Running the money inside a company: budgets, forecasts, cash, deals and the executives who sign off on them.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Chief Financial Officer (CFO): The top money executive at a company, responsible for budgets, financial reporting, raising money and big financial decisions. Typical pay $260k.
Controller: Runs a company's accounting department and makes sure every financial report is accurate. Typical pay $155k.
Corporate Treasurer: Manages a company's cash, borrowing, bank relationships and protection against currency and interest-rate swings. Typical pay $170k.
FP&A Director: Leads Financial Planning & Analysis: the team that builds budgets, forecasts and explains the numbers to leaders. Typical pay $175k.
Corporate Development Manager: Finds and negotiates acquisitions and partnerships for a company that wants to buy other businesses. Typical pay $180k.
Investor Relations Director: The link between a public company and the investors who own its stock. Typical pay $180k.
Fractional CFO: A senior finance expert who works part-time as the CFO for several small companies at once. Typical pay $180k.
SEC Reporting Manager: Prepares the official financial reports public companies must file with the SEC. Typical pay $160k.
Strategic Finance Manager: Builds the financial models behind a company's biggest decisions, like entering a new market or buying a rival. Typical pay $165k.
Airline Fuel Hedging Manager: Protects an airline from swings in jet fuel prices, its second-biggest cost, by buying contracts that lock in prices ahead of time. Typical pay $145k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Financial Analyst: Studies financial data to help companies and investors make money decisions. Typical pay $102k.
FP&A Analyst: Builds budgets and forecasts and explains why actual results differ from the plan. Typical pay $88k.
Treasury Analyst: Tracks a company's cash every day and makes sure it can pay its bills. Typical pay $82k.
Budget Analyst: Prepares and monitors budgets for governments, universities and companies. Typical pay $88k.
Corporate Credit Manager: Decides how much a company should let its customers buy on credit and chases them when they don't pay. Typical pay $100k.
Corporate Development Analyst: Supports a company's M&A team with research and models on companies to buy. Typical pay $105k.
Stock Plan Administrator: Manages employee stock options and grants, so workers get the shares they're promised. Typical pay $85k.
Deal Desk Analyst: Reviews big sales deals before they're signed to make sure the prices and terms make money. Typical pay $92k.
Financial Systems Analyst: Runs the software finance teams use for budgeting, forecasting and reporting. Typical pay $95k.
Pharma Gross-to-Net Analyst: Figures out how much a drug company really earns after the huge rebates and discounts it pays to insurers, Medicaid and pharmacies. Typical pay $105k.
Starter: fastest way in
Collections Specialist: Contacts people and businesses that are behind on payments and works out ways for them to pay. Typical pay $46k.
Credit Authorizer / Checker: Reviews credit applications and approves purchases on credit accounts. Typical pay $48k.
Finance Assistant: Supports a finance department with data entry, filing, invoices and reports. Typical pay $47k.
Travel & Expense Auditor: Reviews employee expense reports for hotels, flights and meals, catching mistakes, policy breaks and the occasional fraud. Typical pay $48k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.