The Executive Program for Prospective CFOs
Sharpen analytical skills, effectively manage relationships with internal and external constituencies, and drive strategic direction to lead enterprise transformation and growth, while applying cutting-edge research to the most pressing problems facing finance executives today.
The role of financial leaders today has evolved beyond strictly crunching numbers. Finance officers must be strategic leaders, effective communicators, and risk managers. Chicago Booth has assembled an interdisciplinary team of faculty from the fields of economics, finance, accounting, strategy, and leadership to create The Executive Program for Prospective CFOs.
Led by Randall Kroszner, Deputy Dean for Executive Programs, Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics, and former Governor of the Federal Reserve System, this program draws upon Booth’s global expertise in finance and strong focus on economic research to address the most pressing issues facing senior finance executives today. The program also includes keynotes from distinguished practitioners who describe how they have managed strategic challenges in their organizations.
By attending this program, you will:
- Identify critical attributes needed to create a high-performance environment.
- Articulate the corporate message internally and externally.
- Analyze patterns in strategic thinking to identify a growth path.
- Discover the power of data in making marketing more accountable and understand the strategic and scientific approach to marketing analytics that results in higher ROI.
- Develop a strategic plan for M&A execution and implementation.
- Examine the valuation process for global investments and methods for calculating the cost of capital in an international context.
- Analyze the sources of financial fragility and regulatory responses.
- Learn how to harness continuous improvement and disruptive change to benefit the corporation.
This program features guest lectures from notable finance leaders. The keynote speaker for the 2019 session was Ray Young, ’86, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM). In a fireside chat with Professor Kroszner, Ray Young shared key challenges he has faced, "things he wished he had known" before becoming CFO, and how the CFO role has evolved over time.
“My goal as faculty director is to make this the premier program for senior finance executives who want to sharpen analytics, build strategic leadership and communication skills, manage the changing regulatory environment, and broaden their experience to benefit their companies and individual careers. I hope to attract a select group of executives who will become the next generation of leaders in finance and who will continue to benefit from this high-caliber network long after the program is over.” —Faculty Director Randall Kroszner
Location
Chicago Booth, Gleacher Center, Chicago, ILThis program benefits senior finance executives who have significant experience in upper-level management or finance. This program will be valuable to executives from all industries and companies of all sizes from around the globe. Past participants have come from companies such as The Dow Chemical Company, IBM, AbbVie, Express, Hyatt Hotels, and TOTO USA, Inc.
Applicants should have significant experience in upper-level management or finance.Titles include: CFO, deputy CFO, senior VP, finance director, treasurer, and controller.
Randall S. Kroszner
Randall S. Kroszner is Deputy Dean for Executive Programs and Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics. Dr. Kroszner served as a Governor of the Federal Reserve System from 2006 until 2009. He chaired the committee on Supervision and Regulation of Banking Institutions and the committee on Consumer and Community Affairs. In these capacities, he took a leading role in developing responses to the financial crisis and in undertaking new initiatives to improve consumer protection and disclosure, including rules related to home mortgages and credit cards. He represented the Federal Reserve Board on the Financial Stability Forum (now called the Financial Stability Board), the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, and the Central Bank Governors of the American Continent and was a director of NeighborWorks America. Dr. Kroszner chaired the working party of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), composed of deputy central bank governors and finance ministers, on Policies for the Promotion of Better International Payments Equilibrium. As a member of the Fed Board, he was also a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee.
From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Kroszner was a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). He was involved in formulating policy on a wide range of issues, including responses to corporate governance scandals, government-sponsored enterprise reform, pension reform, terrorism risk insurance, tax reform, currency crisis management, sovereign debt restructuring, the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and international trade and development.
Since 1990, Dr. Kroszner has taught at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Dr. Kroszner was Director of the George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State. He served as editor of the Journal of Law & Economics and has been associate editor of a number of other academic and policy journals. He was a member of the board of directors at the National Association for Business Economics and the Financial Management Association.
Dr. Kroszner serves as the Chair of the Financial Research Advisory Committee of the Office of Financial Research of the U.S. Treasury. He is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Academic Advisory Council and of the board of advisors of the Paulson Institute. In addition, he is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is member of the board of trustees of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a member of the board of directors of the Renaissance Society.
Dr. Kroszner has been a visiting scholar at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the IMF, the Stockholm School of Economics, the Stockholm University, the Free University of Berlin, Germany, the London School of Economics, and the American Enterprise Institute. He was the John M. Olin Visiting Fellow in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School the Bertil Danielson Visiting Professor of Banking and Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics, and the SK Chaired Visiting Professor at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
His research interests include regulation of financial institutions, international financial crises, the Great Depression, monetary economics, corporate governance, debt restructuring and bankruptcy, and political economy. His paper on managerial stock ownership (with Clifford Holderness and Dennis Sheehan) won the Brattle Prize for best corporate finance paper in the Journal of Finance. His book co-authored with Nobel laureate Robert J. Shiller, Reforming U.S. Financial Markets: Reflections Before and Beyond Dodd-Frank (MIT Press) appeared on the Washington Post’s Book World political best sellers list.
Dr. Kroszner is a frequent commentator in the international media. He provides advice to financial institutions, government organizations, and central banks throughout the world.
Jean-Pierre Dubé
His research interests lie at the intersection of industrial organization and quantitative marketing. He has conducted empirical studies on the formation of consumer preferences for branded goods, price discrimination, advertising, food deserts and nutrition policy, and the role of misinformation in consumer demand. This empirical focus is also reflected in his MBA course on pricing strategies, which is designed to teach students how to apply marketing models and analytics to develop pricing strategies in practice. Several of his recent research projects are in collaboration with companies in the US and in China.
Dubé’s work has been published in the The American Economic Review, Econometrica, The Journal of Marketing Research, The Journal of Political Economy, Management Science, Marketing Science, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and The Rand Journal of Economics. He is an area/associate editor for The Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Science, and Quantitative Marketing and Economics. He was the recipient of the Chicago Booth class of 2016 Phoenix Award for service to the extracurricular and community activities of the graduating class, the 2008 Paul E. Green Award for Best paper in the Journal of Marketing Research and of the 2005 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award for Evening MBA and Weekend MBA Programs at the Chicago Booth. He was also the recipient of several MSI Research Grants, a Kauffman grant, and a Yahoo! Faculty Research Grant.
Dubé earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto in quantitative methods in economics in 1995, a master's degree in economics in 1996, and a PhD in 2000 from Northwestern University. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 2000.
Steven Neil Kaplan
He is the co-creator of the Kaplan-Schoar PME (Public Market Equivalent) private equity benchmarking approach. A Fortune Magazine article referred to him as "probably the foremost private equity scholar in the galaxy.”
Kaplan teaches advanced MBA and executive courses in entrepreneurial finance and private equity, corporate finance, corporate governance, and wealth management. BusinessWeek named him one of the top 12 business school teachers in the country.
Professor Kaplan co-founded the entrepreneurship program at Booth. With his students, he helped start Booth’s business plan competition, the New Venture Challenge (NVC), which has included over 800 companies that have raised almost $1 billion and created over $8 billion in value including GrubHub, Braintree/Venmo and Simple Mills.
Kaplan serves on the board of Morningstar and several fund and company advisory boards. He has been a member of the faculty since 1988.
He received his AB, summa cum laude, in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard College and earned a PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University.
Christian Leuz
Christian Leuz is the Joseph Sondheimer Professor of International Economics, Finance and Accounting at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Fellow at the at the European Corporate Governance Institute, Wharton's Financial Institution Center, Goethe Universität Frankfurt's Center for Financial Studies, the CESifo Research Network and a member of the IGM's European Economic Experts Panel. He studies the role of disclosure and transparency in capital markets and other settings, the effects of regulation, international accounting as well as corporate governance and corporate financing decisions. His work has been published in top accounting and finance journals. He has received several awards and honors, including the 2016 and the 2014 Distinguished Contribution to the Accounting Literature Awards, the Humboldt Research Award in 2012, as well as the 2011 Wildman Medal Award. He was also recognized as a "Highly Cited Researcher" by Thomson Reuters and included in their list of "The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds" in 2014-2018. Professor Leuz is an editor for the Journal of Accounting Research and has served on many editorial boards, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, the Journal of Business, Finance and Accounting, and the Review of Accounting Studies.
Born in Germany, Professor Leuz earned his doctoral degree and Habilitation at the Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany. Prior to this position, he was the Harold Stott Term Assistant Professor in Accounting at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting doctoral fellow at the Simon School of Business, University of Rochester.
Lindsey Lyman
Prior to founding Growth Studios, Lindsey spent 10 years at McKinsey & Company, where she was a founder of McKinsey's global innovation practice and co-developed McKinsey's Innovation Executive Education program. At McKinsey, Lindsey served Global Fortune 100 clients on innovation topics ranging from large-scale innovation transformations, to embedding capabilities in user-centered design and product development. Lindsey currently serves as a Senior External Advisor to McKinsey, focused on Product Development and Innovation.
Lindsey leverages her advisory and consulting work to develop current business content and cases for use in the classroom. Outside of corporate work, Lindsey serves as an advisor to many founders of entrepreneurial ventures and is a recreational angel investor. Lindsey also serves as a board member of the Advocate Aurora Health Whole Person Health Committee.
Lindsey holds an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where she graduated with highest distinction. Lindsey lives on the North Shore of Chicago with her husband and 3 young children. Lindsey looks forward to someday reviving her hobbies of biking and fabric crafting, however in the meantime center around drinking coffee and building Lego with her kids.
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.
Hal Weitzman
Hal's experience in South America formed the basis for his 2012 book, Latin Lessons: How South America Stopped Listening to the United States and Started Prospering. His time as a reporter in Chicago led him to write 'Chicago's Decade of Innovation, 1972-1982', a chapter covering the development of financial derivatives, which was published in the 2010 book Regulated Exchanges: Dynamic Agents of Economic Growth.
Hal grew up in Wales. He was an undergraduate at Leeds, gained a master's at Oriel College, Oxford, and was a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
His interests include rugby, tea, and gardening.
Susan Lucia Annunzio
Susan Lucia Annunzio is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Center for High Performance (CfHP). She is a strategic advisor to CEOs of leading global companies on strategy attainment and business transformation. Susan partners with senior executives to increase their ability to simplify complex strategic decisions through enhanced collaboration and creativity. She is a globally recognized speaker and thought leader on shaping and maintaining high-performance business environments. She has a strong track record helping leaders maximize returns on strategic, financial and human-capital investments.
Previously, Susan ran the research-based high performance consulting subsidiary of Hudson Highland Group, Inc., a leading international professional staffing and talent management solutions firm.
Under her direction, Hudson Highland completed the most comprehensive global study of knowledge workers ever conducted regarding the factors that accelerate or stifle high performance. Susan has presented on this study at such prestigious venues as the World Economic Forum, The International Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change at the University of Greenwich, and Vacature’s 2004 “Talent Economy” launch event in Belgium.
Susan has been an Adjunct Professor of Management at the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business. She has been a guest lecturer at INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France, Kellogg Graduate School of Management and Instituto Empressa in Madrid. She also has taught at General Electric’s Crotonville Corporate Training Center.
She is the author of Contagious Success (Portfolio, 2004), a dynamic management book that revealed a global standard for high performance. Contagious Success was voted Fast Company’s Readers’ Choice selection in January 2005. Additionally, Susan authored two more prominent business books: Communicoding (Fine, 1990; Penguin USA, 1991) and Evolutionary Leadership (Simon & Schuster, 2001; Fireside, 2002).
She has been a guest on numerous local and national television and radio news programs and has been quoted extensively in the business press, including The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, BBC, USA Today and Bloomberg.
Susan is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago, the Executives’ Club of Chicago and the University of Chicago Women’s Business Group. She also works with the Metropolitan YWCA of Chicago and The United Way.
High-Performance Leadership
- The role of a leader in creating a high performance work environment
- Critical attributes that drive innovation and financial results
- Strategies and processes to implement
Straight Talk in Tough Times
- Communication in a crisis, good times, and unpleasant times
- How to match actions and words
- Practical strategies and tools for effective communication
- Proactive vs. reactive when the unexpected happens
- Formulate effective messages to different audiences
Persuasion, Communication, and Personal Branding
- Use narratives as a framework for expressing your ideas and analyze how to structure the way you present them
- Clearly articulate your strengths, values, and vision as a leader, manager, and colleague
- Define your “superpower,” or personal value proposition, and practice applying it in scenarios such as interviews, asking for a raise, pitching for a promotion, and motivating a team
Evaluating Global Investments and the Cost of Capital
- Adapt capital budgeting to global opportunities
- How to incorporate political, expropriation, currency, and other international risks into the valuation process for global investments
- How globalization affects the cost of capital and what explains differences in firms’ cost of capital around the world
De-Risking Innovation Investments
- Understand where traditional funding and stage-gate processes fall short in promoting the right innovation projects
- Develop a tool kit for identifying and managing risk in your innovation pipeline
- Practice alternative tools for making decisions when reliable data is not available
Strategy Formulation and Implementation
- Why bother with strategy? What can strategy do? What happens if we don’t have a strategy? How can we think about reaching our goals?
- Separating business success into strategy, leadership, and luck: learn how to understand your role in each
- The role of top management in setting strategy: what is the real challenge great strategists see?
- Develop two simple tools: a set of four generic questions that apply to all businesses, and a set of six powerful patterns that can be used to think about the way strategies are developed
- Apply this strategy framework to identify a logical path for growth
Strategic Risk Management and Financial Fragility
- Analyze sources of financial fragility and regulatory responses reshaping financial markets
- Assess implications of the Federal Reserve’s and other central banks’ extraordinarily accommodative policies for volatility, “currency wars,” asset price bubbles, credit flows, inflation, and prospect for economic growth
- Learn the components of effective risk management
- Draw lessons from recent and historical crises to better prepare for and manage through future crises
Marketing Analytics to Drive Growth
- Understand the role and meaning of marketing analytics
- Learn how optimal marketing decisions and investments are made
- Discover the scientific power of data analysis in marketing decision-making linked to higher ROI
- Master the right questions to ask and make your marketing team accountable in the data-driven age
Acquisition Strategies and Merger Implementation
- The M&A process: strategy, valuation, and execution
The Entrepreneurial Leader: The Importance of Innovation in a VUCA World (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex & Ambiguous)
- Framework for innovation and entrepreneurial thinking
- How to harness continuous improvement and disruptive change
I believe that this course is a must for those individuals seeking to become CFOs. The course content and professors at Chicago Booth really help to open your mind to new concepts and ideas. I came away from the course armed with 'gems' that I can apply from day 1 in my current role.
- Elliott Wood, Finance & Planning Leader, IBM Latin America
Excellent, well-rounded, well-structured program. More finance executives should take this.
- Mayank Agrawal, Softward Group CFO, IBM India/South Asia
The program is great. I revisited some of the key concepts important to my role in an updated format. And also had the opportunity to learn from others' experiences.
- Carlos Montenegro, Head of Planning and Finance, Sao Carlos Empreendimentos
Excellent course! Great instructors who communicated their messages clearly and with purpose. I would highly recommend this course.
- Robert Rusch, Director – Finance and Accounting, American Transmission Co.
Great content and professors. Engagement with peers provided many opportunities for learning.
– Yolanda Daniel, VP Finance, W.W. Grainger, Inc.
I think the program is a success and fills a gap in the market. The international experience in the room enhanced the content and learning experience.
– David Gillespie, General Manager, Planning, Investment, and Funding, Jemena Ltd.
I truly enjoyed the program and believe it will be very successful. It was my first experience at the University of Chicago and will definitely not be my last one.
– Randy Ahuja, Managing Director, Verto Partners LLC
The distinguished faculty at Booth provided the depth and variety of perspectives and frameworks which will help future CFO's in how they think about the organizational, strategic, and financial management of their firms, through good times and bad.
- Abu Zeya, Finance Director, Halliburton
The program was very well designed. Topics were relevant to my current position as well as useful in my continued growth toward my next position.
– Todd Bryant, Vice President, Controller, RLI
This program generates opportunities to develop new skills and improve the capability to integrate a global finance view to create value.
- Orlando Gutierrez, Operations & Finance Manager, Corporate Boards, The Kroger Co.
This was a great program offering solid balance of theory and application. The focus on strategy throughout the program was excellent to focus on the 'how' you apply the learning in real life.
- John Murphy, Sr. VP, Chief Accounting Officer & Controller, DIRECTV