Mr. Gautham Panneer Selvam

Reimagining FP&A with AI and LLMs: From Forecasting to Strategic Foresight

Abstract:

Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) is entering a transformative era powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs). Traditional FP&A teams spend much of their time on manual data consolidation and reporting, leaving little bandwidth for strategic insights. AI changes this equation.

Forecasting at Scale:
With LLMs and machine learning, organizations can significantly increase forecast accuracy by leveraging real-time external and internal signals ranging from supply chain dynamics to customer sentiment. Companies adopting AI-driven forecasting models are seeing more stable performance and improved resilience.

From Variance Analysis to Scenario Planning:
AI-enabled FP&A can automate variance analysis in minutes rather than weeks. Beyond historical explanations, LLMs support “what-if” modeling, enabling teams to simulate scenarios in seconds. Finance leaders increasingly believe scenario-based planning will become mission critical, and LLMs make this scalable and adaptive.

Strategic Foresight and Decision Support:
By embedding LLMs into financial workflows, FP&A shifts from backward-looking reports to forward-looking guidance. Organizations are demonstrating that AI-assisted FP&A enables executives to reduce decision-making cycles and improve alignment between finance and operations.

Human + AI Collaboration:
Rather than replacing FP&A professionals, AI augments them. Finance teams can relocate significant effort from repetitive tasks to higher-value strategic analysis, driving agility and resilience in a volatile global economy.

Profile:

Gautham Panneerselvam is a seasoned Finance Manager at Google Cloud with over 13 years of experience in financial planning & analysis (FP&A), long-range planning, sales compensation, and cloud financial systems. He has been with Google for nearly a decade, where he currently leads a cross-functional finance team responsible for FP&A, monthly forecasting, and yearly accruals of multi-billion-dollar Opex for Google Cloud’s global sales organization.

Gautham has a proven track record in building scalable financial data models, automation tools, and analytics platforms that enable executive decision-making and operational efficiency. He pioneered Google Cloud’s Bookings & Revenue Datamart, which evolved into a critical system supporting multi-billion-dollar annual transactions across the company’s product portfolio. His expertise spans SQL, Python, data analysis, AI-driven insights, and advanced Excel modeling.

As a finance systems leader, Gautham has designed and implemented Anaplan-based forecasting and payout systems, established SOX-compliant processes, and delivered numerous automation initiatives, saving thousands of operational hours. He has also served as a team leader for 7+ years, managing full-time staff and vendor teams, conducting 50+ interviews, and mentoring new hires within FP&A and sales finance.

Gautham holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a B.E. in Electronics & Communication Engineering from PSG College of Technology. He has earned multiple Google promotions and awards, including Outstanding® and Superb® ratings, along with numerous peer and spot bonuses for cross-functional collaboration and innovative automation solutions.
Affliation:Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad