Your Career Path From Chartered Accountant To Business Partner Defined

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Most professionals who work in finance and accounting started their journey as a chartered accountant in some shape or form. The designations vary between jurisdictions, but you will often see CPA or CA mentioned. 

Now that the finance function is changing chartered accountants must keep up with the evolution and one direction to go in could be business partnering. However, what does the career path to a business partnering role look like? 

In this article, we will uncover the career path to a business partner role. I will also share several interviews with chartered accountants and others who talk about their journey from a chartered accountant to a finance business partner. This happens in a spin-off series titled “Profiles in Business Partnering” which starts tomorrow on this same newsletter channel. 

I have always said that anyone can become a finance business partner - if they want to. The last part is key because it is not an easy choice to make. Succeeding as a business partner requires quite some effort compared to succeeding with accounting. 

Accounting in many ways is a relationship with numbers whereas business partnering is a relationship with people (and the business). You need to be ready for what making that choice means. In large it means coming out of your comfort zone and doing things that offhand do not give you energy. If you are ready to make that choice, then keep on reading… 

From accounting to business partnering 

First, let us make it clear that there are many accountants that are doing business partnering today without having a formal title. They share key insights with finance and business leaders that they have uncovered from working with the numbers. They make recommendations on how to improve performance. In many ways, they are looked at by their business stakeholders as trusted business partners. 

To be good at business partnering you should excel in each of the below categories. 

As if that was not enough you must also develop an understanding of the business strategy, the business model, and gain commercial acumen. Most of the above are not part of the professional toolbox that accountants get during studying for their designation. It must be gained through experience and post-qualification training. 

To develop into a business partner through job experience you could aim for a career path looking like this. 

• Chartered Accounting qualification obtained
• Accountant – to master the basics
• Financial analyst – to learn how to deep-dive on the numbers
• Finance manager – to learn leadership and develop relationships
• Controller – to drive performance management 

Depending on where you work in the world the controller role might come before the finance manager role, etc. The key point is that you must work in roles where you can expose yourself to different aspects of business partnering. This is just one of many career paths to a business partner role. My own journey was like this: financial controller -> business controller -> finance manager -> business partner. 

What to do further beyond on-the-job learning? 

Some people just get it and have the mindset of a business partner. Most though train to get it for most of their professional career. That is why you need to supplement your on-the-job learning with some more formal training. Below are some of the areas that we most often train accountants and controllers in as part of our business partnering development programs. 

• Customer focus to learn how to build relationships
• Influencing skills to learn how to change perspectives and adapt your communication style
• Problem-solving to tap into the consultant’s toolbox and leverage a structured framework
• Executive communication to learn how to structure your messaging so it is intuitive to understand what you want from your business stakeholders 

There are many other areas you can focus on in your training such as presentation skills, visualization & storytelling, insight generation, Lean, etc. The key is that you get some tools, models, and concepts that are simple to understand, easy to apply in your daily work, and actionable so that you start using them right away. That is the best way to create the change that you are looking for when wanting to develop from a chartered accountant into a business partner. 

Where are you on your career journey and is business partnering something you are aiming for? What have you done to develop skills that are suited for business partnering so far? If you have concrete examples to share, then I would love to feature you in an interview as part of this article series. Just send me a message and let us talk!

I hope this article has given you a better idea about what the career journey from a chartered accountant to a business partner looks like. If you have any questions, then do not hesitate to reach out!

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This was the second article in the series "Becoming a Business Partner". You can read previous articles below. Together with the series "Profiles in Business Partnering" there is a lot more content coming. Do not forget to subscribe to this newsletter to avoid missing a beat!

The Accountants Journey Towards Becoming A Business Partner Unlocked

If you want to become a better business partner you should consider taking our online course "Business Partnering Explained - Value Creation Unlocked" to get a better handle on the role. It's accredited for 5.5 CPD hours.

You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum which is part of the Business Partnering Institute's online community where we will continue to discuss this topic and you can click here to follow me on Twitter.

All Successful Business Partners Are "Leaders" (the last article in the series about our new capability model)

Should We Keep Talking About Business Partnering? (part of a 17-article series where we deep-dive on the WHY, WHAT, and HOW of business partnering by putting it on a formula)

Your Journey To Successful Business Partnering Explained

How To Create Value Through Business Partnering

Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)

From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)

Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)

How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)

The Future Of FP&A: Two Ways To Take The Reins

What Is The Accounting Profession Paradox?

What Defines A Finance Master?

The New Career Path For Finance Professionals

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance

How To Become A Finance Business Partner

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

Finance Business Partner Is A Bullshit Job

How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder, COO (Chief Operating Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 9,000 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger on LinkedIn with 50.000+ followers.