Career Choices in Corporate Finance & Investment Management

CAREERS IN FINANCE

1. Careers in Finance: Options

(a) CA- leads to CFO, CF Controller, Auditor, Tax advisor, Treasurer etc
(b) CS- an LLB, would give an added insight into the Financial Laws, Corporate rules of Governance.
(c) CWA- Deal with Cost & Management Account things like Fixed Cost + variable Cost & carry out analysis, based on these.
(d) CFA-Professionals who analyse where & why to invest, Carry out Project Appraisals.
(e) MBA-have a businesss orientation. Are people oriented and their gut is respected. An Entreprenural approach .

Each of the above Qualification offers a unique specialisation, but still any of the above can be a means to a common end.

2. Options: a Finance professional can opt for any of the following fields based upon ones temparament towards an Inward or an Outward focus.
(a) Corporate Finance ( inward focus, stable environment)
(b) investment management (outbound focus )

3. Careers in Corporate Finance/Strategy:
(a) Financial Analyst- They do ratio analysis, growth analysis, have a good sense of Time-value of money, compile and analyse data and figures.
(b) Business Analyst- Professional, who understands his nature of business and deploys the inputs gathered from the financial analysis, by benchmarking against others .(has to be considered differently for different economies). A good Financial analyst may mature into an excellent Business Analyst.e.g., A business analyst will analyse ,why must money be stuck in Inventories which can be procured through JIT techniques or Bad debts. how can such monies be released and utilisedelsewhere. He also raises alarm for top management and talks about "trends".
(c)Executive Assistant-This role came up in the mid-80s(Tatas). he is a good financial Analyst+Business Analyst+ very good at Interpersonal skills. He facilitates generation of choices through collection, collation and analysis of data.It is a staff function and an Executive Assistant can help the CFO make informed choices. He interacts on his behalf with all other functional heads and acts as the eyes and ears of his boss.
(d) Business Plannner-He is a number cruncher and tries to capture everything financially and evaluates it. Creates a financial business model and prepares a long term business projection plan.
(e)Strategic planner- Develops an integrated plan, identifies breakthrough objectives, and aligns organisational energy.. These professionals have clear concepts, precise writing skills. basically, a long term thinker, who creates synergy by identifying and creating values through M & As etc.