Executive Program in Finance Strategy—For Senior Leaders in the Middle East and Asia
PROGRAM FORMAT: LIVE-ONLINE
This four-month, live-online education series provides the latest thinking in finance to help senior leaders in Asia and the Middle East build and sustain their organization’s advantage in highly competitive markets. By attending, you will learn how to make more impactful business decisions by understanding how finance impacts business strategy.
This program is in partnership with XED.The Executive Program in Finance Strategy — For Senior Leaders in the Middle East and Asia (EPFS) provides the latest thinking in finance to help you build and sustain your organization’s competitive advantage.
By attending, you will learn how to make more impactful business decisions by understanding how finance affects business strategy. You will learn how to use financial statements and new technology to understand an industry’s landscape, evaluate competitors, and predict risks, trends, and future financial performance. You will acquire the frameworks to rate the financial success of your company’s growth strategies. Moreover, you will discover how FinTech can be used to drive innovation for your business —unlocking new markets, reducing costs, and improving customer relationships.
Upon successful completion of the program, you will have gained the following skills:
- Interpret and use financial statements for competitive gain
- Explore how industry structures and competitive growth strategies impact financial performance
- Acquire frameworks to rate the success of a growth strategy, ranging from organic growth strategies to acquisitions
- Gain a deeper understanding of the innovations powering FinTech, such as AI, machine learning, NLP (natural language processing) and explore real business applications including real estate, robo-advisors, and P2P (peer-to-peer) lending
- Explore how blockchain technology is shaping industries and organizations — topics covered include cryptocurrencies, DeFi (decentralized finance) and smart contracts
A FORMAT DESIGNED FOR BUSY SENIOR LEADERS
EFPS's format and curriculum are designed for busy professionals. Unlike many other senior executive programs, EPFS is conveniently held in an intensive, multi-modular format spread over four months — encompassing 10 live-online (synchronous online) sessions and pre- and post-session learning. This format allows participants to apply what they've learned immediately between sessions and receive feedback from faculty and peers. Live-online sessions are generally 90 minutes in duration and held during late afternoon/evening hours (depending on the participant's time zone) on alternating Saturdays.
This program is designed for senior leaders in the Middle East and Asia regions who wish to broaden their understanding of financial strategy to drive growth for their business.
The program benefits leaders from a wide range of industries and functional areas, including those in non-finance functions. Titles include: General manager, president, managing director, vice president, director, entrepreneur, c-suite, regional manager, business unit manager, and other senior-level positions with strategic decision-making or oversight.
Participants should be familiar with financial terms and concepts prior to starting the program; formal training in finance or accounting is not necessary.
Participants must be fluent in written and spoken English.
Kathleen Fitzgerald
Kathleen Fitzgerald is known at the University of Chicago as a superb educator. She brings a remarkably wide array of experience as an educator and a practitioner to the classroom. She has taught courses in Investments, Corporate Finance, Financial Accounting, Money and Banking, International Finance and Financial Management.
She is currently teaching for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the University of Chicago Law School. Her past experience includes the University of Massachusetts, Rochester Institute of Technology, and several Universities in Barcelona, Spain.
Kathleen also holds the position of Director of Academic Support at the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business in Chicago, London and Hong Kong in which she prepares students of Chicago Booth Executive MBA program for the rigors of Chicago’s quantitative approach to finance, economics, statistics, and marketing.
Her professional experience includes auditing and tax consulting at Ernst & Young, LLP and forensic accounting consulting at Chicago Partners.
Kathleen graduated from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics in 1990 and a MBA in 1994. She passed the Unified C.P.A. examination in 1994 and holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Chicago.
Jaideep (Jay) Anand
Jay Anand is the William H. Davis Chair and Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Strategy at the Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University. He is also the Academic Director of the Center for Innovation Strategies. Prior to joining Fisher, he was faculty at the University of Michigan (Ross). He earned a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His interests include corporate growth, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures & strategic alliances, global strategy and strategy implementation.
He regularly consults and conducts executive education programs with companies all over the world. He has worked in more than a dozen countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. He has appeared on ABC, NBC and CBS TV News, National Public Radio and Summit Business TV and has been referenced in BBC radio, CEO magazine, The Economist, Financial Times, Forbes, Knowledge@Wharton, New York Times, The Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other popular media in several countries. He has received several awards for his research and contribution to management knowledge. He has also received numerous awards for teaching in executive, MBA and PhD programs.
He served as the elected chair of the Academy of Management (the largest academic association in the field of management), IM division. Currently he serves as the Senior Editor of Organization Science, Consulting Editor of the Journal of International Business Studies and Associate Editor of the Global Strategy Journal and is a member of the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal. His research has been published in business press (including the Financial Times, California Management Review and the Columbia Journal of World Business), academic journals (including the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science), and has been widely presented at research conferences and seminars around the world.
Module 1: Developing your Financial Acumen
- Kick-Off and Live Session 1: Goal and Activities of a Firm, The Big Picture: Valuation and Shareholder Value, and Understanding Financial Statements
- Live Session 2: Financial Statement Analysis (FSA)
- Live Session 3: Capital Budgeting and Capital Allocation
Module 2: Understanding the Link Between Strategy and Financial Value
- Live Session 4: Industry Structure and Financial Performance
- Live Session 5: Competitive Advantage and Financial Performance
- Live Session 6: Corporate Growth Strategy and Financial Performance
Module 3: Decoding Fintech
- Live Session 7: Introduction to FinTech
- Live Session 8: The Promises and Pitfalls of FinTech
- Live Session 9: Blockchain Technology and Decentralized Finance
Closing Session: Putting It All Together
- Live Session 10: Valuation: A Comprehensive Look at a Business.
- Course Wrap-Up