Finance

As FMCG becomes an increasingly global sector, finance professionals find themselves working in an ever increasing international setting. Regardless of whether you're based in a local or global team, you'll soon realise that a global viewpoint is essential to every aspect of the work.

The scale of FMCG finance is enormous, with everything from tax planning to cost forecasting needing to be processed across the world in order to deliver maximum shareholder value. It all means that you can expect to face some big challenges as you learn just how much a finance function influences FMCG business performance.

Example role: Analyst

Finance is the backbone of every FMCG business. It's the function that controls the numbers. So taking on this role will see you learning to analyze what your company buys, the prices they buy it for and the prices they sell at.

In short it's all about ensuring financial integrity. You'll check that supply chain decisions make sound financial sense. And, as you advance, you'll learn to challenge the ones that don't. So it goes without saying that an accounting or financial qualification is not going to be the only essential here. You'll need confidence, negotiation skills, a thick skin and exceptional analytical skills too.

As you go on to add commercial know how and technical risk management to your skills set, you'll be looking at a future in Finance Management at the very top levels.

Find out more about what it's really like working in Finance – read Mark's interview.