Cappadona: I’ll tell you about my time at WB Mason, where I was really charged with bringing up the FP&amp;A department, with creating it. Previously, they really hadn’t had the sort of financial insights coming forth that they needed. What really comes to mind is Hurricane Sandy, or Superstorm Sandy, which hit the East Coast hard, as you may recall. WB Mason was primarily focused in the Northeast, so pretty much all of our operations were out of business for several days. We had to quickly engage our forecast models, and there were some tough decisions that we had to make. We had to shore up costs because we had bank covenants that we had to maintain, and we had to make sure that given the decreased revenue, our cost structure was going to be fine. This was one of those strategic moments when we had to look ahead to say, “Well, when are these businesses going to be coming back?” It was very similar to what we’re facing today with the pandemic. Now I’m digging back into my bag of tricks just as I did seven or eight years ago when I was trying to model things out. There was a lot of pressure to do the work and get the answers right. What I’ve found is that you’re never going to have all the answers. You have got to make the decision based on what you know at the time and monitor it. And then if you’ve got to course correct, course correct. That’s the approach that we’ve been using here. If we had waited to get all of our data in to make sure that we knew every answer, we still wouldn’t have a remote offering right now. School of Rock is now remote, and we did that it in 12 days. So if you’re going to fail, fail quickly and move on.

605: When Finance Sings a New Tune |  John Cappadona, CFO, School of Rock