Learn About the First Vice President in Finance

Learn About the First Vice President in Finance explained by professional Forex trading experts the “ForexSQ” FX trading team.

Learn About the First Vice President in Finance

In much of the financial services industry, with the proliferation of vice presidents, variations on this job title have been created to denote higher-ranking Vice Presidents. First Vice President is one of these, typically seen in brokerage, securities, and investment bankingfirms. A First Vice President usually supervises other employees. The title does not necessarily come with the supervision of a large group, but definitely of an especially important one.

A few alternate spellings are FVP or First VP.

The First VP may be a recognition title that comes as a result of a promotion in place rather than pursuant to a promotion into a higher rung on the firm’s management ladder. Also, be aware that job titles and the conventions surrounding them can differ widely among firms within the securities and banking industries. Some firms may not offer a First VP title at all. Other firms may place it higher or lower in their management hierarchies than their peers in the industry, relative to other variations on the VP title.

Equivalence Between Jobs

Since recognition titles are not necessarily linked to one’s place in the firm’s hierarchy, peers in the organizational chart may have titles of varying prestige. For example, a divisional controller in a matrix reporting relationship with the corporate CFO (solid line) and divisional head (dotted line) probably will have his or her recognition title determined by the corporate CFO.

Meanwhile, his or her peers within the division, consisting of various business unit heads, will have titles set by the divisional head. Thus, you may have a case where, for instance, the divisional CFO bears a First VP title, while those peers who are business unit chiefs will have loftier Senior VP titles.

Demotions

While policies may differ among firms, normally once someone has been granted a particular recognition title, he or she will retain it even after suffering a demotion. In an actual case, a divisional CFO had serious running disagreements with the corporate CFO, which caused him to fall from favor and be replaced. Held in high regard by the divisional head with whom he had a dotted line reporting relationship as divisional CFO, he had to accept a job one rung below. He became a product manager reporting to one of the business unit heads who formerly was one of his peers, while he was divisional CFO. He retained his First VP title, however, which actually was more appropriate to his new position than to his former post.

In a footnote to this case, the corporate CFO was obsessed with management reportingformats and colorful graphics. The divisional CFO was not, being more concerned with the accuracy and relevancy of the data presented therein. When the corporate CFO insisted on including misleading and ill-thought statistics in his reports, and was not sharp enough to grasp the clear, cogent arguments against them that his subordinate offered, this became a cause of great frustration for the latter and led to a very strained relationship that ended in his ouster.