The Executive Finance Program
Deepen your skills and gain an understanding of current trends in capital markets and corporate finance to increase value and improve performance in your organization.
As a leader in your organization, you make decisions that can have a significant impact on the financial health of your company. This program will help you assess the value of your strategic decisions by giving you a broader understanding of finance and the interaction between business strategy and financial strategy.
By attending this program, you will:
- Obtain a deeper understanding of how your organization’s economic outcomes are reflected in its financial statements, and how those statements are used inside and outside the organization.
- Gain a sophisticated understanding of how to use financial statements to better understand the economics of other entities, including competitors.
- Communicate more effectively with financial executives within the organization and with important external stakeholders such as analysts and investors.
- Better understand how to use modern valuation techniques to evaluate investment opportunities, both projects and other businesses, including M&A and leveraged buyouts.
- Learn why optimizing management of capital, including liquidity and leverage, can affect firm value and how to value other businesses.
- Understand entrepreneurial finance, including private equity and venture capital.
- Develop a strong strategic intuition to make smart investment decisions: scan for patterns, analyze what makes your organization great, and assess what the competition is doing
- Learn how to manage external communications and capital to avoid unwanted attention from activist investors, short-sellers, and other corporate predators.
Location
Chicago Booth, Gleacher Center, Chicago, IL
The program is for executives in finance-related roles, or those who have strategic financial oversight of their unit or organization, and have at least a basic understanding of accounting and finance. This program is also an excellent fit for those who expect to have more financial responsibility in the future.
Titles include: C-suite, president, general manager, managing director, VP, director, financial advisor, controller, treasurer, and general counsel.
Douglas J. Skinner
Skinner joined the Booth faculty in 2005. He has served as Deputy Dean for Faculty since 2015 and served as Interim Dean in 2016-17. He was responsible for the construction and financing of the University’s Hong Kong campus, the home of Booth’s EMBA program in Asia, completed in 2018. Prior to joining Chicago Booth, Skinner served on the faculty of the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.
Skinner is an independent trustee and chairs the audit committee for Harbor Funds and ETF Trust, a mutual fund and ETF complex that offers a variety of actively-managed mutual fund and ETF products. From time to time he serves as an expert financial economist in litigation involving complex accounting, anti-trust, securities, and tax matters.
Skinner holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics with first class honors in Accounting and Finance from Macquarie University in Sydney and a master’s degree and PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Rochester.
Skinner’s research addresses a variety of topics in financial accounting, auditing, and corporate finance, focusing on the capital markets/valuation effects of firms’ financial policies. His research is published in leading academic journals including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial Economics.
Skinner previously served as editor of the Journal of Accounting Research and the Journal of Accounting and Economics, both top tier academic accounting journals.
Skinner has extensive experience teaching in Booth’s MBA, EMBA, Executive Education, and PhD programs. He currently teaches Managerial Accounting in Booth’s EMBA program and Empirical Research Methods in Booth’s PhD program. He has previously taught Corporate Finance and Valuation, Financial Accounting, and Financial Statement Analysis. He has advised PhD students who have taken faculty positions at Cornell, Harvard, Michigan, MIT, Wharton, Stanford, London Business School, among other top schools around the world.
Amir Sufi
Professor Sufi's research fits within the broader fields of finance and macroeconomics. At the heart of his research is the following question: How does the arrangement of financial claims in an economy affect real outcomes such as business investment, household consumption, employment, and economic growth? While he has researched a number of topics, his main contributions have been in two areas: the role of household debt in macroeconomic fluctuations and empirical financial contracting. His research on household debt and the economy forms the basis of his book co-authored with Atif Mian: House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2014. He obtained his Bachelor’s Degree from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1999, and he earned a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005. He has been on the faculty at Chicago Booth since 2005.
Scott F. Meadow
Professor Meadow has held the position of Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business since 2000. He was awarded the 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 Phoenix Prize and The Faculty Excellence Award in 2010. He was designated by Business Week's "Guide to the Best Business Schools" (2003, 8th edition) and (2005, 9th edition) as one of the outstanding entrepreneurial professors in the country. Professor Meadow has taught 10000 students at Chicago Booth, in Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity, Commercializing Innovation (which he created), Introduction to Venture Capital (which he created), Entrepreneurial Finance & Venture Capital, and the New Venture Challenge, and is the faculty advisor for the Venture Capital Investment Competition. Scott is also on the Advisory Board and Steering Committee of the Innovation Fund at the University of Chicago.
Scott has over 30 years’ experience as a general partner with four venture capital and private equity firms including William Blair Venture Partners, The Frontenac Company, The Sprout Group, and most recently with the Edgewater Funds, where he remains an Associate Partner. Over the course of his career, Scott has approved hundreds of equity financings, been active in fundraising and has personally led, originated or created more than sixty investments including two dozen healthcare services companies, over a dozen consumer services and retail companies, as well as biotech companies and companies enhanced by the Internet and social media. Scott has been recognized by Venture One as one of the outstanding healthcare investors in the industry, and is a testifying expert witness in a broad range of commercial disputes involving entrepreneurship.
Representative investments include Coventry Corporation, HEALTHSOUTH, Sunrise Assisted Living, Sunrise International, Managed Health Network, Aspen Education Services, Seurat Therapeutics, Pathology Partners, Heritage Healthcare, MedPartners, The Sports Authority, CompUSA and Staples. Scott recently served on the board of directors of National Equipment Services (NASDAQ: NLEQ) during its emergence from Chapter 11 and Barrier Safe Systems. He has served on the Advisory Board of Invenergy, GenerationOne, Dais Corporation and Anka Associates, a private equity firm focused on Turkey.
Professor Meadow earned his A.B. Magna Cum Laude from Harvard College and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Laura M. Born
She currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Carlson Inc. (hospitality portfolio company that owned TGIFridays, Radisson Hotels and Carlson Worldwide Travel and now operates a private equity platform), and she is also the Chair of the Audit Committee. Since 2023, Born has been a member of the Board of Directors of ezCater.com, a technology company that enables corporate catering services. From 2020 to 2021, she was a member of the Carlson Travel Inc. board and worked to complete two financial restructurings of the company. From 2007 to 2021, Laura served as a member of the board of the Trustees for the Columbia Acorn Trust and the Wanger Advisors Trust (small and mid-capitalization equity mutual funds), ten years of which she was elected as Chair of the Board. From 2018 to 2020, she served on the Driehaus Capital Managment LLC Advisory Board (small/mid cap equity asset management firm).
More recently, Born has devoted her free time and financial resources to travel to and to support the efforts in Poland to support Ukrainian refugees via Paracrew.org and the All Hands and Hearts organizations. Closer to home, Born was a long time board member of the Infant Welfare Society of Evanston (a not-for profit serving low income children and their families in the area) for 15 years. She has been involved in public education initiatives in her public school district, having served as: a Co-Chair of the 21st Century Learning Sub-Committee, a member of the Central School Improvement Plan Committee and a delegate to the New Trier High School Board of Education Caucus.
Born earned a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Duke University in 1987. She received an MBA in finance and accounting with Honors from Chicago Booth in 1991.
She enjoys Italy, Austin, the mountains, music, traveling, art history, yoga, hiking, and downhill skiing.
Gregory D. Bunch
He works with Fortune 50 companies, family businesses and start-ups in the areas of innovation and strategy. He has worked with a broad array of companies including Abbott Labs, American Express, Danaher, Dover, ETS, Harley-Davidson, Hewlett-Packard, Kimberly-Clark, McDonalds, PepsiCo, State Farm and Yum! Brands.
Greg was an alderman in the City of West Chicago, serving on the infrastructure, public safety and development committees.
Greg has lectured nationally and internationally on topics related to strategy, creating customers, and innovation. He earned a bachelor's degree from Wheaton College in philosophy and an MDiv from Harvard University.
Pre-Work to lay the foundation (Online)
To help ensure you are ready to tackle the program’s financial concepts, we offer access to online course material via a proprietary platform. Led by professor Haresh Sapra, this self-paced tool helps participants build their financial acumen and refresh important concepts prior to the program. Each module features faculty video lectures, exercises, cases, and self tests, allowing participants to tailor their learning and focus their time on modules and topics most important to them.
Financial Statement Analysis and Cash Flow Forecasting
- Learn terminology, review of financial statements, cash flows, DuPont formula
- Use DuPont analysis to understand drivers of profitability
- Evaluate quality of earnings analysis
- Understand free cash flow versus earnings
Investment Decisions and Valuation
- Evaluate projects using net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR)
- Calculate cost of capital: weighted average cost of capital (WACC)
- Study valuation methods: discounted cash flow (DCF), multiples, adjusted present value (APV)
- Apply valuation to M&A deals
Financing Decisions
- Understand financing sources
- Understand the basics of capital structure decisions and how these decisions affect value
- Learn the differences among financial instruments to implement desired capital structure
- Examine distressed debt
Entrepreneurial Finance
- Gain an overview of entrepreneurial finance, private equity, venture capital, and leveraged buyouts
- New venture strategy
Creating Shareholder Value
- Explore practical perspectives: corporate governance and the role of boards; CFO viewpoint
Formulating Strategy
- Understanding the vital difference between goals, strategy, and management: which are easy and which are difficult?
- The role of top management in setting strategy: what is the real challenge great strategists see?
- Analyzing competitors: how to better think about and predict competitors' actions and why this is critical for success
- Collecting data to build your strategy: how to decide which data are useful among the many sources
Additional networking opportunities include:
- Fireside Chat: Guest Speakers: Learn firsthand from renowned guest speakers who share how they have managed strategic challenges in their organizations. Past speakers have included senior leaders such as Ray Young, ’86, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Archer Daniels Midland Company.
- Social Dining Activities: (in-person program only) Participants will join professor Doug Skinner for a closing dinner at a local restaurant to enjoy good food and great conversation.
What past participants say about our finance programs:
The program is excellent for anyone that wishes to gain a better insight into why companies make strategic decisions from a financial analysis point of view. I learned not only the how but also the why behind key financial decisions.
- Dr. Douglas Hutchens, VP, Global Development and Chief Veterinary Officer, Bayer Animal Health, Bayer HealthCare
Great course. World-class faculty and am now considerably more prepared to understand finance discussions at work than before.
- David Anderson, Director, Strategic Business Development, Omnova Solutions Inc.
I can see why Booth is rated so high among other Executive Programs. The content was delivered in an understandable fashion by teaching faculty who can balance theory with practicality. Booth is a great investment!
- Chris Stanton, President, Pratt Industries
As a scientist transitioning to financing of companies via venture capital, the concepts and more important business thought process and analysis taught during the course will be invaluable.
- Juan Harrison, Vice President, Takeda Ventures Inc.
Excellent program. It puts you in the driver's seat to assess opportunities and identify problems with your company, business, or project.
- Isaac Moussan, Kemira, Director of Market Development
Great program…, hit the ground running…, efficiently theory up…, approach the numbers with ease…, untangle risk and get to the heart of the matter. Well beyond a finance curriculum. A+, guys!
- Stanley Stone, Plant Manager, De-Sta-Co - Wheeling (a Dover Co.)
I personally learned a great deal from this course. The case studies were nothing short of fascinating. The real advantage is the ability to learn from brilliant professors. The educational experience is nothing short of phenomenal. Return on investment by taking this course is extremely high for any executive who wants to broaden their understanding of financial terms, strategies and applications. Simply can’t find a better educational experience than what I've enjoyed this week!
- Kenneth Johnson, Chief Engineer – Northern Region, Union Pacific Railroad
In my job I am responsible for financial decisions and now I have new knowledge and skills that will facilitate them and my working relationship with my CFO.
- Juan Carlos Gil, Executive VP Venezuela Business Unit, Inelectra
Outstanding course content with excellent instructors. Very logical and understandable explanations in assessing value equity and debt in companies. Would recommend this course to all senior managers in operations of business.
- Todd Harrold, Vice President Operations, BAE Systems