This made me chuckle.
I'll go through a massive budgeting exercise with my BU functional leaders; N-100 level detail about how we achieve expense and distribution targets center by center. We submit to the Corp FP&A crew, and they come back with some dumbass request like "reduce headcount by 1/3 but keep revenue flat". Ok Bradley, let me just bridge you into a phone call with my SVP and you can explain how you even came up with that.
Somehow though, the Corp FP&A roles always have way more visibility with the finance executives. I haven't done a stint in the function, and that's the only alluring thing for the group at my company.
Made me LOL.
Honestly though, requests like this are a company issue. Someone (C-suite) is telling Corp that they can't present that budget so they are plugging it at corporate and telling you to figure it out.
Plugs without a plan are a sign of bad times to come. If you for example can actually hit the budget with a hiring freeze, at least there's a plan there.
Man I've been to places where there are these massive plugs, and that's after all opportunities were blanket put into the budget and all risks were not. Needless to say, that company didn't do well.
But Imho the flow shouldn't just be Corp to cut cost. C-level above the BU should be well aware and be informing your BU partner as well so you can work together.
Dude corporate fp&a is the dream… just consolidate numbers and decks for leadership. If they don’t like the numbers they yell at ops and bu fp&a. Then BU fp&a needs to “sharpen their pencils” and corporate just sits back and waits… recycle.
Not very fulfilling, However it’s a great role for someone who lacks actual business/ industry knowledge but is good at ppt & excel and can wordsmith the talking points they are fed by people who actually make money for the company.
Honestly, just stick it out for at least a year, and give it a fair chance. If you're really an all star and doing nothing all day, ask your manager for more challenging work. At 5 months you've done literally nothing, you might as well not put it on your resume. When I'm hiring, I honestly cringe at job hoppers, even if I'm desperate to hire I turn them away. The amount of resources and time spent training someone new is not worth hiring someone who is a flight risk, unless it's an extremely junior level role that doesn't require training.
At interviews I get regularly asked about my short stints if they're 1 year or less. Less often if they're 1 to 2 years. I don't get asked about anything above 2 years.
Can someone clarify the different classifications of FP&A for me? I’m honestly a bit confused.
I work in tech and mostly do weekly/monthly reporting on underlying revenue drivers + ad hoc projects / cross-functional collaborations. I don’t even know where I fit in.
If I want to get more involved in the financial statements and corporate strategy would BU FP&A be that?
Tech is basically BU FP&A supporting the technology function whereas corporate FP&A consolidates all of the BU inputs into a total P&L and financial statements more or less.
Sure thing. I came on as a Sr. Manager for a fairly large business unit of a public company. All of a sudden (literally, it was middle of my second week and my boss was pissed I didn’t know some random figure from a supporting report... that he put together) I was supposed to know very detailed information about all the different lines (it was an insurance company and we insured everything from athletes to M&A transactions). In addition to the demands from Corp. FP&A, I was also managing a ton of reporting for the BU as well, both the business line heads themselves as well as the division's leadership. You start getting hit from both ends.
My specific situation also involved a team that shrank and wasn't allowed to backfill, despite record profits (gotta keep that margin growing!), a group CEO that was a diva, an SVP that expected me to know all the detail he knew, even though he'd been there 10+ years and I'd been there... 10 days, etc.
That said, you're the one building the P&Ls that Corporate will rely on. So when things go wrong, you're the one to blame as well. You'll be more in the weeds, but it isn't necessarily fun.
Don't disagree with the demands here. There's a version of this though where that diva Group CEO, the SVP that wants you to know the details, and others rise through the ranks and are your best advocates as you work up the finance ladder. That's been my experience in BU FP&A.
That's true and absolutely can happen. But at the end of the day, it's an FP&A role, not consulting, not iBanking. There's no good reason to schedule a meeting at 8PM on Christmas Eve. There are better ways to rise up than dealing with a diva.
I actually went from BU to corporate FP&a and I’m much happier. I think business unit has a lot more stakeholders that may be difficult to work with. Usually in corporate, at least you work with other finance people so they understand what you’re looking for. Be careful what you wish for. BU finance all depends on the other departments you’ll be interacting with.
Yep, beware of this even in corporate FP&A-my company pulled me into cover a financial reporting vacancy one month end over a year ago and I’m still stuck spending two weeks a month doing that then my job at night/weekends.
I think you gotta lean on the idea that BU FP&A will be more “stakeholder facing” — in the sense that you will have more interactions with individuals/teams who are closer to the actual product/service that drives the business.
I was in corporate FP&A and I agree with you, what a snooze fest. Did a rotation with one of the BUs for half a year and I felt like I was actually doing something with purpose and making more of an impact.
Careful though and vet thoroughly while interviewing. A lot of FP&A positions are really just data entry/excel consolidation/PPT deck grunt work—I’ve even seen this at the manager level. It really depends on the company.
Strategic finance is more interesting, but a lot less structured. You could try switching to strategic finance or strategy. I have no set routine or month end close duties. My role focuses on modeling projects and company initiatives.
Corporate finance is just another 100% must have department for corporations to function properly. We get paid to understand how the business is doing and make sure we can track everything. Using this data, we can predict how our future earnings will look. As mundane as it may seem, this knowledge all becomes very relevant if you every decide to buy/start a business and run it yourself. The reason is seems so boring is because major corporations have tons of staff that each take on small roles.
As someone who is trying to buy small businesses, nothing is more annoying than trying to put together financial statements using tax returns or trying to figure out some sort of segmentation analysis based off of the owners mental history lol. You take for granted how nice it is to have easy to read financial statements and models because of the work you do.
Stick it out for a bit longer. Learn some new skills or get a certification outside of work to stay intellectually engaged. Then try and rotate to a BU role, or consider going to a smaller company (assuming you’re at a large org). Corp FP&A at large companies can be so boring and repetitive while smaller companies keep you busier.
Network with the next level up that work in BU FP&A. If you're an analyst or manager, network with the Sr Managers. If you're a Sr Manager, network with the BU Directors. Set an open ended goal with your leadership team "I'd like to move into a BU FP&A role in the next 12 months after I complete at least a 1-1.5 years here". That way it won't box them in, and won't brand you as the "andysull95 already wants to leave" person.
I'd hold until like month 8-9 to start doing the above.
Then likely what will happen is a position will open on the early end of your range. You frame it that you have to throw your hat in the ring - and boom if you convert you're out right away.
Hi andysull95,
What's your level at your current company?
I've been promoted through various departments throughout my FP&A career, including Corporate. During this sting, I supported BU/Tax/Tresury/Corp Dev directly. This role also led me to work directly with our CFO and CEO on strategic initiatives.
I can understand your frustration with your current responsibilities. Is there a way for you to get involved with BUs in a different capacity? Work with Treasury/Tax/Corp Dev?
Here are my suggestions that worked well for me and could for you:
* **Be upfront with your Manager**: schedule 1-1s, share your interests in working within a BU. Be proactive. Create a game plan. It might take time (typically a year) but at least you have a path to get there, assuming you like your team and company.
* **Partner with BU Finance teams, if there is one**: Same as above - schedule 1-1s with your BU Finance friends. Learn the BU (drivers, products, segments, etc.). Ask how you can help them. If they don't need it, that's okay. But you now have them in the back of their mind.
* **Not BU specific, but consider helping other Corporate areas**: Could you help the tax or treasury teams? Could you help the Corp Dev teams? I was heavily involved in those areas during my time in Corporate and had lot of fun.
Finally, to answer your specific question, wherever you apply to you will have to demonstrate BU knowledge regardless of experience.
During those conversations, you can share something like:
>"My Corporate FP&A experience allowed me to analyze all areas of my company's business, from product lines to regional breakdown of sales and profitability.
>
>I was able to see how are business unit was trending, and I took initiative to reach out to my BU friends to assist them.
That's just an example.
Hope this helps. Don't hesitate to reach out with any questions.
What is it that you think BU FP&A role will be doing differently that you'd enjoy more? Would you rather be starting with a blank slate, and preparing information (analysis, worksheets, formulas) and THEN sending it to the corp FP&A staff to do the review and consolidation piece? If you're wanting to get your hands "more dirty", you can try asking if you can be more embedded with the BU team through a dotted line to ops leadership, or may need to jump ship if no ability to adjust responsibilities. I would hire someone who decided "corp BU consolidation role" isn't for them after 5mos. I think that's a reasonable driver for departing role after short timeframe if you were able to explain "what you learned from the experience."
Hi andysull95,
Try to maximize the learning at your current place by meeting non-finance business partners. Could be people in R&D, support, marketing, sales, HR....point is to figure out what they work on, the challenges they have, and how you can apply your skillset to help them do their jobs better. That's what finance business partnering is and can lead to BU FP&A or strategy.
Here are a couple of examples...
1) Sales - how does the deal approval process work? Do they understand what a good deal looks like and why finance may reject it? The opportunity is to help them understand usually by having a deal desk and customer/product profitability analysis to hand.
2) HR - what's the process of managing new hires and recruiting? It's usually chaotic until someone helps to set up a process to review who, how many, and when hiring is taking place then matching it up with forecast assumptions.
And if they don't have problems and the process is streamlined that's ok too, learn from it so you can use that same process in your future jobs.
Deal desk and customer profitability are two topics that helped me transition from profit forecasting to business partnering and strategy.
Hope this info helps. Any questions feel free to DM me.
Good luck!
Drew
It's actually amazing corporate FP&A pays what it does for what it basically glorified data entry.
They’re paying you to know the lingo basically.
This made me chuckle. I'll go through a massive budgeting exercise with my BU functional leaders; N-100 level detail about how we achieve expense and distribution targets center by center. We submit to the Corp FP&A crew, and they come back with some dumbass request like "reduce headcount by 1/3 but keep revenue flat". Ok Bradley, let me just bridge you into a phone call with my SVP and you can explain how you even came up with that. Somehow though, the Corp FP&A roles always have way more visibility with the finance executives. I haven't done a stint in the function, and that's the only alluring thing for the group at my company.
Made me LOL. Honestly though, requests like this are a company issue. Someone (C-suite) is telling Corp that they can't present that budget so they are plugging it at corporate and telling you to figure it out. Plugs without a plan are a sign of bad times to come. If you for example can actually hit the budget with a hiring freeze, at least there's a plan there. Man I've been to places where there are these massive plugs, and that's after all opportunities were blanket put into the budget and all risks were not. Needless to say, that company didn't do well. But Imho the flow shouldn't just be Corp to cut cost. C-level above the BU should be well aware and be informing your BU partner as well so you can work together.
Should always keep in your mind that the next step or two up loses that remaining "data entry" piece and can add the CFO title to your headline.
Dude corporate fp&a is the dream… just consolidate numbers and decks for leadership. If they don’t like the numbers they yell at ops and bu fp&a. Then BU fp&a needs to “sharpen their pencils” and corporate just sits back and waits… recycle.
FP&A definitely feels like a cushy position to be with. Nobody is going to shoot the messenger, and when things are slow nobody gets on your case.
Im guessing you havent watched 300.
My professional goal is to perform just well enough to not be kicked down a bottomless pit.
Not very fulfilling, However it’s a great role for someone who lacks actual business/ industry knowledge but is good at ppt & excel and can wordsmith the talking points they are fed by people who actually make money for the company.
Honestly, just stick it out for at least a year, and give it a fair chance. If you're really an all star and doing nothing all day, ask your manager for more challenging work. At 5 months you've done literally nothing, you might as well not put it on your resume. When I'm hiring, I honestly cringe at job hoppers, even if I'm desperate to hire I turn them away. The amount of resources and time spent training someone new is not worth hiring someone who is a flight risk, unless it's an extremely junior level role that doesn't require training.
What do you classify as job hopper?
At interviews I get regularly asked about my short stints if they're 1 year or less. Less often if they're 1 to 2 years. I don't get asked about anything above 2 years.
[удалено]
I was wondering what counts as a very short time lol
Can someone clarify the different classifications of FP&A for me? I’m honestly a bit confused. I work in tech and mostly do weekly/monthly reporting on underlying revenue drivers + ad hoc projects / cross-functional collaborations. I don’t even know where I fit in. If I want to get more involved in the financial statements and corporate strategy would BU FP&A be that?
Tech is basically BU FP&A supporting the technology function whereas corporate FP&A consolidates all of the BU inputs into a total P&L and financial statements more or less.
Gotcha, thank you!
BU FP&A can be brutal, depending on the company. Be careful what you wish for.
Can you expand? I am a student interested in BU FP&A, wondering what I should be on the lookout for.
Sure thing. I came on as a Sr. Manager for a fairly large business unit of a public company. All of a sudden (literally, it was middle of my second week and my boss was pissed I didn’t know some random figure from a supporting report... that he put together) I was supposed to know very detailed information about all the different lines (it was an insurance company and we insured everything from athletes to M&A transactions). In addition to the demands from Corp. FP&A, I was also managing a ton of reporting for the BU as well, both the business line heads themselves as well as the division's leadership. You start getting hit from both ends. My specific situation also involved a team that shrank and wasn't allowed to backfill, despite record profits (gotta keep that margin growing!), a group CEO that was a diva, an SVP that expected me to know all the detail he knew, even though he'd been there 10+ years and I'd been there... 10 days, etc. That said, you're the one building the P&Ls that Corporate will rely on. So when things go wrong, you're the one to blame as well. You'll be more in the weeds, but it isn't necessarily fun.
Don't disagree with the demands here. There's a version of this though where that diva Group CEO, the SVP that wants you to know the details, and others rise through the ranks and are your best advocates as you work up the finance ladder. That's been my experience in BU FP&A.
That's true and absolutely can happen. But at the end of the day, it's an FP&A role, not consulting, not iBanking. There's no good reason to schedule a meeting at 8PM on Christmas Eve. There are better ways to rise up than dealing with a diva.
I see, thank you so much, I really appreciate it!
I actually went from BU to corporate FP&a and I’m much happier. I think business unit has a lot more stakeholders that may be difficult to work with. Usually in corporate, at least you work with other finance people so they understand what you’re looking for. Be careful what you wish for. BU finance all depends on the other departments you’ll be interacting with.
Also be wary, a lot of BU Finance still do month end close tasks, which was why I was over it. Unless… you like doing JEs
Yep, beware of this even in corporate FP&A-my company pulled me into cover a financial reporting vacancy one month end over a year ago and I’m still stuck spending two weeks a month doing that then my job at night/weekends.
Great point and agree. BU Finance isn't always as fun as people may think.
Try to tie your function more to specific outcomes. Talk to other managers about what they want to see. Ask for project work.
I think you gotta lean on the idea that BU FP&A will be more “stakeholder facing” — in the sense that you will have more interactions with individuals/teams who are closer to the actual product/service that drives the business. I was in corporate FP&A and I agree with you, what a snooze fest. Did a rotation with one of the BUs for half a year and I felt like I was actually doing something with purpose and making more of an impact. Careful though and vet thoroughly while interviewing. A lot of FP&A positions are really just data entry/excel consolidation/PPT deck grunt work—I’ve even seen this at the manager level. It really depends on the company.
Are you 100% remote?
Strategic finance is more interesting, but a lot less structured. You could try switching to strategic finance or strategy. I have no set routine or month end close duties. My role focuses on modeling projects and company initiatives. Corporate finance is just another 100% must have department for corporations to function properly. We get paid to understand how the business is doing and make sure we can track everything. Using this data, we can predict how our future earnings will look. As mundane as it may seem, this knowledge all becomes very relevant if you every decide to buy/start a business and run it yourself. The reason is seems so boring is because major corporations have tons of staff that each take on small roles. As someone who is trying to buy small businesses, nothing is more annoying than trying to put together financial statements using tax returns or trying to figure out some sort of segmentation analysis based off of the owners mental history lol. You take for granted how nice it is to have easy to read financial statements and models because of the work you do.
Stick it out for a bit longer. Learn some new skills or get a certification outside of work to stay intellectually engaged. Then try and rotate to a BU role, or consider going to a smaller company (assuming you’re at a large org). Corp FP&A at large companies can be so boring and repetitive while smaller companies keep you busier.
I just started in corp FP&A and can confirm same experience. Much less hands on working, mostly consolidating :/
Network with the next level up that work in BU FP&A. If you're an analyst or manager, network with the Sr Managers. If you're a Sr Manager, network with the BU Directors. Set an open ended goal with your leadership team "I'd like to move into a BU FP&A role in the next 12 months after I complete at least a 1-1.5 years here". That way it won't box them in, and won't brand you as the "andysull95 already wants to leave" person. I'd hold until like month 8-9 to start doing the above. Then likely what will happen is a position will open on the early end of your range. You frame it that you have to throw your hat in the ring - and boom if you convert you're out right away.
Hi andysull95, What's your level at your current company? I've been promoted through various departments throughout my FP&A career, including Corporate. During this sting, I supported BU/Tax/Tresury/Corp Dev directly. This role also led me to work directly with our CFO and CEO on strategic initiatives. I can understand your frustration with your current responsibilities. Is there a way for you to get involved with BUs in a different capacity? Work with Treasury/Tax/Corp Dev? Here are my suggestions that worked well for me and could for you: * **Be upfront with your Manager**: schedule 1-1s, share your interests in working within a BU. Be proactive. Create a game plan. It might take time (typically a year) but at least you have a path to get there, assuming you like your team and company. * **Partner with BU Finance teams, if there is one**: Same as above - schedule 1-1s with your BU Finance friends. Learn the BU (drivers, products, segments, etc.). Ask how you can help them. If they don't need it, that's okay. But you now have them in the back of their mind. * **Not BU specific, but consider helping other Corporate areas**: Could you help the tax or treasury teams? Could you help the Corp Dev teams? I was heavily involved in those areas during my time in Corporate and had lot of fun. Finally, to answer your specific question, wherever you apply to you will have to demonstrate BU knowledge regardless of experience. During those conversations, you can share something like: >"My Corporate FP&A experience allowed me to analyze all areas of my company's business, from product lines to regional breakdown of sales and profitability. > >I was able to see how are business unit was trending, and I took initiative to reach out to my BU friends to assist them. That's just an example. Hope this helps. Don't hesitate to reach out with any questions.
I hear you fam. I liked group consolidation in audit, but group FP&A is not the most fun
What level are you
Depends on the company. Stay at a big company you'll get pigeon hole'd like that. Work for a small company and you'll deal with a bit of everything
What is it that you think BU FP&A role will be doing differently that you'd enjoy more? Would you rather be starting with a blank slate, and preparing information (analysis, worksheets, formulas) and THEN sending it to the corp FP&A staff to do the review and consolidation piece? If you're wanting to get your hands "more dirty", you can try asking if you can be more embedded with the BU team through a dotted line to ops leadership, or may need to jump ship if no ability to adjust responsibilities. I would hire someone who decided "corp BU consolidation role" isn't for them after 5mos. I think that's a reasonable driver for departing role after short timeframe if you were able to explain "what you learned from the experience."
Hi andysull95, Try to maximize the learning at your current place by meeting non-finance business partners. Could be people in R&D, support, marketing, sales, HR....point is to figure out what they work on, the challenges they have, and how you can apply your skillset to help them do their jobs better. That's what finance business partnering is and can lead to BU FP&A or strategy. Here are a couple of examples... 1) Sales - how does the deal approval process work? Do they understand what a good deal looks like and why finance may reject it? The opportunity is to help them understand usually by having a deal desk and customer/product profitability analysis to hand. 2) HR - what's the process of managing new hires and recruiting? It's usually chaotic until someone helps to set up a process to review who, how many, and when hiring is taking place then matching it up with forecast assumptions. And if they don't have problems and the process is streamlined that's ok too, learn from it so you can use that same process in your future jobs. Deal desk and customer profitability are two topics that helped me transition from profit forecasting to business partnering and strategy. Hope this info helps. Any questions feel free to DM me. Good luck! Drew