26 tasks, each one witnessed by the sources that watched the job — and behind every one, a prompt you can use tonight.
You usually start by checking markets and your inbox (Microsoft Outlook) for changes or requests. Morning work: pull data in Excel or Power BI, update forecasts, and check investment performance against targets.
Afternoons often mean meetings with portfolio managers or company management, building slides in PowerPoint, and preparing materials for deals or client presentations. End of day: document changes in Google Docs or QuickBooks and set next-day tasks.
Learn Microsoft Excel deeply: pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, and basic macros — most financial models are in Excel. Also practice making clear charts since you’ll draw graphs to illustrate reports.
Next, learn PowerPoint for client presentations and Power BI or Alteryx for larger datasets. Know Outlook and Google Docs for collaboration and QuickBooks if your role touches bookkeeping or transaction records.
Use AI tools to clean data, generate first-draft charts, or suggest model structures — but always verify. Run automated checks in Alteryx or Excel macros, then manually validate key numbers and assumptions.
Never let AI produce final investment advice. Cross-check valuations, stress-test forecasts, and keep audit trails (save versions in Google Docs or Outlook threads) so you can explain any recommendation.
Build three items: a simple financial model in Excel forecasting revenue and cash flow; a short investment memo evaluating one company; and a 5-slide PowerPoint presentation summarizing your findings. Use real market data and show charts.
Optional: a Power BI dashboard that pulls public data and visualizes key KPIs. Put all files in a shared Google Docs folder and write a one-page README explaining assumptions.
A Growth Analyst focuses on finding and modeling opportunities to grow revenue or assets — building models, doing market research, and making recommendations. You spend more time on forecasts and product/market analysis.
A Financial Analyst can be broader (costs, budgeting, corporate finance). A Portfolio Manager makes final buy/sell decisions and manages daily trades. Growth Analysts support those decisions with models, presentations, and monitoring.
You’ll be measured on forecast accuracy (how close your revenue/cash forecasts are to actuals), the performance of recommended investments (return vs. benchmark), and timeliness of reports and presentations.
Also track client satisfaction (repeat requests, relationship growth), the speed of model delivery, and the quality of dashboards or materials — for example, a Power BI dashboard used by portfolio managers.
Data-cleaning and structuring in Excel or Alteryx. If your input data is messy, your models and valuations will be wrong no matter how clever your formulas are.
Spend time learning how to pivot, join, and validate data; document sources; and write reproducible steps. That reduces errors, speeds up model updates, and makes your analyses credible to stakeholders.