Favorite Parts of Working in the Consumer Goods Industry as a Senior Manager, Financial Planning and Analysis
Alice enjoys working in the consumer goods industry because, unlike in the semiconductor industry where understanding the complexities of chips was challenging, consumer goods allow one to "understand the product" and even "see myself use the product," which facilitates deeper analysis and better communication with business partners. For Alice, this personal connection and ease of understanding make consumer goods "a lot more enjoyable."
Consumer Goods, Financial Planning & Analysis, Product Understanding, Business Partnership, Industry Knowledge
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Alice Choi
Senior Manager, FP&A
The Bouqs Company
Occidental College
UCLA Anderson MBA
Economics
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
Finance
Honors Student, Immigrant
Video Highlights
1. Understanding the product and seeing yourself use it makes analysis easier from a finance perspective.
2. Working in consumer goods allows for easier communication with business partners due to a shared understanding of the product.
3. In previous roles, a lack of understanding of the product (semiconductors) made it challenging to be a good finance partner and perform in-depth analysis.
Transcript
What do you enjoy most about being in your industry?
I'm in the consumer goods industry. For a while, I thought I wanted to go into B2B software.
But after being in consumer goods for a long time now, it's been about six years, excluding my semiconductor experience. I think the biggest thing I love about being in this industry is understanding the product and seeing myself use it.
This makes it much easier from a finance perspective to do analysis at a deeper level. When I was in semiconductors, it was challenging for me to be a good finance partner because I didn't understand chips or engineering components.
All I could really do was look at a high level and examine expenses. I worked with the engineering team, and would walk through their spend without fully understanding what it was for.
For me, consumer goods was much easier to understand and more enjoyable personally, to be able to communicate in the same language as my business partner.