Film Finance Roles

Hey WSO,

I'm a second year financial analyst doing FP&A at one of the oil and gas majors. Some of the responsibilities I have in my role are a little too accounting intensive for my taste, but I really like the planning and budgeting part, as it allows me to work with senior management and offer some assistance as they make strategic decisions.  It's not IB, it's not PE, and it's not Trading. But I'm not a super intensive finance guy, and my interests lie more in corporate strategy and operations anyway.

I have been doing some preparation for consulting interviews so that I can eventually take a more active role in helping develop the company's strategy, but recently I have also been looking into the media and entertainment industry. I would love to take what I do in planning and budgeting and apply it to making decisions for a studio or network on what shows to air and what movies to produce. Honestly, I would even try out being the lead budget analyst on a specific production.

This may not be the best forum for this type of question given that most people are looking for somebody to tell them that it's possible to break into a BB from a non-target, but I figured I would pose it anyway. If anyone has any insights into what it takes to work in film finance and FP&A type roles in media and entertainment, please let me know. I wouldn't be surprised if I needed to do consulting or TMT banking before I got to do cool stuff on the business side of media/entertainment, but I wanted to hear from all of you on what the path looks like.

Thanks in advance.

• yourergocontact