Ruyi Zheng

At Fabletics, financial planning and analysis extends beyond forecasting revenue and tracking expenses. As the company expands its retail footprint and wholesale partnerships, the finance function must help leaders understand where growth makes sense, what drives profitability, and how decisions will affect long-term value. Ruyi Zheng, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, approaches this responsibility by connecting financial analysis with the realities of running the business.

Zheng leads FP&A for Fabletics’ retail and business-to-business (B2B) channels, overseeing financial planning from topline performance to the bottom line. Her responsibilities span store expansion, location-level profitability, wholesale partnerships, and international market opportunities. When she joined Fabletics, the company operated approximately 50 retail stores. As its retail fleet grew, financial planning became increasingly important to evaluating expansion opportunities and understanding the economics of individual locations.

Her team supports retail leadership with forecasts, performance analysis, and financial visibility into new store openings. Across domestic and international wholesale partnerships, it evaluates growth opportunities and helps business leaders assess the financial implications of new markets and partnership models. This breadth requires more than technical expertise. It calls for an understanding of how commercial decisions, operational realities, and financial outcomes influence one another.

Starting With the Business Question

For Zheng, effective analysis begins before a spreadsheet takes shape. She first identifies the strategic objective behind a request, then builds the analysis around the decision leadership needs to make. This approach keeps FP&A focused on practical outcomes rather than producing reports that describe performance without explaining what to do next.

“As I see it, alignment comes before the model. Once we understand the strategic priority, the numbers can point toward a decision rather than simply describe what happened.”

Understanding Fabletics’ business model is equally important. Retail, wholesale, and B2B channels operate differently, and their financial statements alone cannot capture every factor affecting performance. By working closely with business leaders, Zheng connects quantitative analysis with the conditions that shape results. That partnership helps leadership assess opportunities with a clearer view of both financial implications and operational constraints.

Incentives That Reflect Real Performance

One initiative illustrates how Zheng applies this philosophy. She helped revamp the bonus structure for Fabletics’ retail field team, recognizing that store employees face different pressures and influence different outcomes than corporate employees. A uniform incentive model could overlook these differences and encourage behavior that did not fully support the business’s long-term interests.

“Numbers tell you what happened, but people tell you why.”

Previously, retail bonuses were tied primarily to store revenue targets. Zheng’s analysis helped the company develop an approach that better reflected the factors driving lasting business value, rather than focusing narrowly on immediate sales. The work demonstrated how FP&A can influence behavior, not merely measure results. By aligning incentives with the realities of retail operations, finance can help teams pursue outcomes that support sustainable performance.

The initiative also highlights the importance of translating financial findings into decisions people can act on. An incentive structure only works when its measures reflect meaningful contributions and encourage the right priorities. For Zheng, analysis gains value when it changes how the business operates.

Making Decisions without Certainty

Forecasting new store performance presents another challenge. Before a location opens, the company has limited evidence about how its market will behave. Zheng’s team builds projections using comparable stores, mall performance, and input from retail operations and real estate partners. It then aligns assumptions about ramp-up periods and payback with leadership’s targets, making the reasoning behind each forecast explicit.

The process acknowledges that forecasts are informed judgments, not guarantees. As new information emerges, assumptions must be revisited. Zheng favors refining a forecast over defending an earlier estimate simply because it was approved. This discipline allows leadership to make timely decisions while remaining clear about the risks and evidence involved.

Building Trust in Finance

Zheng advises aspiring FP&A leaders to develop relationships alongside their analytical skills. She sees finance as a business partner, not a scorekeeper, and emphasizes listening to the people closest to daily operations. Fabletics’ values of One Team, Drive, and Innovation reinforce this approach: collaborate closely, take ownership, and continually seek better ways to work.

She also views artificial intelligence as a useful aid for testing assumptions and exploring scenarios faster, not as a substitute for business judgment or trusted relationships. “Numbers tell you what happened, but people tell you why.”

Named one of the Top 10 Directors of Financial Planning & Analysis for 2026, Zheng exemplifies a practical approach to financial leadership. By combining disciplined forecasting, operational understanding, and strong business partnerships, she helps Fabletics evaluate growth with greater clarity. Her work reflects an essential principle of modern FP&A: financial insight matters most when it improves the decisions that move a business forward.