Your Next Skill Isn't a Formula. It's Auditing the AI That Wrote It.
Christian Martinez pairs GenAI with Python to automate FP&A. The skill that now sets analysts apart: validating the pipeline, not just building it.
When AI writes the code, your value is proving the code is right.
📰 THE NEWS
Christian Martinez, Senior Manager of Finance Transformation at Kraft Heinz, has long argued that Python plus GenAI is the big unlock for FP&A. His 2026 Wiley book, Smart Finance, teaches finance professionals to generate Python through prompts without a coding background, and his January 2026 FP&A Trends article shows GenAI and Python automating variance analysis during the close.
🔄 THE PIVOT
Building got cheap. Trust didn't. In review meetings the question is shifting from "did you build it?" to "how do you know it's correct?" The finance logic still matters, but the scarce skill is validating and auditing AI pipelines end to end.
✅ ACTIONABLE TIP: five checks before you trust AI-generated Python or formulas
1. Ask the AI to explain the code line by line in plain English. If you can't follow it, don't ship it.
2. Reconcile the output to a known control total (trial balance, last month's actuals).
3. Test the edge cases: negatives, blanks, duplicates, a new cost centre, a currency change.
4. Run it twice on the same data. Results must match exactly.
5. Save code, input file and output together with a date and owner. That's your audit trail.
💬 Which do you trust more today: a formula you wrote, or Python an AI wrote and you tested?
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Sources: FP&A Trends (Jan 2026); Christian Martinez, Smart Finance (Wiley, 2026).