Anyone do both FP&A and Corp Strat or Dev?
Has anyone worked in both FP&A and then transitioned into Corp Dev or Corp Strategy (or product management) as well? Is the grass really greener on the other side?
Is it fair to say > 80% of all FP&A job responsibility will focus on:
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Back-end process improvement (systems and reporting)
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Budgeting (usually some very simplistic elementary level modeling and meetings about a few expense lines and timing)
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Weekly/monthly/annual forecasting to track vs plan (usually 60 minutes a pop meetings with functional teams discussing timing)
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Updating board decks (usually consolidating data from different areas of the business, copy/paste, and leave it to the executives to tailor the story about the business)
And likewise, is it fair to say >80% of most Corp Strategy or Corp Dev responsibilities entail:
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Working with internal executives to help identify, understand, and solve business pain points and find growth opportunities
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Searching for strategic initiatives / acquisitions for the company to undertake
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Modeling out price elasticity, capital allocation, and operational scenarios (also occasionally done by the finance or prod mgmt teams, but seems to be rare)
At the end of the day, I picture Corporate Strategy and Corporate Development as far more intellectually stimulating (relatively speaking) and impactful work vs FP&A. Am i offbase here? Does the excitingly steep learning curve and variety of exciting projects quickly give way to familiarity and a mundane cadence of tasks?
Yes and no. There's a degree of truth to what you're saying regarding FP&A, but you have a very poor understanding of Corporate Strategy and Corp Dev roles. There's way more overlap between the two than most people let on.
Corporate strategy will vary immensely by company, but generally the work is similar to FP&A but it will be more project based rather than focused on quarterly earnings. Your time is spent putting together gantt charts, timelines, project plans, etc. The internal executives are really the ones "identifying, understanding, and solving pain points and finding growth opportunities". Your job is to put together power point presentations for senior management summarizing their ideas. It's more intellectually stimulating in that it's less repetitive and you'll learn about different things for each product. At the junior levels, it's not any more impactful.
In corporate development, at the junior level, 80% of your time will be spent updating formats in powerpoint presentations, updating org charts, gathering diligence documents, managing a data room, editing financial models, etc. Every transaction will be different, so the work is less repetitive. At the senior levels, this is the most impactful of the 3, as it would be challenging for the teams to complete an acquisition without them or external hires, and the skillset is more unique. The important caveat is that it will likely be 2-3 years at a minimum before you add value.
I think folks broadly within this thread have offered tremendous insight into what distinguishes the three. I think that CD is definitely a favourite among the folks exiting from IB due to the transferable skillsets (e.g., financial modeling; deck building; data room management, etc.). The experience that you get within a CD group will vary accordingly with the group structure, and more specifically the deal team structure. There are some infancy CD groups where the shop is involved in FP&A along with strategy, though it may not be an optimal structure.
Our group is fairly lean at ~10 professionals, so it would not be surprising to see an associate and MD being the entire deal team, with the associate having substantial involvement in all phases of the transaction process. There have been a few transactions where I've had the ability to run with, although ultimately the MD will be the one socializing to a Business Head if it gets to the point where we're seeking bid / transaction approval. I would say I've been fortunate to have been able to sit it on deal negotiations. It's not really the most glamorous setting by any means (often times it's onsite or at our external counsel's HQ, where we and Counterparty would be locked in a room to discuss certain money items to the SPA. I'm not a lawyer, but I thoroughly enjoy going through these legal agreements, as it helps you gain a more holistic understanding of the process.
Re: your point of whether one is 'better' than the other -- I'd echo what accountingbyday noted above. You'll be dealing heavily in Powerpoint and Excel (Powerpoint tends to take up more of my time these days) at the junior level. CD and CS tend to have a somewhat standardized suite of responsibilities from firm to firm, but FP&A may vary as sometimes it's used to mean a catch all role. If you can find a role within the group that is of the more strategic finance variety, where you're spending less time on the reporting and pulling figures and more on using them to make decision useful insights, then I'd argue that FP&A can be a terrific way to open up your future opportunities. You really can't go wrong with either in this event