Top 10 Career Opportunities in Finance after MBA

 

A Career after MBA in Finance

                        The Finance domain concentrates on investments, risk dynamics of assets over time under various conditions of uncertainty. During MBA in Finance course, you learn to apply capital budgeting in making decisions, evaluate the relative strengths of asset valuation techniques - payback period, internal rate of return, discounted cash flow models, and so on.

                        Top B-schools design curriculum that require the active participation of students in study sessions. Corporate Finance courses primarily explore how to evaluate complex investments as well as to set and execute financial policies. They cover financial analysis tools, policy choices like dividends or financing through debt or equity, and market volatility, mergers, acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, hostile takeovers, and initial public offerings (IPOs).

Top 10 Job Profiles in Finance after MBA:

1. Corporate Finance -Financial Modelling and Valuation:

                    Valuation in Corporate Finance includes analysis of the financial statements of various companies, preparation of financial models, evaluating performances through ratio analysis, assessing the suitability of the model prepared as per industry standards, selection of suitable valuation model, setting assumptions for the valuation, and preparation of valuation report. As a Financial Analyst, you will need to understand the accounting policies and accounting standards.

Skills required:

Financial Modelling and Valuation Skills required

2. Wealth and Portfolio Management:

                            There are wealthy professionals with high net worth in their account books but unware about financial planning and risk management. Wealth Management consists of creating investment portfolios, retirement planning funds, tax planning, financial planning, and so on. Wealth managers should understand the financial objectives of their clients, their short and long-term plans. They should be able to suggest strategies to manage the investment portfolios. Whereas, Portfolio management is basically matching financial objectives to the investments. Professionals should do in-depth research to carry out asset allocation and manage portfolios.

Skills required:

  • The high degree of efficiency in data interpretation and a penchant for research and analysis
  • With an in-depth understanding of financial markets, economics, and portfolio theory, individuals must also be customer-focused

3. Investment Banking:

                        Investment Banking is the field of banking that helps companies in acquiring funds for businesses. Investment Bankers should know how to manage assets, do financial leverage, track the market, offer advice about when to release FPO or IPO. It is a high-earning profession, needs a lot of traveling, extra work, high-pressure work hours, and a highly competitive field.

Skills Required:

  • Strong numerical and analytical
  • Excellent teamwork and team leadership skills
  • Self-confidence and the ability to make difficult decisions
  • The ability to work under pressure and cope well in stressful situations.
  • Dedication, energy, and commitment
  • Project and time management
  • Communication and interpersonal

4. Finance Research Analyst:

                        Research Analyst is one of the most important profiles in the Finance industry. Within a company, they could be in a number of departments with a number of different job titles. Research Analysts should know how to do Equity Research, fundamental and technical analysis, valuations, risk management, and statistics.

Some common Research Analyst job profiles are:

Some common Research Analyst job profiles
  1. Economic Research Analyst
  2. Financial Analyst
  3. Equity Research Analyst
  4. Market Research Analyst
  5. Operations Research Analyst

Skills required:

  • Analyzing past results and performing variance analysis
  • Identifying trends and making recommendations for improvements
  • Providing analysis of trends, forecast, and recommending actions for optimization
  • Using Excel functions to organize and analyze data
  • Creating charts, graphs, and presentations for leadership teams
  • Developing recommendations to improve business operations going forward

5. Financial Consulting:

Consulting helps in improving business performances through analysis of existing problems.

What do consultants do?

                        Consultants work in consultancies, perform in-depth research of problems, analyze them to provide solutions. Their work includes change management, strategy development, training skills development, implementation of technology, and so on. The big corporates such as Deloitte, KPMG, EY, PwC, BCG, McKinsey, and BNY hire eligible people for financial consultancy, IPO, M&A, Accounting standards, and Taxation.

Skills Required:
  • Assess the company’s financials
  • Analyze investments
  • Source and evaluate capital expansion options, including loans and funding
  • Advice on selling and buying stocks and bonds
  • Forecast revenues and costs and report any discrepancies
  • Analyze market trends and identify risks and opportunities
  • Manage current and future tax
  • Monitor financial procedures and ensure compliance with the law
  • Provide solutions and set goals to increase profitability
  • Review day-to-day transactions to identify areas of improvement

6. Merchant Banking:

                        Merchant Banking is a combination of consulting and banking services, that consists of giving financial advice to big companies. Professionals provide fee-based advice services for mergers and acquisitions, issuing letters of credit, trade consulting, and syndicate financing in projects among other services they provide.

Functions of Merchant Banking:
  • Portfolio Management: It consists of trading securities on the client’s behalf, offering advice to financial institutions, and managing clients’ investment portfolios.
  • Raising funds for clients: It consists of raising funds for clients from global or domestic markets, issuing shares and securities to start new projects.
  • Promotional Activities: One of the most important activities of Merchant Banking is the promotion of a business enterprise, during its initial stage, right from the inception of the idea to obtaining government approval.

7. Risk Management:

                           Risk Management includes assessing and quantifying business risks like liquidity, operational or credit risk, capital risk and then taking measures to control or reduce them.

Role of Risk Managers
  • Determining financial, safety, and security risks for a company or organization, and finding ways to reduce those risks through effective problem-solving
  • Risk assessment for current company affairs and risk evaluation, which evaluates the company's risk in the past
  • Professionals must be able to present their findings to their clients in a way that's easy for the company administration to understand and implement.
Skills & Responsibilities:
Risk Management Skills & Responsibilities

8. Asset Management:

Asset Management involves the management of assets and securities to acquire the investment goals of the investors.

Skills & Responsibilities:
  • Strong analytical skills
  • Reasonably skilled in math and finance
  • Excellent communication skills
  • Detail-oriented and highly organized
  • Skilled in negotiation and project management
  • Excellent critical thinking skills
Asset Manager Job Responsibilities:
Asset Manager Job Responsibilities

9. Project Finance:

                        Project Finance includes finances of industrial projects, public services, and long-term projects. It depends on the project’s cash flow for repayment and assets rights and interests are considered as collateral. Project Finance is mostly practiced in the private sector.

Skills & Responsibilities:
  • Preparation of projected cash flows for proposals to Bank for construction
  • Franking and execution of documents/ mortgage for new loans
  • Documentation for establishing (new) BG / LC limit and subsequent renewals from time to time
  • Obtaining NOCs from lenders towards the sale of flats financed by them
  • Arranging insurance for the new project (assets) and renewal of existing project insurances
  • Ensuring timely service of Interest and Principal repayments
  • Assist seniors in finalizing the Term sheet as well other financial documents for fundraising
  • Preparing consolidated statements of debt position (MIS)
  • Preparing and analyzing Project cost and sales report
  • Ensuring timely service of Interest and Principal repayments

10. Private Equity/Venture Capital:

                        Institutions that provide entrepreneurs with seed capital to startup firms and small businesses with long-term growth potential are known as Venture Capitalists. It involves high risks but often gives above-average returns. Venture capital needs technical and managerial expertise. It is carried out by wealthy individuals, big financial entities, and banks. Venture Capitalists can participate in the decision-making process of the company.

Skills & Responsibilities:
  • Private Equity Analysts work for private equity firms, carry out research, interpretations, and ratio analysis of private companies
  • Using financial modeling techniques and valuation methods to examine investment advantages
  • Managing portfolios consisting of the equity interest of the companies
  • Raising money from private companies, banks, and high net worth individuals to maximize returns beyond those offered by public stock exchanges
  • Forecasting ROI and defining investment usage
Summary:

A career in Finance offers so many lucrative opportunities. Some of the career options after an MBA in Finance are Corporate Finance, Wealth & Portfolio Management, Investment Banking, Research Analyst, Financial Consulting, Merchant Banking, Risk Management, Private/Retail Banking, Asset Management, Project Finance, Private Equity and so on. Students should choose their career paths as per their interests and passion.

Why Management Education?

 Whatever you do in your professional life, the chances are that it will involve some ‘business’. Scientists, engineers, even artists, will inevitably have to understand at least the basics of business, and probably a lot more. Today’s management gurus, the people who are forecasting the way we will do business at the beginning of the 21st century, are saying that the companies of the future will consist of groups of specialists who work together on a specific project and then disband. For the next project the composition of the group will almost certainly be different. One of the consequences of this is that many more people will be what we call today ‘independent’, and will have to understand more about the opportunities and constraints of business. In other words, the combination of specialist qualification and business knowledge will become vital. But it is not just ‘knowledge’ of business. Before pursuing an MBA, you need to ask yourself a basic question, ‘what should a business education give me?’ Most subjects that one studies are composed of theory and practice.

Top 10 Career Opportunities in Finance after MBA

  A Career after MBA in Finance                               The Finance domain concentrates on investments, risk dynamics of as...