This program is designed to provide senior technical managers with the financial concepts, strategies, and tools needed to deal more effectively with corporate financial management. Course curriculum focuses on basic financial principles for project evaluation, funding, and resource allocation, helping leaders to work more effectively with financial decision makers and apply the principles of finance to short-term and long-range goals.
Fundamentals of Finance for the Technical Executive
Certificate Track:
Management and Leadership
Location:
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Tuition:
$3,500 (excluding accommodations)
Program Days (for ACE Credit) 2
Today's technical executive must be able to use finance to persuade corporate financial officers to fund projects as well as use financial tools to address senior management's concerns about risk. Focused on basic principles of accounting and financial decision making for managers, this program will help transform a technical manager’s ability to manage and advocate for both day-to-day and long-term activities.
This interactive, hands-on program will enable participants to:
This program is designed for executives who manage project teams and departments, and technical professionals involved with R&D, product and software design, engineering, and other scientific and technical work. No advanced quantitative skills are required, but participants should bring calculators.
Past participants have included key members of technical management, such as:
Paul Mende is a Lecturer in the Finance Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Mende co-founded, co-owned, and served as director of research from 2002 to 2010 for Fort Hill Capital Management, LLC, a hedge fund specializing in equity derivatives and dedicated to quantitative research, trading, and risk management. Fort Hill actively participated in the launch and success of Bay Hill Fund LP and Bay Hill Capital Management LLC in 2007 as a multi-strategy volatility hedge fund. In 2004, Fort Hill launched Absolute Strategies Fund and Absolute Investment Advisers LLC as an innovative absolute-return fund-of-funds structured as a Securities and Exchange Commission registered mutual fund, with daily liquidity for investors and full position-level transparency from managers.
Mende previously held positions as director of the Money Management & Trading Group at Cambridge Technology Partners, Inc., and as an analyst in the Quantitative Strategies Group at MDT Advisers, Inc. He also held positions as an assistant professor of physics at Brown University and as a research associate at the Center for Theoretical Physics and the Department of Mathematics at MIT.
Mende holds an AB in physics from Harvard University and a PhD in physics from Princeton University.
Sample Schedule—Subject to Change
| DAY 1 SAMPLE | |
| 07:45AM - 08:30AM | Registration and Continental Breakfast |
| 08:30AM - 12:30PM | Basic Concepts of Finance, Case Study of Wilson Lumber and In-Class Group Work |
| 12:30PM - 01:30PM | Networking Lunch |
| 01:30PM - 05:30PM | Introduction to Project Evaluation, Investment Evaluation Exercise |
| 05:30PM - 06:30PM | Reception |
| DAY 2 SAMPLE | |
| 07:45AM - 08:30AM | Continental Breakfast |
| 08:30AM - 12:30PM | More on Project Evaluation |
| 12:30PM - 01:30PM | Networking Lunch |
| 01:30PM - 04:30PM | Project Evaluation, Case Study and In-Class Group Work |
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VIEWThe ongoing debate on the financial scandal involving the Saradha group in West Bengal has put the focus on chit funds, one of the oldest but still poorly understood financial institutions in India.
Seeking financial advice is bad for your wealth. New research by top academics concludes that the advisor industry mostly reinforces bad behavior, rather than fixing it, even when clients start with a well-diversified, low-fee portfolio. High fees and commissions incentivize advisors to promote performance chasing and costly actively-managed products.
VIEWThe study, by Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan, Markus Noeth of the University of Hamburg and Antoinette Schoar of the MIT Sloan School of Management, looks at the behavior of typical investment advisers available to the general public through their banks, independent brokerages or investment advisory firms (focusing on the market for those with less than $500,000 to invest).
VIEWCynthia Y: Being one of those people who glaze over when people start throwing out numbers or financial terms, I really appreciated Paul Mende's style of teaching. He actually made leaning about Finance fun! I left with some practical information I can use immediately. Note that the amount of pre-work was considerable as compared to other classes and was very dry. There is also a portion of the class taught by another lecturer that was also very dry.
Nasim G: I thoroughly enjoyed this course. The topics were very appropriate for non-financial executives and the case studies brought the discussed concepts to operational context. Both professors were extremely knowledgeable and seasoned in the field of finance, and were able to effectively cover the discussion topics and keep the class engaged. I highly recommend this class for operations and technical managers and executives.
Raghavendra M: This is an exceptional real-world case study based learning experience in corporate finance. The teaching staff bring in a combination of rich industry experience and deep academic background. Experienced and engaging participants further enhance the learning experience. It has empowered me to measure and effectively communicate value proposition of projects and business ideas.
Fabio De M: Practical and enlightening course in Financial Management! Powerful teaching through story telling and real world cases!
Rahul K: Great class , cases were interesting and well connected to the content that was presented. Faculty was MIT-class , outstanding.
Jason E: Really good class. I would like to see this done over 3 days just to allow for more understanding of some of the concepts. Overall this was a fantastic experience.
Cleber A: Great strong Financial content. It brings all fundamentals of finance to a logical sense from the Executive perspective. It helps the Executive to intelligently interact and ask the right questions to the Financial and Accounting professionals.
Alberto V: The description should spell the first days covering the basics in order for potential students to skip if they have a financial background
Sreekanth I: Excellent pace, material and exercises. This was just right for a Finance course for a technical exec. Well done. Facilities, refreshments, etc were also just right.
Keith P: This excellent course built on and expanded my project financial analysis skills that I first learned years ago during my undergraduate MIT chemical engineering education.
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"This was an excellent investment! As an Account Executive, I often work within complex sales cycles that involve a lot of financial scrutiny. The course gave me a perspective from the other side of the table. I now have a better understanding of common challenges as well as the language spoken by the financial teams." -Bradley M.
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