Slow day at work and always envisioned doing one of these as WSO was super helpful to me in my college/banking days. I spent 2 years in BB IB, and currently ~1 year into my current role at a late stage tech company (Series D+, 5bn+ valuation as of last round). AMA!
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Can you give some detailed examples of your work (w/o confidential info ofc). I am trying to understand the difference between FP&A and Strategic Finance specifically. Thanks!
FP&A has two main responsibilities: 1) quarterly/annual planning where you set the budget for different departments 2) monthly variance analysis, where you let these departments know how they are performing relative to the budget.
Strategic finance typically entails some strategy work, e.g., the Company wants to calculate the impact of xyz initiative (new product launches, switching vendors, etc.). This typically involves analyzing large datasets, building models, creating presentations, and presenting and getting buy-in from executives.
Strategic finance can be a misleading name - my team is also responsible for FP&A tasks, and I've heard of other teams who strictly focus on either the first or second kind of work.
What was your motivation to move into Strategic Finance? Aiming to be CFO in the future + WLB?
Thanks!
Background:
I recently did a Strategic Finance internship at a FinTech. I personally found it difficult to map out my progression at the firm and found the work quite boring (50-60% was FP&A reporting).
Progression seems faster than at a F500 but it still feels really slow vs IB/PE or even Consulting. Not to mention the pay cut, it always feels like you are secondary to the Tech guys (which is understandable, we don't generate revenue).
WLB was a big factor, I was also sold on the idea of more interesting work than IB. I would say both have been true to an extent, though if you work with ex-IB folks, you'll still be working pretty hard, and about 50% of my work is also FP&A which dilutes how interesting the work actually gets.
I don't think I'm destined for the CFO grind, but I do think I'll probably continue down the path of being an operator. At this point in my career, I'm actually more interested in leaning into non-finance roles (Product, BizOps, Growth), which I think the strategy side of my job gives me a foot in the door for.
The pay cut is what it is, and you are definitely secondary to SWEs - that being said 1) life is a lot more than optimizing a paycheck, and IB/PE/Consulting can be a bit of a soul-sucking experience and 2) if you execute in your career, you're still clearing $300k-$400k by your early-mid 30's...not the worst situation to be in.
Agree with your points, thanks for replying! The operator part sounds interesting, would you consider the PE portco team/operator route vs something more raw/entrepreneurial?
Regarding pay: that's a fair point, I guess I am at that naive stage where you think money is #1 before life hits you.
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How good your accounting has to be for this type of role? What does day to day look like for head of strategic finance?
If there are FP&A responsibilities, it needs to be pretty solid since you'll be working with accounting to close the books on a monthly basis.
Day to day varies a ton, but from what I've seen I'd generally break it down as 80% meetings (supporting business partners, managing relationships, aligning on deliverables) and 20% high touch work review.
What is the typical salary range you would expect for a strategic finance role?
This is going to vary a ton depending on stage of company and how much they value the strategic finance team.
When I came in after 2 years of banking, my all-in offer was ~$150k. I'd estimate this is about average to a bit above average for late stage tech companies that tend to hire bankers.
Is this in NYC? Can you speak a bit more towards progression over say 5 years in terms of comp and your career in this type of role?
Still need to learn more about this but what are the differences between corp dev vs corp strategy. Why did you choose strategy?
Corp dev is internal M&A, corp strat is internal projects supporting company initiatives (e.g., what is the impact of a new product launch).
I didn't want to do corp dev coming out of banking because I wanted to move away from transaction work. It's a lot chiller than banking, but you'll still occasionally have blown up evenings/weekends just by nature of the job.
Did you come from Tech Banking or a different group? Curious how difficult it is to move into tech strategy if you are covering a different vertical (i.e. industrials, healthcare, etc.). Also, what was the interview process like?
I didn't come from a tech coverage group. I don't think it's super difficult to make the switch, I was getting a ton of interviews with the caveat being everyone was getting interviews from everywhere in 2022.
The interview process was typically 3-5 rounds, with the technical component consisting of either a take home case study or consulting-like case questions.
Old thread but how are you enjoying it so far? I am contemplating heavily this move and want to be an operator or business owner somehow down the road. Would you say a position like this positions me well for that sort of path? I also will be potentially working with a strategic finance role at a late stage start up company.
I thought I had responded to this comment but I think WSO glitched out or something. Retyping below:
With 2 years under my belt I think this was the right move for me. I've learned a ton, and my only real regret is not optimizing more for culture when recruiting.
Being an operator is very broad - I would say you are an operator in strategic finance as you're helping drive growth or efficiency in the business in a data driven way. You're also driving and/or revamping pretty complex processes across multiple departments. This skillset is useful and transferable to other operating roles (GM, Sales Operations, more traditional strategy, etc.)
Mind sharing a couple more answers, know this is an old thread. I've got just over 4 YOE under my belt between IB and PE now and an old boss is hiring a finance manager $2-$5bn valuation startup in a "harder working" startup (working for ex-bankers who are in-office and still working weekends, etc).
1) Any idea where comp should shake out for a role like that, including how much equity vs cash? Not trying to take a big paycut as I have decent WLB (60 hours) in my current role and sounds like this startup is working hard
2) Do "finance managers" get a real operating work experience? My biggest curiosity is I'd love to be a founder or entrepreneur one day and if this can help give me a useful experience in higher-level / hands-on work, I'd be very interested - but my fear is that its mostly just planning forecasts and closing accounting books under 1 team all day
Not OP but here are some based on my experiences:
1) Base should be around 150-180K, the rest are RSU which is hard to estimate given different quoted price on the offer. Even if ex-bankers work during weekends it's nothing like IB or PE.
2) If the finance manager is in strategy then yes, if fp&a then no. If you work in strategic finance you have to work super closely with product, growth, marketing, sales, legal, external consultants (for IPO related) and basically all the important front end groups (eng is considered backend), which is a lot of learning. You also end up with super high visibility in the company and lots of recognition for sure.
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