Hi B,F,I-
Long time lurker, infrequent poster.

I am looking for some advice on what to do next career wise. Below are my spec’s:

• Graduated undergrad in accounting from state school with 3.8GPA in 2007
• Graduated with Master’s in Accounting from state school in 2008
• Hired into large regional public accounting firm in 2008 and stayed for 3 years before leaving in 2011
• Obtained CPA license in 2008
• Hired into small private equity firm/family office in 2011. Currently employed there
• Currently 29 years old and single

I am geographically located in metro-Detroit and not likely to move outside of that area (although it is possible).

At my current role, I am the top accountant in the organization. The Firm is small with less than 10 employees (almost all finance/accounting). The fund has a single principal investor who is not involved in the day-to-day, but is involved in all the original yes/no investment decisions. The Firm has no specific industry focus, but rather looks at a wide variety of industries and opportunities. I often wonder why we would ever beat the competition, when we are the dumb money. For 18 months of the three years I have been with the organization, I moved out of state to oversee our largest investment. We had taken a majority stake in the project and my job was to get appropriate processes and internal controls in place as well as build a relationship with the minority partners (who controlled operations), and get the financial statements in order.

My current job is my dream job on paper. Essentially, we look to invest in products or concepts that exist, but have yet to be taken to market. I am passionate about entrepreneurship so this is great. I have an excellent relationship with my boss, the “CEO” of our organization, and he looks at me as his right hand man.

I will use the term Principal to define the guy funding the Firm and “my boss” to define the top person in our Firm.

The issues
• The principal has an eccentric personality and I have very limited face time with him
• I am currently making $85k-90k/year including bonus
o My raises each of the preceding years has been 0% (partial year), 3%, 3%
o The principal does not understand incentivizing his employees
o While my boss respects everything I do for the organization, he does not control comp for the organization
• I am surprisingly bored and not so surprisingly losing motivation to seek out additional tasks as I am frustrated by my lack of opportunities for compensation growth
• There is no formal performance review process and no reward and punishment system
o From top-down, this has made our organization lazy and people look out for their own interests in other ways (working shorter hours, taking more vacation, etc.)

In summary, I think the organization has some amazing flexibility and offers some rare opportunities (especially for this geographical area). My issue is, I want to continue to develop my skills and responsibilities well also increasing my personal bottom line. I have had many candid conversations with my boss regarding compensation and he is of the opinion nothing can be done to change the situation here, but offers me schedule flexibility, freedom, etc. as other ways of rewarding me.

My goal is to make $100-120k in the next year.

I see 3 options:
• Start looking for something new
o I would prefer something more finance/investment driven rather than being the Controller for a company
• Continue as is
o Hope something changes or a raise falls into my lap
 Probably a 20% chance in the next 18 months
• Get an MBA from a top-10 university on weekends, while maintaining my current position
o Company would not pay, but my boss would allow me the schedule flexibility to do this. Essentially, I would be working 9 days for every 10.
o This would cost ~$100,000 out of pocket.

Cliffs: Help!