Risk management vs. Corp finance at F500

Hello guys,

In the sphere of a F500 non-banking financial services firm (For instance: GE CAPITAL), what career functional path would you argue is better between risk and finance ?

Both being respectively middle office and back-office.
I understand risk to be underwriting of deals, credit analysis, etc...
corporate finance I'm already well familiar with (FP& A, corp dev, treasury, and so on)

I understand risk to be better transferable if you go into S&T and Finance (especially corp dev) to be better for IB.

But the true essence of my question is : Say you had to pick between Finance and Risk in a F500 firm. Which would you choose and why ?

Reason being I would like to undertake either a finance or risk leadership program and am unsure of which to go for.

Thanks !

 
Best Response

I'd pick risk hands down but that's just me. I think it'd be more interesting on a day to day basis and I think that trading/risk management is more appealing than IBD anyway. It's very subjective based on what your goals are, though, I'm sure many would much rather be in Corp. Finance. In my opinion, you'd have to do corp. finance for a few years then likely lateral to IBD, which you'd be doing for more years (and maybe have to get an MBA to swtich) before you'd get to finally lateral to PE/hedge fund, whereas if you're set on S&T it'll take a shorter period of time to get there.

 

I would pick Corp Fin at F500. I'm currently in credit risk management and find it to be quite boring, given you're not directly involved in or driving the deal - the front office is. Like bulge_bracket said, it depends on what you would ultimately be interested in doing later on. If you're interested in IBD, do Corp Fin.

 

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