Hello Monkeys,
Long time lurker here. Thanks to this site I have been able to work my way into a F500 FP&A Financial Analyst from a complete non-target that could be considered a notch above community college. I am starting at 70K which is solid (low COL city) but I was curious as to what the salary progression looks like for Corp. Fin.
Career Resources
70 is solid for an entry level FP&A role.
I know there are a number of threads on this topic already but here are a few anecdotal numbers have seen in my area (low COL) CF comp is roughly as follows:
Analyst - $60-$80k Bonus 0-10%
Senior analyst - $75-$110k 10-20% Bonus
Manager/Sr Manager - $90 - $220k 20-40% Bonus
Director/Sr Director - (Generally starts to include stock) $200-$600k all in
VP - $350 - $1M
SVP/EVP/CFO - $600 - $6M
The above is an agglomeration of individual data points and anectdotal discussions for industries which included Oil & Gas, Power & Utilities, Semiconductors, Mining, Defense and Manufacturing.
For the above industries I would rank pay as follows: 1) Oil&Gas/Mining 2) Power&Utilities 3) Semiconductors 4) Manufacturing 5) Defense
The issue here is that as you can see comp ranges vary so much as to be almost meaningless at the higher levels. However my advice is that there are two things that will impact your comp trajectory most:
1) industry/company 2) Company promotion speed and treatment of high performers.
Edit: Given feeback below I tweaked the lower ends of the executive ranges since some users thought they were not reflective of the lower end of their industry/firm’s pay for those levels.
I'd pull down the lower end of the analyst salary you stated- in a low COL city in defense, some analysts are making $47k-50k. I'd put the average for 1st year analysts at $55k-60k.. For OP to pull $70k as a 1st year in a low COL city is fantastic.
Where would you rank Tech as an industry?
I know several people in the industry. Your numbers are way too high across the board.
"I know several people in the industry." Which industry? Corporate finance is a generic term for people who work in finance, accounting, and treasury across dozens of industries and with many different comp structures and seniority levels.
"Your numbers are way too high across the board." Can't be true. There are dozens of people on this board who can verify the first two ranges at a bare minimum. Some of them have already posted. You clearly have a problem with the high ends of specific ranges. If so, name them and I am happy to give you specific examples of individuals (title/company size/industry/ years of experience) I know who have comp packages in those ranges.
Edit: This is actually easier. Check out this link. California requires the publication of the annual compensation (Salary, Stock, Bonus (all lumped into one line)) for every employee who makes more than $125k per year for public utilities. Southern California Edison is a peer of one of the utilities I have worked with and they have very similar comp structures (despite being in a lower cost area than LA). The file at this link has employees who are at all of the ranges I mentioned with the sole exception of $6M for CFO which can be easily verified by pulling proxies for F500 energy companies.
The majority of these employees (even though you can't necessarily tell functional area) are in business roles like HR, Finance, Regulatory Affairs and business unit support roles which all have relatively similar comp structures. This is again, based on my experience working with a similar utility elsewhere.
Happy browsing! http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/General.aspx?id=6442454119
While I don't work in CF (I work in brand management at a F500 CPG), based on what I know from my own company those all seem reasonable. To give a point of comparison, for my function (marketing), comp is roughly (numbers below are all-in):
Associate Manager: $105-120k Manager: $140-155k Sr Manager: $170-185k* Ass Director: $200-220k* Director: $250-350k* VP: $400k+*
*These numbers are cash-only. Sr Mgr and above at my company get annual equity grants, but I have no basis on which to judge how large those are or the vesting period.
Director range is so wide since we don't have "Senior Director", so there are varying levels of Director pay without associated title bumps (someone may have 3 different roles over 7-8 years all with the title Director but each is technically a promotion w a new pay level).
EDIT: Standard progression is 2-2.5 years to promotion in each of the roles above. Average time from Assoc. Manager to Director is ~9 years. Associate Manager is the post-MBA role.
Make your boss' life easier on a daily basis and you'll get promoted up alongside him. I'm in corp fin F500 and I was promoted twice in a year (first was from intern to full time analyst). My boss clearly stated to me his desire to be promoted in the next couple years and that he needs to trust someone to take over his position first.