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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Corporate Finance Analyst

💰 $70,000 - $120,000

FinanceCorporate FinanceFinancial AnalystFP&A

🎯 Role Definition

The Corporate Finance Analyst supports strategic and operational decision-making by preparing detailed financial analysis, building and maintaining financial models, managing budgeting and forecasting cycles, analyzing business performance, and partnering with cross-functional stakeholders. This role is responsible for translating business needs into financial insight, presenting actionable recommendations to senior management, supporting M&A and capital markets activities, and ensuring integrity of financial data and reporting.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Financial Analyst / Financial Reporting Analyst
  • Accounting Associate / Staff Accountant
  • Business Analyst or Operations Analyst with finance exposure

Advancement To:

  • Senior Corporate Finance Analyst / Senior FP&A Analyst
  • Finance Manager / FP&A Manager
  • Director of Finance / Head of Corporate Finance

Lateral Moves:

  • Treasury Analyst / Capital Markets Analyst
  • Corporate Development (M&A) Associate
  • Commercial Finance or Business Partner roles

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Prepare, maintain and continuously improve integrated financial models (monthly, quarterly, annual) including three-statement models, segment-level P&L, balance sheet and cash flow projections to support strategic planning and investment decisions.
  • Lead monthly and quarterly financial close analysis for business units and consolidated results, perform variance analysis versus budgets and prior periods, and explain drivers of performance to finance leadership and operating stakeholders.
  • Develop annual budgeting and rolling forecasting processes: coordinate inputs from business partners, reconcile assumptions, consolidate forecasts, and deliver management-ready forecast decks to senior leadership.
  • Produce Board and Executive-level presentations, including board packs, monthly business reviews and scenario analyses that summarize key performance indicators, growth drivers, risks, and recommended actions.
  • Build and execute detailed valuation analyses for strategic initiatives and transactions using DCF, precedent transactions, comparable company analysis, accretion/dilution models and sensitivity tables to support M&A, divestitures and capital raising.
  • Evaluate capital allocation decisions by modeling ROI, payback periods, NPV, and IRR for investment proposals, capex prioritization, and new product or expansion business cases.
  • Conduct ad-hoc financial and commercial analysis for pricing, product profitability, cost-to-serve, margin improvement, and operational efficiency initiatives; provide actionable recommendations backed by data.
  • Partner closely with accounting to ensure accurate recognition of revenue, alignment on accruals, reserves, and non-recurring items, and to reconcile and explain reconciliation differences between management and statutory reporting.
  • Maintain and enhance financial reporting systems and ERP integrations (e.g., SAP, Oracle, NetSuite); work with IT and data teams to automate workflows, improve data quality and reduce manual reporting effort.
  • Perform scenario planning and stress testing under multiple macroeconomic and business assumptions to quantify downside risk, liquidity needs and covenant compliance for senior management and the treasury team.
  • Support capital markets activities including debt renewals, covenant monitoring, investor due diligence requests and preparation of information memoranda or lender reports as required.
  • Drive cost control programs and OPEX initiatives by analyzing cost drivers, benchmarking against peers, and compiling implementation roadmaps with measurable KPIs and timelines.
  • Lead financial due diligence and integration support for M&A targets: prepare data rooms, build target company financial models, reconcile historical statements, and quantify synergies and integration costs.
  • Develop, monitor and report on corporate KPIs and operational metrics (CAC, LTV, churn, ARPU, working capital days), and ensure those metrics are embedded into monthly management reporting and incentive plans.
  • Deliver tax-sensitive financial analysis in coordination with tax and legal teams to evaluate structure, repatriation, transfer pricing and other considerations for cross-border transactions.
  • Manage relationships with external advisors (investment banks, auditors, valuation specialists) by coordinating deliverables, validating assumptions and integrating third-party findings into internal analysis.
  • Maintain detailed audit trails, model governance, version control and documentation for all financial models and forecasts to ensure reproducibility, transparency and compliance with internal controls.
  • Train and mentor junior analysts and interns: review model builds, provide feedback on analysis, and standardize reporting templates and best practices across the finance organization.
  • Facilitate cross-functional partnerships with commercial, operations and product teams to ensure financial implications of product roadmaps, contracts and pricing changes are understood and captured timely.
  • Evaluate and implement analytics and visualization tools (Power BI, Tableau) to create self-service dashboards that enable faster decision-making and reduce recurring manual reporting tasks.
  • Monitor industry trends, macroeconomic indicators and competitor financial performance to provide context in strategic planning and to support scenario-based recommendations to senior leadership.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc management requests and investor relations queries by preparing credible, timely responses and supplemental analysis.
  • Assist in the design and implementation of financial controls, policies and best practices to strengthen governance and reduce operational risk.
  • Provide backup support for month-end close activities including journal entry review, account reconciliations and commentary for key balance sheet movements.
  • Participate in cross-functional project teams for ERP rollouts, system upgrades, and process improvement initiatives to ensure finance requirements are embedded.
  • Contribute to the continuous improvement of data capture and reporting processes by proposing automation, standardization and KPI rationalization efforts.
  • Synthesize complex finance data into clear narratives and slide-ready materials for town halls, investor updates and internal communications.
  • Help maintain the capital expenditures approval process, ensuring projects are captured, tracked and reported against approved budgets and post-implementation reviews are completed.
  • Support working capital optimization projects such as receivables collections, inventory reduction and payables strategies by modeling impact on cash conversion cycle.
  • Assist treasury in daily cash forecasting and liquidity reporting when required, providing short-term scenario outputs to inform working capital decisions.
  • Coordinate internal and external audit requests and prepare supporting schedules, reconciliations and explanations to facilitate audit completions.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Advanced Excel modeling skills: multi-sheet financial models, pivot tables, INDEX/MATCH, complex formulas, scenario tables, sensitivity analysis and model auditing.
  • Financial modeling and valuation: discounted cash flow (DCF), LBO modeling, comparable company and precedent transaction analyses, accretion/dilution analysis.
  • Budgeting, forecasting and FP&A processes: rolling forecasts, driver-based models, zero-based budgeting and variance analysis techniques.
  • Accounting fundamentals and reporting: strong understanding of GAAP and/or IFRS, consolidated financial statements, accrual accounting and reconciliation practices.
  • Corporate finance transaction experience: M&A due diligence, integration planning, synergies modeling, divestitures and capital raising support.
  • ERP and financial systems familiarity: SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Workday Financials or similar; experience improving integrations between ERP and reporting tools.
  • Data tools and visualization: experience with Power BI, Tableau or Looker to create dashboards and automated reports.
  • SQL and data manipulation: ability to extract and join data from databases for analysis (basic to intermediate SQL).
  • Programming/scripting (preferred): VBA, Python or R for automation, data cleansing and advanced analytics.
  • Presentation and reporting tools: PowerPoint and strong storytelling ability to convert complex analysis into executive-ready slides.
  • Treasury and cash flow modeling: short-term cash forecasting, covenant analysis and working capital optimization modeling.
  • Compliance and audit readiness: documentation of controls, SOX familiarity a plus.

Soft Skills

  • Strong business partnering: ability to work cross-functionally, influence stakeholders and translate business needs into financial requirements.
  • Executive communication: concise verbal and written communication skills for senior leadership and board-level presentations.
  • Critical thinking and commercial judgment: balance quantitative rigor with practical, business-oriented recommendations.
  • Attention to detail and accuracy: meticulous in maintaining financial models, reconciliations and audit trails.
  • Project management: manage multiple priorities, deadlines and stakeholder expectations across finance projects.
  • Problem-solving and initiative: proactively identify improvement opportunities and drive solutions to completion.
  • Adaptability and learning agility: quickly assimilate new business models, systems and evolving strategic priorities.
  • Time management and prioritization: manage competing tasks in fast-paced, deadline-driven environments.
  • Collaboration and coaching: mentor junior team members and contribute to a learning-oriented team culture.
  • Ethical judgment and confidentiality: handle sensitive financial and strategic information with discretion.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree (MBA, MS Finance) or professional certification (CFA, CPA) preferred.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Finance
  • Accounting
  • Economics
  • Business Administration
  • Data Analytics / Applied Statistics (helpful for advanced analysis)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 2–5 years of relevant corporate finance, FP&A, accounting or corporate development experience.

Preferred:

  • 3–7 years with direct experience in financial modeling, forecasting, M&A support, and cross-functional business partnering in corporate environment or consulting/advisory firms.
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