Online Finance for Non-Financial Managers Short Course

Expand Your Financial Expertise

This short course will equip non-financial professionals with the ability to understand and interpret financial information. Understanding financial information can help professionals better understand the health of their company, make better decisions for their organization, and advance their career.

A strong skill set in finance can be transferred between industries, fields, and levels of employment—helping more knowledgeable professionals stand out from the competition.

Drive Growth With New Financial Skills

Upon completion of the course, students will adopt practical financial research, analysis, and reporting skills that they can readily apply to their role. This improved financial decision-making can equip professionals with the ability to allocate resources and identify investment opportunities more effectively for their organization.

A Curriculum for Non-Financial Professionals

The course offers a holistic view of finance and as such does not purely focus on the quantitative aspects of finance. Participants are given insight into how companies work and how decisions should be made. The subject matter is managerial finance, which includes managerial accounting and corporate finance. The course is designed to be practical while providing real-life applications and examples to students.

The course consists of eight modules over eight weeks and takes an average of six to eight hours of learning time per week. The course is 100 percent online and powered by GetSmarter, a 2U Inc. brand. In addition, a pass mark of 70 percent is required to complete the course.

Module 1: Understand Financial Decision-Making

  • Types of companies
  • Objectives
  • Corporate governance

Module 2: Assess the Financial Health of a Company

  • Introduction to financial statements
  • Use financial ratios to analyze the health of a company

Module 3: Estimate the Free Cash Flow

  • Cash flow forecasting
  • Future financial positioning

Module 4: Explore Financial Markets and Financial Instruments

  • Explore bond and stock markets
  • Other financing options

Module 5: Estimate the Cost of Capital

  • Cost of debt
  • Cost of equity
  • WACC

Module 6: Putting It Together: Enterprise Value

  • Time value of money
  • Enterprise value

Module 7: Evaluate Investment Opportunities

  • Project evaluation techniques
  • Comparing projects

Module 8: Understand Bias in Financial Decision-Making

  • Behavioral finance
  • The impact of biases on decisions
  • How to overcome biases

Our Faculty Lead

Dr. Fatma Sonmez-Leopold

Dr. Fatma Sonmez-Leopold has two M.S. degrees in mathematics and engineering management/industrial engineering from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Toronto. She served as an assistant professor of finance at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

She is currently assistant teaching professor of finance at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. Her teaching and research interests include empirical asset pricing, investments, corporate finance, behavioral finance, and household finance.

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