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Career Profile: Corporate Finance

Corporate finance is an engaging and challenging profession for those individuals who thrive on dealing with complex financial models, using numbers to solve problems, and develop strategy. Since any organization, big or small, new or old, is in business to make money, they depend on financial wizards to assist them in managing cash flow. In particular, corporate finance is responsible for keeping track of businesses money from where it will come from, where it is, how it should be spent, and ultimately, how they can increase profitability and decrease expenses.

Necessary Skills & Credentials:

As a binary, corporate finance pulls from two disciplines, accounting and finance, both are necessary to fully perform the functional duties, which encompass managing a corporation’s money. Depending on the company a person works for and their career ambitions, work in corporate finance can lead to careers as a chief financial officer, financial analyst, treasurer, to a controller. Each of these career tracks still embodies the core purpose of corporate finance, meeting a company’s bottom line.

Career Tracks:

Careers in corporate finance can lead professionals in very exciting directions, with opportunity to work in different financial divisions to further develop their financial skills. For instance, typical career tracks include entry-level positions like general accounting, where most people either work in accounts payable or accounts receivable. From there, most people will look to secure positions in specific finance specialties under the umbrella of corporate finance.

Opportunities include working as an internal auditor ensuring accuracy of the company’s accounting practices, to financial services where financial planning takes place. For those more interested in looking at how they can save the company money through savvy tax strategy, may find a rewarding career working with tax attorney’s to advise senior leadership on when specific purchases and acquisitions should be purchase according to the tax benefits they provide.

Outlook:

Corporate finance continues to be a necessary function for any organization that looks to increase their profitability and revenue through supportive financial models and financial tactic’s that protect company assets and ideally decrease expenditures. Careers in corporate finance are anticipated to remain plentiful, in particularly for those industries expected to expand such as clean technology and health care.