Possible to Leverage Big 4 Audit Experience Into a More Decision-Making Role?

Hi Everyone,

I'm currently working for the Big 4 in audit and don't like it so far. Although the hours are pretty bad, especially considering the pay, that isn't really what's getting me down. I'm fine with working 50-55 hours a week in order to advance my career. The issue is that I'm not sure if I'm setting myself up for my goal of being a leader/decision-maker within a company down the road.

I never went into public thinking that I would be partner or even manager. I heard that while the 3-4 years you're there are miserable, you end up getting fast-tracked for corporate finance jobs after that. The issue is, most of the recruiters want me to do something in internal audit, financial reporting, etc. and it seems like the more value-added functions that involve financial analysis/modeling are hard to come by.

Thus, I have a couple of questions. The first is if my perception is warped about what it means to be a financial reporting head honcho and if they still do have an impact on the business/sit at the table for big decisions. Maybe I read too much WSO, but right now, I feel like controllers (which is the normal exit opp from public at higher levels) are just looked at as back-office monkeys who deal with SoX/GAAP and aren't involved with big mergers, etc. and how they will affect the company or well respected in general. Is this wrong?

The second is, regardless of the answer to the above question, how doable is it to migrate from accounting to a FP&A role involving forecasting/budgeting/decision-making, even after a stint as "senior accountant" in industry. The worst case scenario I'm envisioning is that I might have to jump to industry at a good company as a "senior accountant", but I don't want to get pigeon-holed in just doing that if possible. Therefore, I'm trying to gauge if it could be worthwhile to consider senior accountant positions at a growing company and then rotate to the finance department after doing a good job for the firm.

Any advice would be much appreciated!