It was suggested that I do a Q&A by some of the WSO folks after my recent podcast with Patrick. Check out my podcast & video here and my mentoring profile here #### A brief background of myself: * From a non target school in a B/C tier city, graduated with 3.4 * Interned in UHNW family office and ER * Decided to follow something I found more fulfilling and did a 1 year FLDP at a major healthcare system * Worked in corporate/operational/data heavy finance for 2 years in population health post FLDP * Left major healthcare system to join a PE portfolio company in the pharmacy industry still in growth phases as a senior financial analyst of FP&A #### Some other points I'm happy to answer questions about: * Came from a poorer family and worked my way through college with internships, RA, jobs, mentoring students with disabilities all at the same time and then working in a factory in the summers * Studied abroad in Australia * The challenges and lessons I learned of networking in a city/school without many resources * COL/lifestyle in a non top tier city * Any questions related to going the non-IB/high finance path (work/life balance, pay, job opportunities, etc) Also happy and open to answer any other questions you might have.
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I started at $45k in the FLDP, $55-63k as an FA post FLDP at the major healthcare system, $70k+2k bonus when I moved to PE backed company, $80k+bonus tbd as of the promotion to sr FA. All of that was within 4 years of working and I'm in a relatively low COL area so $80k goes decently far. Being in ops finance you can see internal salaries obviously so I'm assuming/planning on being ~125-145k all in by the time I'm 30. Beyond that, comp progression is up to what path you follow. Large company vs Small company, For Profit vs Not for Profit, Industry, etc all impacts comp.
If I stayed at the major healthcare system, I don't think my comp would have continued to grow as rapidly as it has. There are definite benefits to treating corp fin similar to how banking looks in 2-3 year stints.
I'll also note that unlike many industries, I haven't noticed a ton of variation in comp for ops finance or FP&A based on city. So it's to your advantage to go to the cheapest COL city you enjoy.
Apologies in advance for the rambling, I talked about this stuff in the podcast as well if you want more info.
Typical hours are somewhere between 40-60 hours with an occasional longer week but that's rare.
Day-to-day is a lot of ad hoc analysis for the C Suite. This is a smaller company and I'm one of few people I'd consider any kind of analyst here. On a monthly/as needed basis, I am responsible for updating our financial model and all forecasts, month end reporting for the board/PE firm/C Suite. But the more interesting part of my job, and why I left a big company for a smaller PE backed company, is working on strategic projects. We don't currently have a strategy department so my boss and I have taken on the role of brainstorming business generation, vetting projects, predicting outcomes, helping operationalize partnerships, etc. Honestly, working at a small company is a huge PITA but when you have a small team, you get such a breadth of knowledge from operations, finance, analytics, IT, HR, contracting that I didn't get at a large health system. We wear a lot of hats here and it makes it more interesting.
Making the move from FA to SFA was all about communication. Communicating with my boss and our CFO that I wanted career growth and was willing to do whatever they viewed necessary. From there, we developed some quantitative and qualitative metrics to measure my success and routinely met to discuss what I was doing well or not doing well. Providing you are doing well, having your boss struggle to come up with things you can improve on month after month kind of sets the stage that there's no reason not to promote you. Obviously this is much less formal at the smaller company. At the larger company, I would've followed a similar strategy except I would've found an internal posting for a SFA or manager and highlight what I was doing already that meets the requirements of an SFA.
The skills that helped me prove why I can be an SFA and not just FA though were: above average experience with large data (SQL/Tableau/basic python), expert in Excel, attention to detail/not making many mistakes, taking ownership on work and lightening my boss's workload, professionalism, and attitude. I'm sure you know it but don't undervalue the professionalism and attitude because as you move up the ladder, it's less about what you can do and more about soft skills.
Hope that helps!