Building a lean, mean, FP&A team from scratch – Preston Naegle

In this episode of FP&A Today, Glenn Hopper interviews Preston Naegle, Director of Strategic Finance at Midway Mechanical Services, about his career path from private equity to leading FP&A in a PE-backed roll-up within the HVAC industry. Naegle discusses the challenges and rewards of building a finance function from the ground up, integrating newly acquired businesses, and introducing budgeting and forecasting for the first time. He shares insights on transitioning from an investment-focused mindset to an operational one, the importance of understanding the human element in business decisions, and how he leverages tools like Data Rails to streamline data consolidation and improve forecasting accuracy. The conversation also touches on the role of AI in reshaping finance and the need to embrace it for increased scalability and efficiency.