Career Outcomes

The Vanderbilt MAcc Assurance program prepares you to be successful as an audit and assurance associate with a top global accounting firm. As an audit associate, you will assist in performing audits for a variety of clients. At Big 4 firms, you’ll have access to experts on every topic imaginable and a closely knit team of peers. Your job is to “follow the money.” The goal of an audit is to assure investors, regulators, bankers, and others that a company’s balance sheet, cash flows, and profit and loss statements deliver a reasonable depiction of its financial health.

Public accounting is a people business, where teamwork is central to success. The culture is one of collaboration, mentoring, and professional growth. You'll have the chance to work with people from many different backgrounds and views, and your role can have real impact.

This challenging career path exposes you to a wide variety of businesses (from startups to global corporations) in a range of industries and offers almost limitless opportunities for growth. The Vanderbilt MAcc degree will prepare you to successfully launch into this field and build a valuable global network for support and advancement over the life of your career, whether you choose to stay in public accounting or branch into other areas of business. As you advance professionally, your career path can lead to a spot as a firm partner, as an executive or CEO in the corporate sector, as a consultant, or as an entrepreneur.

The valuation field offers a dynamic career at the intersection of finance and accounting. You’ll work with leading companies making headlines and alongside the biggest names in wealth management and banking. Start learning the "language of business" from day one and look forward to unlimited opportunities to grow professionally and take your career where you want it to go. The Vanderbilt MAcc Valuation program prepares you to work in the valuation services line of public accounting firms, where all of this and more is possible.

Valuation professionals ask complex questions: How do you determine the value of intellectual property? What is a brand name worth? How much should a company pay to purchase a competitor? These are just a few of the answers you will be seeking as a valuation associate. At a public accounting and professional services firm, you will be part of a small, close-knit team providing specialized financial analyses and models that impact your clients’ business decisions on important matters such as strategy and acquisitions, asset management, restructuring and divestitures, and management planning.

As a valuation professional at a Big 4 firm, you'll have unparalleled access to experts around the world, vast sources of data, as well as the latest methodologies and tools. Valuation associates tackle tasks such as financial statement analyses; due diligence on specific economic, industry, and client company issues; and documentation that supports the firm’s audit teams, as well as its clients. You’ll progress to conducting your own analyses and eventually overseeing and managing valuation projects as manager. The possibilities for your career advancement could include becoming a partner, CFO, or CEO.

What's perhaps most compelling to many about valuation services is the prospect of making a real impact in a particular industry. You may want to focus on media and entertainment, landing in Los Angeles or New York where valuations for music and movie rights and licensing are essential. There are military and intelligence valuation implications in aerospace and defense, and healthcare is surely one of the field's largest sectors today with its complexities for providers or in life sciences with development of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Oil and gas present numerous chances for valuing assets as oil prices continue their flux and change. Valuation offers a career that lets you choose a particular industry of emphasis or enjoy working in many industries, depending upon your specific goals.

Consider these examples from valuation services careers:

A corporation is making an acquisition and needs help understanding the worth of the company to be purchased and its various assets and how the acquisition might affect earnings per share. You may be part of a team working with the firm's due diligence or transaction advisory services professionals to conduct accretion and dilution analysis. Post-acquisition, valuation services can be critical to backend integration and, ultimately, impairment if the acquisition becomes troubled.

Perhaps a company plans to divest a non-core business operation, and it becomes important to determine tax valuation. Conducting research and analysis to determine the gain or loss on the sale of assets rests with the valuation team.

Sometimes, a one-of-a-kind opportunity emerges. In media and entertainment, for example, professionals in this service line can be called upon to value popular television programs, feature-length films, and an artist's publishing rights or even to determine what a deceased celebrity's estate is worth today. One of the Vanderbilt MAcc program's Advisory Board members once served as an expert witness for the estate of sixties rock legend Jimi Hendrix, where litigation, taxation and estate tax valuations played a key role in the Hendrix family's case for more than a decade.

Are You a Good Fit for This Profession?

Valuation services are not for everyone. The works tends to be high-energy, action-packed and ever-changing. You might be working on different aspects for multiple companies in varied settings and industries every day, so there's tremendous variety and little chance for monotony. Sure, you'll rely on proven analytical skills and your abilities and interests in manipulating models. But remember that client service is a key part of the role. As you advance with the firm, you'll be presenting the firm's brand to the client, and you'll find yourself interacting with a host of people with different backgrounds ranging from those in accounts payable up to the CEO. Understanding the complexity of human interaction and approaching it with confidence and integrity is critical to success in valuation services. The firm's clients rely on professionals they can trust.

Valuation professionals often are on the cutting edge with companies as they go through significant events in their history. By working in this profession, you're often part of the team when something big is going on—and with global firms, you may be reading about your work in the day's headlines. It can be a wild ride with unpredictable schedules and fast-paced time frames, but if you're seeking excitement and impact, it may be the perfect profession for you. With unparalleled access to career opportunities with one of our partner firms—Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC—Vanderbilt's one-year program will help you hone the accounting, finance and client service skills that this exciting career demands.