Corporate Finance Objectives
Corporate Finance
Career Overview
If you work in private enterprise, your company measures its success at the end of the year by comparing how much money it made to how much it spent. If it has made more than it has spent, it was a good year. If it has made less than it has spent, it was a bad year—or the company is in an investment phase. (In other words, like Amazon.com, it spent more than it made because the company and its investors believed it would realize a profit in the near future.)
People who work in corporate finance and accounting are responsible for managing the money—forecasting where it will come from, knowing where it is, and helping managers decide how to spend it in ways that will ensure the greatest return.
This career profile focuses on opportunities in corporate finance and accounting in private industry. To learn about other areas in financial services, read our industry profiles for investment banking, mutual funds and brokerage firms, commercial banking, insurance, and accounting. These profiles detail a variety of specialized financial functions beyond those in private enterprise.
Every company has a corporate-finance function. The responsibilities that fall under finance and accounting range from basic activities such as bill paying to very sophisticated ones such as forecasting the value of a potential acquisition. The stakes can amount to hundreds of millions—sometimes billions—of dollars and thousands of jobs. Careful assessment of the financial implications of particular strategic decisions can be critical to a company's success or failure.
Of course, a company's size, complexity, economic sector, and stage of development (start-up or established business) influence what tasks the corporate finance team undertakes every day. All companies need to balance their books. Some large technology companies, for example, hire financial experts to valuate potential acquisitions. Others (such as insurance companies) have
Career Overview
If you work in private enterprise, your company measures its success at the end of the year by comparing how much money it made to how much it spent. If it has made more than it has spent, it was a good year. If it has made less than it has spent, it was a bad year—or the company is in an investment phase. (In other words, like Amazon.com, it spent more than it made because the company and its investors believed it would realize a profit in the near future.)
People who work in corporate finance and accounting are responsible for managing the money—forecasting where it will come from, knowing where it is, and helping managers decide how to spend it in ways that will ensure the greatest return.
This career profile focuses on opportunities in corporate finance and accounting in private industry. To learn about other areas in financial services, read our industry profiles for investment banking, mutual funds and brokerage firms, commercial banking, insurance, and accounting. These profiles detail a variety of specialized financial functions beyond those in private enterprise.
Every company has a corporate-finance function. The responsibilities that fall under finance and accounting range from basic activities such as bill paying to very sophisticated ones such as forecasting the value of a potential acquisition. The stakes can amount to hundreds of millions—sometimes billions—of dollars and thousands of jobs. Careful assessment of the financial implications of particular strategic decisions can be critical to a company's success or failure.
Of course, a company's size, complexity, economic sector, and stage of development (start-up or established business) influence what tasks the corporate finance team undertakes every day. All companies need to balance their books. Some large technology companies, for example, hire financial experts to valuate potential acquisitions. Others (such as insurance companies) have