Almost every successful business has at least one financial manager who is responsible for preparing financial reports and for implementing and directing investment activities as well as cash management strategies. Sound like fun? For some people, it sure does. If you're one of them, check out a Master of Business Administration: Finance degree. This article gives a program description plus benefits of the MBA in Finance.
What is an MBA in Finance?
If you're thinking about earning a Master of Business Administration: Finance degree, get ready for management duties and professional success in a wide range of different areas. You might work as a controller, for example, and direct the preparation of financial reports like income statements and balance sheets; you could have a financial officer position and direct an organization's financial goals, objectives, and budgets; or you could work in credit management and oversee a firm's issuance of credit. Through coursework, class projects and self-directed research, an MBA in Finance develops the skills and knowledge sets you'll need for all these careers and more.
What do Financial Managers Do?
Financial managers play an extremely important role in business. They're needed by any company or organization that has a cash flow and deals with money -- which is essentially all of them. You can find financial managers working in firms, governmental departments and agencies, educational institutions and countless other types of organizations. Financial managers in today's business world do more than record and organize data, too: most of today's top managers spend much of their time developing strategies and implementing long-term goals for their employing organizations.
Required Courses for an MBA: Finance Degree
Like all Master of Business Administration degree programs, classes focus on management, organizational leadership and business strategies. However, as you might expect, MBA programs with an emphasis in Finance require more coursework in financial planning, economics, accounting and other similar topics. Courses and specializations may include:
- Business Law
- Business Writing
- Calculus for Business
- Corporate Finance
- Financial Institutions
- Introduction to Accounting
- Management Information Systems
- Advanced Marketing
- Money and Capital Markets
- Portfolio Analysis
- Principles of Macroeconomics
- Issues in Management and Organization
- Microeconomics
- Statistics for Business
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), www.bls.gov, professionals working in financial management make top salaries -- median annual earnings in these positions were $81,880 in May 2004. Other sources concur: Robert Half International's 2005 survey found that salaries for directors of finance were between $78,500 and $178,250 and corporate controllers' salaries were between $61,250 and $147,250. Increasing government regulations and overall economic growth should contribute to healthy job creation in this field through 2014, according to the BLS.
