Financial Modeling Knowledge Necessary?

I am looking to break into Senior FP&A role in a F500, specifically in the tech industry. I spent 4 years in Big4, reaching Senior Associate level, and have my CPA. Ideally, I am looking for FP&A roles that do not simply support the accounting division with monthly closes, reconciliations, etc, but spent most of the time in budgeting, planning, forecasting, and working with the M&A guys on strategy / analysis of business units / revenue streams. Ultimately I would want to transition into BizDev, Corporate Strategy. Questions:
1. WIthout having an MBA, would this be the best path to take to add to my skill set and transition to BizDev, Corporate Strategy assuming I would do very well?
2. Having said this, do I need to know any type of financial modeling to be competitive in the interview process? This would include building P&L/BS/CF/ with all the assumptions from scratch, performing any type of DCF analysis and so on.
3. At the minimum, would I need to be know enough about modeling to be able to talk about it? If so, what are the key topics to brush up on?
Would appreciate any insight.