Recently switched from big4 to Senior in FP&A (Corporate/Consolidations) at a pretty big real estate company. This career path now seems very unclear with no timeline on promotion and whats next unlike big4 careers. Was wondering if anyone can provide some insights into how to navigate this career (should I go back to Big4 and get some M&A experience from FDD/Valuations/Finance Transformation) or just keep doing FP&A work). End goal would to become a Director or VP in FP&A.

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Are you doing FP&A work that involves strategic support, financial modeling, NPV analysis, etc? Or is it basically just consolidating forecasts at the corporate level? FP&A experience is generally better at the BU level.

Depending on your experience, a jump back to PA in a group like valuation may help you. I wouldn't recommend FDD (there is a big misconception that they do modeling and "finance" work but it's just glorified accounting). FP&A can give you strong exposure to the strategic side of the business, and that is barely existent in any of the service lines you've mentioned (e.g. finance transformation is just system implementation). It may be worth sticking around, learning additional skills, then jumping to another FP&A role in the future for more pay/title (if you don't see progression at your current place).

I would start by asking your manager what timeline looks like for promotion and what you can do to get there. I'm surprised you went into this job without knowing what progression looks like. For me, I asked a lot of questions and looked at LinkedIn to see what promos looked like (2-3 years to manager was the norm here).

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I’d agree with the checking into valuation/business modeling. This is one of the areas we are trying to build out our team as this goes hand in hand with our overall IPO readiness pitch.

How much audit experience did you have? FDD would be helpful for trying to break into other areas (Corp Dev, MM IB, etc.) or enter FP&A as a manager if you make it to manager at FDD

I have 3.5 years of audit experience. I’m now a senior FP&A analyst. The thing is if I go back to FDD and exit as an FP&A manager then it won’t be worth it because I can do the same through putting in another year as a senior in FP&A. If I want to exit to a director of FP&A position would I have to make senior manager/director in FDD?

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Ah this is a big factor I've thought when considering a move to FP&A. While technical accounting can get tedious, it's such a fundamental job at every single company and your skills/experience (and value) is clear. Also I feel like someone in accounting can easily switch to FP&A (or at least take on some FP&A responsibilities like forecasts, etc) but not the other way around... But I haven't tried FP&A yet so can't say for sure

Interesting...that sounds pretty nice actually

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