<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I found this on another forum and I thought it was an interesting question as I’m looking into i-banking potentially as well versus accounting. Can anyone comment on this and also, for my own question, explain what a “financial controller” does in a company?</p>
<p>Thanks and here’s the post:</p>
<p>I just got done talking to someone who works in GE in the
corporate audit staff program about what he does. He says
that even though his job title may be considered
“internal auditor”, he considers himself to be more of an
“internal consultant” and while he doesn’t do strategy
work in the way a McKinsey, Bain, etc. type of firm would
do, by analyzing, implementing, etc. various controls and
benchmarking them, he gets to really see how his business
unit (that’s how they are assigned in GE I guess) works,
how to improve operations, and inevitably make the firm
more profitable. He says that after MBB (the big 3 in
management consulting for those that aren’t familiar with
the acronym), there’s no better way to learn how a
business operates and eventually become a CFO than going
public/internal auditor => controller/divisional CFO =>
C-suite. </p>
<p>So while this isn’t exactly strategy work, it still
sounds very interesting and like something I might enjoy.
Is his experience somewhat similar to what most internal
auditors do, or is it different due to him being in GE?
He also said that if I can’t break into MC but want to
have a job where I can see how a business operates inside
and out and money/Private Equity/Hedge Funds exit opps
aren’t that important, I should highly consider going
into public accounting over i-banking.</p>