How will a CMA change my life? High Demand Not surprisingly, employers pay quite a lot of money to have CMAs on staff. In our most-recent promotional brochure, you’ll see that having a CMA designation (versus not having a designation) makes a great deal of difference in your salary, especially as your career begins to progress. In New Brunswick specifically, the average CMA makes about $ 95,000, but senior CMAs make a lot more, with the top 10 per cent making between $ 125,000 to $ 250,000 per year. Check out our Compensation Survey for more detail. Flexible Career Choices As most people know, the current generation of workforce employees will change jobs and even careers many times before they retire. Consequently, many of us are choosing to invest in a broad skill base that can be carried to different employers, different sectors, and even different countries. Ideally, this is paired up with a specific skill set where a deeper base of knowledge can be tapped. Within the world of business, CMA offers a unique opportunity to have both sides of this equation to provide unparalleled career flexibility. It’s the combination of: • The broad knowledge managerial skills necessary for senior management
positions, and While many CMAs do choose traditional roles such as VP finance, controller, etc..., a growing number move “up” to become company presidents, board directors, and entrepreneurs or “over” to take roles as heads of marketing departments and human-resource departments. Generally speaking, people that pick the CMA route are looking for the combination of “flexibility” and “senior-level” roles, often producing innovative results and re-inventing roles for themselves where they can. Employers also recognize the flexibility of a CMA, often choosing to place them in leadership and cross-functional roles, because of their wide set of skills. CMAs can work in public accounting if they wish, but most choose to work in industry, government, or the not-for-profit sectors. It’s common to find a CMA in a company that requires broad-management skills combined with financial expertise – which is to say just about any mid- to large-sized company in the marketplace. Here are a few examples of roles staffed by CMAs in Atlantic region: • Bell Aliant, CFO & VP Recognition and prestige CMAs are well recognized throughout the world and carry with them an excellent reputation. Currently CMAs work in most countries of the world, with a heavy emphasis on countries that have a vibrant financial sector such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Bermuda, Barbados, Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands, to cite a few examples. In Canada, CMA is the leading designation for professional accountants in management, with a growing membership for which employer demand continues to exceed supply – again, great news for our CMA membership. Knowledge While all these other benefits are quite convincing on their own, it’s easy to forget that the CMA is primarily about obtaining the skills and knowledge that allows everything else to fall into place – both for your job and your career. In short, the combination of broad management skills and high-level finance skills opens the doors to positions that would otherwise require many more years of experience. As a final note ... many CMAs would admit that getting the CMA was probably the most significant investment of their careers and likely also the biggest confidence-builder for them personally. Talk to a CMA – they’ll inevitably say they were astonished by all they could do upon graduating the program. |
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