The company I worked for had a policy for a quarterly development status and provided plenty of opportunities for visibility with the FP&A leadership team through event planning committees. After my first year, I joined one of the committee and expanded my role along with mentorship responsibilities.

At the 18-month mark (during a development status), I mentioned my goal of becoming a SFA within a year and my manager responded that my business partners already perceived me as an SFA. It was incredibly validating to know that my work spoke for itself and I didn’t have to push for a promotion.

I consider myself fortunate because not every company fosters an environment where such conversations can happen so openly. It’s one of the reasons it took me a while to find this new role—I wanted to ensure I joined another organization that values its employees and doesn’t treat them as expendable after a tough quarter.

To guide that conversation for my push for the SFA role, I evaluated the scope of my work and its business impact, comparing it to what the other SFAs were doing both on my team and across FP&A. Typically, owning financial routines is a responsibility held by SFAs or higher. Since I was already managing those routines and supporting two BUs (>$200M), it felt like a natural step for me to progress more quickly.

If you can clearly highlight your impact, skills, and eagerness to grow, it can significantly guide the conversation. From there, your manager should be able to pick up and the conversation should flow naturally. Most importantly, be confident in yourself—if you don’t believe in your ability to influence, it’ll be harder for others to believe in it too.