Financial Manager Career Profile
Finances, budgeting and balance sheets will be your friends if you choose career as Financial Manager. The competition is stiff in this field however; there are lucrative opportunities in the finance and insurance industry.
Financial managers are involved in design and implementing long-term strategies and goals of their organization and develop the financial data; they will often have access to state of the art computer and software programs. The nature of job is not limited; there are different types of job responsibilities as per the size of organization and job titles.
The following are examples of types of financial managers:
- Controllers direct the preparation of financial reports that summarize and forecast the organization's financial position. Often, controllers oversee the accounting, audit, and budget departments.
- Treasurers and finance officers direct their organization's budgets to meet its financial goals.
- Credit managers oversee the firm's credit business. They set credit-rating criteria, determine credit ceilings, and monitor the collections of past-due accounts.
- Cash managers monitor and control the flow of cash that comes in and goes out of the company to meet the company's business and investment needs
- Risk managers control financial risk by using hedging and other strategies to limit or offset the probability of a financial loss or a company’s exposure to financial uncertainty.
- Insurance managers decide how best to limit a company’s losses by obtaining insurance against risks.
Role of Financial Managers
Financial managers typically do the following:
- Prepare financial reports.
- Create strategies for cash management.
- Direct activities involving investments.
- Organize and record company data.
- Monitor financial details to ensure that legal requirements are met.
- Supervise employees who do financial reporting and budgeting.
- Review company financial reports and seek ways to reduce costs.
- Analyze market trends to find opportunities for expansion or for acquiring other companies.
- Help management in taking financial decisions.
Skills of Financial Managers
Analytical Skills: Financial managers increasingly assist executives in making decisions that affect the organization, a task for which they need analytical ability.
Communication Skills: Excellent communication skills are essential because financial managers must explain and justify complex financial transactions.
Detail Oriented: In preparing and analyzing reports such as balance sheets and income statements, financial managers must pay attention to detail.
Numeric Skills: Financial managers must be skilled in math, including algebra. An understanding of international finance and complex financial documents also is important.
Organizational Skills: Financial managers deal with a range of information and documents. They must stay organized to their jobs effectively.
Where to study
To become a Finance Manager you need a minimum of 4 years bachelor’s degree or higher in finance/accountancy/mathematics/statistics/business/economics or related discipline. Industry prefer to higher Financial Managers with higher qualification with related experience. To find study programmes in Finance and allied study areas go to
University Hub.