Comptroller
Hey, kids. Ever wanted to manage financial accounts and accounting systems of a business, department, or organization?
If you said yes, then you should either see a doctor or apply for the role of comptroller.
This person’s primary role is to see that projects or expenditures are within budget. A comptroller may not be an exciting person...but it can be exciting to have all your projects within budget.
The job is critical to human resources, because this person oversees the accounting staff and must make important decisions regarding expenditures, payroll, debt collections, and more. She is also in charge of a company’s general ledger, which means it’s usually important that she has a background in finance and accounting. You’ll typically see these big wigs’ offices adorned in CPA, CFA, or CMA certificates.
A comptroller typically reports to a company’s CFO, who in turn reports to the CEO. She compares budget and other financial guidelines, and is an integrator in the bean-counting function inside of the financial department of corporations and the government.
The comptroller role used to be a guaranteed safe job for hundreds of thousands of workers in the U.S., analogous to that of a dental hygienist or a bridge-welder. But over time, computer analysis of data is being done so proactively and, well...has taken away the need for tons of human comptrollers. They more or less manage a bunch of feeds into computers, and when little yellow or red lights flash, alerting them that a given set of numbers is out of order, or off-budget enough such that it warrants attention, then that comptroller springs into action.
Why are the numbers off? Was there an earthquake or a presidential tweet that changed "everything"? Maybe. If so, the error or red light is explained and life goes on. If not, then the problem gets escalated through the CFO and, if need be, the CEO. (Fraud will do that to ya, if it happens...
Here's to hoping you have a nice, boring life as a comptroller, should you choose to go that direction.)