What Level Do Most People in Corporate Finance Usually Reach Before Plateauing?

I currently work for a Big 4 firm and am in the process of trying to figure out whether or not I want to either transfer to another service line that is more appealing to me in advisory or if I want to say "screw it", move into corporate finance and try to start the climb from there.

In order to make this decision, I'm trying to get a sense of what level people in corporate FP&A/finance roles get to before stalling out/not going further. Although professional services is a lot of work/travel/stress, it is appealing in that there is a very well-worn path to making great money fairly quickly. Additionally, it still retains the even bigger upside of making partner (or whatever the equivalent is at other firms), which = big money similar to that which an executive makes.

This higher average payout coupled with the fact that the work is more varied and that you see different things has made me somewhat hesitant to go corporate where it seems like the max you'll make is 150k, even as an FP&A manager/controller, despite being fairly senior positions. How difficult is it to make it to the next level (i.e. director, VP, etc.) after getting this far? It's very possible that my priorities will change as I get older (currently mid-20s), but for now, the prospect of working harder and breaking through that level even without making partner in professional services seems fairly appealing.

If anyone has experience in terms of what the "average" terminal point for someone who works in finance in-house is, that would be great. Something tells me I might be selling corporate short, just because I've only been exposed to the services side of things, so any information would be awesome.

 

Most people plateau at the manager level. The path from Director and up is much harder to predict. You're right that generally you won't make more than 150k as a manager/controller all in. The exception would be if a company has a senior manager level. That being said, I've seen more people than you would imagine being stuck/content at the senior FA level as well, although a motivated person won't get stuck there.

 

My experience has been similar to what Eskimo described. Fairly linear path to get from FA > SFA > Manager/VP, but it becomes difficult to take on increasing levels of responsibility at some point. I have seen several sharp individuals move on to other opportunities within/outside the firm after the VP level because the work was structured such that the high achieving individual add more value/earn more comp by doing something else. This is just my experience, so may not be true in general. If I were you, I would stay in a consulting/advisory role as long as you can bear (from a work-life perspective) before "settling down" into a corporate so that you can enter into the title/comp ladder at the highest rung possible. Would be interested to hear what others have to say.

 
AT1228:

My experience has been similar to what Eskimo described. Fairly linear path to get from FA > SFA > Manager/VP, but it becomes difficult to take on increasing levels of responsibility at some point. I have seen several sharp individuals move on to other opportunities within/outside the firm after the VP level because the work was structured such that the high achieving individual add more value/earn more comp by doing something else. This is just my experience, so may not be true in general. If I were you, I would stay in a consulting/advisory role as long as you can bear (from a work-life perspective) before "settling down" into a corporate so that you can enter into the title/comp ladder at the highest rung possible. Would be interested to hear what others have to say.

Since you and Eskimo Brothers both work in corporate finance I was wondering on your thoughts about me staying in audit then vs jumping into Advisory. I enjoy accounting to a large degree, but the thing I don't like about audit is that we do a lot of internal controls/processes analyzing (aka crap I don't care about) and get little exposure to financial reporting and technical accounting (aka the crap I do care about). Therefore, I was thinking about transitioning to the Financial Accounting Advisory group that specifically deals with complex accounting/transaction accounting work since it should be more in line with my interests.

At the same time, however, I do also want to eventually move into a role that involves some financial analysis/forecasting as well. If I had to pick an ideal job of sorts, it'd be something where I'm involved with putting the numbers together but then also using them to either support or make decisions within the company (includes everything from whether or not the firm should continue having this factory open to what the financial statement/profitability impact of a merger will be).

I'm somewhat concerned that either audit/AAS will pigeon-hole me just into financial reporting roles if I stay more than 3-4 years, and especially once I hit the manager level. Do you think this is overblown or is it a legitimate concern?

 
Best Response

The areas that most get stuck at is either Manager or Director depending on how the company is structured. Larger, more hierarchical companies will probably have more at the Manager level just due to the size, where smaller corporations will inflate your title a bit more.

Getting from Director to VP to SVP / EVP to C-Level can be very tough and requires a lot of politics, timing, and usually jumping around companies to get the extra bump.

Yes, most people get stuck at the Manager or Director level, but most people don't really care about their jobs. In addition, most people didn't work in IB, go to a top MBA, or put in the extra hours when it was needed. The majority of which are just happy with their paychecks, decent lifestyle, and spending as much time as possible with family.

 
jss09:

The areas that most get stuck at is either Manager or Director depending on how the company is structured. Larger, more hierarchical companies will probably have more at the Manager level just due to the size, where smaller corporations will inflate your title a bit more.

Getting from Director to VP to SVP / EVP to C-Level can be very tough and requires a lot of politics, timing, and usually jumping around companies to get the extra bump.

Yes, most people get stuck at the Manager or Director level, but most people don't really care about their jobs. In addition, most people didn't work in IB, go to a top MBA, or put in the extra hours when it was needed. The majority of which are just happy with their paychecks, decent lifestyle, and spending as much time as possible with family.

I agree mostly with that - many people are happy to settle into a very comfortable work-life balance somewhere in the middle of the hierarchy and getting to that next level can sometimes require you to branch out responsibilities into other areas or leaving the organization entirely.

It sounds like OP is not enjoying the work he is currently doing, so I think it's worth while taking a chance to try out advisory. Fail early and often in your career. You might never know where the mistakes might take you and what you'll learn about yourself.

As a point of clarification to my earlier post, my org structure puts VP below Director in title, so I was equating VP with "Manager". I know for many non-financial services companies the title structure is the reverse (as described in jss09's post)

 

I don't work in CF, but I do work in a F500 and can shed some light on this. At my (CPG) company, marketing is the leadership function and almost every single person in that function went to a top MBA program (OCR schools are Johnson, Stern, Tuck, Wharton, Kellogg and Kelley). In marketing, people are very type-A and are driven to move up. In that function, people get stuck at the Director level, which takes 8-10 years to reach post-MBA (8 years is for stars, 10 years for non-stars). It's generally 2.5 yrs Assoc Manager, 2.5 years Manager, 3-5 years Senior Manager/Associate Director. Once you hit Director, you're generally waiting for someone to die or change companies before you make VP (this can take up to 8 years or never, depending on your performance/politics). This will be true in any F500 that is not growing rapidly (i.e. the vast majority) because there are fewer and fewer positions the higher up you go and not enough growth to create a lot of new ones.

In other functions of the company (Sales, Finance, HR, etc), where people are NOT top MBA grads, stalling out at manager is much more common. There are people who have been at manager for 20+ years and it does not seem to bother them in the slightest (I still am trying to wrap my head around this view). It doesn't always mean they're bad at their jobs (although sometimes they're distinctly average performers). It often means they are happy with their salary and work/life balance and are unwilling to change that to move up.

 

You probably think marketing is advertising which is why you wrote that response. In consumer goods industries, marketing is general management. It's where the CEOs come from and who owns the P&L at all levels throughout the organization. The CEOs of companies like P&G, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Mondelez, Kraft, etc all came up through marketing. If you think the people who get to (and are competing for) the CEO post of $30B+ revenue companies are not type-A, I suggest you give that competition a try. If you read here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/12/05/the-path-to-becoming-… , you'll see that sales & marketing is the 2nd most common route to F500 CEO (behind corporate finance).

 
undefined:

I don't work in CF, but I do work in a F500 and can shed some light on this. At my (CPG) company, marketing is the leadership function and almost every single person in that function went to a top MBA program (OCR schools are Johnson, Stern, Tuck, Wharton, Kellogg and Kelley). In marketing, people are very type-A and are driven to move up. In that function, people get stuck at the Director level, which takes 8-10 years to reach post-MBA (8 years is for stars, 10 years for non-stars). It's generally 2.5 yrs Assoc Manager, 2.5 years Manager, 3-5 years Senior Manager/Associate Director. Once you hit Director, you're generally waiting for someone to die or change companies before you make VP (this can take up to 8 years or never, depending on your performance/politics). This will be true in any F500 that is not growing rapidly (i.e. the vast majority) because there are fewer and fewer positions the higher up you go and not enough growth to create a lot of new ones.

In other functions of the company (Sales, Finance, HR, etc), where people are NOT top MBA grads, stalling out at manager is much more common. There are people who have been at manager for 20+ years and it does not seem to bother them in the slightest (I still am trying to wrap my head around this view). It doesn't always mean they're bad at their jobs (although sometimes they're distinctly average performers). It often means they are happy with their salary and work/life balance and are unwilling to change that to move up.

^ Solid info. Marketing is king; they're the stars and get nicer perks. In FP&A type roles, path is generally FA --> SFA --> Associate Manager --> Manager (of a product category). Starting at the bottom, it takes about 9 - 12+ years. The people I've seen will take many different roles in different parts of the firm. For those with accounting background - maybe you'll work in a cost accounting role at a plant, then sales somewhere else, etc. People primarily plateau at the Manager level. At one F500 CPG firm, the next level up is Director (overseeing a region's product categories). The thing is its hard to get to Director (~16+ years). Fewer spots available. Mostly waiting for people higher up the chain to move on. And people stay.

If managers want to keep moving up the pay grade scale, they may be recommended to take new roles in new geographies - by that, I mean, often far away from the large cities. Difficult when you have already settled down and started a family. I know of one Director level who left the company because this person wanted to move up, but there were no opportunities currently available in their geographic area. Also compounding this, is that the fight to cut costs has led to a slight thinning out in the major metropolitan US offices while they build large centers in lower-cost countries. Repetitive work / formatting + preparation type work gets moved there while they keep the analytical work in the US.

 

It sounds as though going corporate effectively does hamper how far you can move up, so at first glance, staying in professional services and grinding things out to partner/MD seems to make sense. On the other hand, are we all mostly talking about F500 exclusively or does the same apply at mid-cap companies, public companies? Does anyone have experience with how hard it is to move up beyond a certain point at non-F500 but still public companies and what the pay is like at the manager+ level here?

The reason I ask is that it could make sense to do prof services => F500 work to manager/controller => smaller company as VP/CFO instead of just going prof services => f500 manager => retire

 
reformed:

What F500 only pays their controller 150k/year?
Or does it mean something different than the company's controller?

All controller titles aren't created equal. You're probably thinking of the company controller. This position is usually a VP/SVP title, usually with the Chief Accounting Officer title as well. There are also usually division/segment level controllers, which in my former company were at the Director level. The Assistant Corporate controller is also likely at this level.

The majority of the controllers though are at the plant or operating unit level. These are manager or senior manager level positions.

 

I would say--to your question about Audit vs Advisory--it depends on which Advisory group you are looking to join. I think the group you mentioned (Financial Accounting Advisory) would pigeon hole you even further into pure Financial Reporting roles at a company. I have only seen a few people at my client who did B4 Audit->B4 CMAAS/AAS/etc.->corporate finance, and all of them are in Financial Reporting group of the company. If you are hoping to position yourself for more finance type roles (i.e. FP&A), then a group like Financial Due Diligence within Advisory would probably make more sense. At least at PwC, the FDD group is the ideal spot to move to from audit if you are looking to position yourself for more finance type roles. Just my two cents. Disclosure: I'm also currently in audit at a B4.

 

I would say manager level. It's a numbers game, the average can't become a director of VP. In my F500 there are usually 2 layers of managers before Director / VP. Some different groups, for instance the controller group (traditional accounting), has an additional layer. If you value working on different projects and like the varied work I would suggest you stay put. FP&A can be monotonous at a F500. If you land a good manager it won't be a problem, but it is a gamble.

I would say your comp is a little high, at least in my industry for first level managers. But our pay grade range is quite large. The assistant controller / controller make significantly more than 150k all in as some analysts are at 100k. At my firm the executive structure is Director>VP>SVP. My VP's recommendation to me was to not become an expert in any area and move around every 3-4 years (within the company) to gain experience. That may mean moving my family and thus it is hard to keep climbing. To become a senior manager /executive takes a serious commitment in any industry. Most likely the path would be to go to a company move around every few years and eventually you will hit a plateau. That is when you have to go to another company. Most don't do this and either make peace with where they are at or "wait and see". Some make it and some never get there.

 
GetAJob08:

I would say manager level. It's a numbers game, the average can't become a director of VP. In my F500 there are usually 2 layers of managers before Director / VP. Some different groups, for instance the controller group (traditional accounting), has an additional layer. If you value working on different projects and like the varied work I would suggest you stay put. FP&A can be monotonous at a F500. If you land a good manager it won't be a problem, but it is a gamble.

I would say your comp is a little high, at least in my industry for first level managers. But our pay grade range is quite large. The assistant controller / controller make significantly more than 150k all in as some analysts are at 100k. At my firm the executive structure is Director>VP>SVP. My VP's recommendation to me was to not become an expert in any area and move around every 3-4 years (within the company) to gain experience. That may mean moving my family and thus it is hard to keep climbing. To become a senior manager /executive takes a serious commitment in any industry. Most likely the path would be to go to a company move around every few years and eventually you will hit a plateau. That is when you have to go to another company. Most don't do this and either make peace with where they are at or "wait and see". Some make it and some never get there.

Did you mean to say that my comp is a little low and not a little high? If your assistant controller is over 150k and analysts are making >$100k, that's higher than what I would expect based on what I've seen on glassdoor. Also, if I may ask, which region are you in? I'm in the Northeast (not NYC), so I'd think that my area would be higher than just about anywhere except maybe the Bay Area and of course NYC. The numbers you're quoting seem more in line with the Bay/NYC, but again, I'm not 100% sure how corporate pay works, which is why I wanted to ask people on here

 

First level manager in the 100-115 range, second level mgr 110-130 ish. These are averages. So a new manager may make 100k, and an analyst that has been with the company for a bit and is good may also make 100k. There are some who make quite a bit more. It's hard to say honestly as the pay grades are very wide. The jump to director / vp is substantial. Northeast, not nyc or Boston. I didn't mean to imply that all or most analysts make 100, but the best ones do. It is difficult to give a rock solid answer because there are always exceptions.

To add a little color and I'm making numbers up as I won't share information that is too specific; you have management employees, generally 4-5 levels (pay grades) of analysts let's say each pay grade has a 40-60k range. Therefore the pay grades overlap. Then you have a manager which is a pay grade above the highest analyst and there are a few additional pay grades after this as well. All of these pay grades have wide ranges as well. So it is a sequential pay grade system. However, once you become director you are an executive and the pay grades no longer apply. The compensation system is completely different for executives ( director and higher).

 
undefined:

I'm curious about the timeline within corp fin to go from FA > SFA > Manager. How long does it take to get to manager and when do people typically go get their MBAs if at all?

I'd say 2-4 years to SFA, and then another 2-4. to Manager. Most people seem to get their MBA as a manager. MBA is pretty widely held in the upper ranks of corporate finance. While you will find a lot of the older generations don't have one, the younger generations likely do. Usually you need a MBA/CPA or both to keep moving up past Manager.

 

I currently work in CorFin at a Fortune 50. Actually looking/interview for some IB positions, but anyway the hierarchy and times it takes to move up in CorpFin is pretty ridiculous at least where I'm at. It seems like it takes forever to get out of the analyst ranks and like many people said above people stall out at the manager/controller level except ours make 200k+ all in, plus some nice perks, stock options. Even at that point you really have no impact/decision making on the business due to how hierarchical it is for decisions to be made. That is why I am looking elsewhere. Plus the work is wildly uninteresting. Office politics also determine your mobility big time along with luck of what organization you are in within Finance.

 

leave audit as soon as you can. options are:

1) transfer internally strat / cf ~ 1 year (or till manager) 2) same as above but try jump to boutique consultancy after 6 months 3) same as above but jump to corporate instead after 6 months 4) try and and hustle straight into corporate whilst in audit

4) will be hardest if you dont have anything that helps you stand out.

Im not based in USA (and should mention above applies to my experience & knowledge of UK market) but in my network - most senior person ive seen leave was Director at Big 4 Audit (with some interesting transactional & listing experience) who left to join as VP of Group Finance of FTSE100 then promoted to SVP after 1 year.

 

Reiciendis modi explicabo amet voluptas et nam. Magnam nihil laboriosam eos minus quia.

Dicta eius et dolore illum dignissimos unde at molestiae. Consequatur omnis tempore sunt blanditiis quibusdam eius corrupti officiis. Architecto eveniet aspernatur vel unde qui molestiae aut. Quis et et maxime labore sint ea voluptate.

Optio aut beatae sed maxime eum sequi. Maxime illum vero accusantium neque ipsam eum nostrum. Dolorem temporibus alias blanditiis magnam voluptatem totam.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (202) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
3
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
4
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
5
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
6
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
7
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
8
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
9
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
10
numi's picture
numi
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”