Her Story
About Nelly
My path to finance was completely unexpected. I was born and raised in Russia and studied languages in college, including French, with plans to become a teacher. Everything changed when Cummins needed someone in accounts receivable who spoke Russian. That got my foot in the door, and the more I worked in that department, the more I realized I really liked the finance side of things. I wanted to move up in that field, so I pursued an MBA with accounting concentrations while working full-time, taking classes full-time too because I just wanted to get through it. That degree properly set me up for the certifications I got later. After finishing my MBA, which took about two and a half years because I had to take extra classes, I qualified for Cummins' finance development program, which is highly competitive. I had four different jobs in two years and moved to four different states. It was such an exciting opportunity to find out what all the fields are out there and what things I enjoy. I realized I love the manufacturing life. There's always low-hanging fruit, always hands-on analysis that needs to be done, always opportunities you keep finding, so it's never a boring day in manufacturing. I've worked in an engine plant, a turbo plant, and now I'm at a paper mill. I've been with Georgia Pacific for five and a half years total, though I had a break in between when I worked at Areva, a nuclear company. Now I'm back at Georgia Pacific's mill in Palatka, where I focus on FP&A work, doing forecasting, annual planning, strategic planning, and monthly forecasting. I'm responsible for the fixed cost portion of the P&L at our quite big mill. Last year I was heavily involved in developing a very detailed forecasting tool for fixed cost spend because previously everyone had their own homegrown spreadsheets with no universal way to do things. I designed how we wanted it built and then implemented it across 20 different sites within the whole division, and I became an SME for that tool. I'm really focused on making data more usable and automated, getting it to a format where you can do analysis quickly instead of spending all your time putting reports together.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Nelly
01What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think a lot of people are seeing challenges with this AI push towards the future. One, there's so many tools out there - which one do you use, which one do you prioritize? And then also, how does that affect your future work? You have some tools out there that are so great, they create a report that you would take maybe a week putting together, and with the right prompt, you can have something turned around in like 30 minutes. So it kind of makes you wonder, what does that future look like in the FP&A function? Are we even gonna have jobs in the next 5 to 10 years? Maybe in the next 3 years, are we gonna have jobs? The AI is just only getting better and better every day. So it does make you wonder. I saw this with tech in 2020 when COVID happened - everyone went remote, it was great, and tech companies were hiring like crazy. That was where you wanted to be, with the Googles and the Amazons and the Microsofts. And then we did major layoffs a year, year and a half ago, and people are still out there looking for jobs. It's been over a year and they're still looking for jobs. And if there is a job available, it's to train AI. Another thing with COVID is there was a period of 2 years where you could go and move anywhere and work remote, and you were sort of grandfathered in. Then everyone was like, okay, now let's go back to the office part-time, and now almost like let's just all go back to the office full-time. Nowadays you can't find a remote job - it doesn't even exist.
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