The last 20 years have been characterized by a frenzy of innovation in financial markets. Trained finance MBAs and even regulators, lobbyists, and lawyers working in the markets have struggled to understand the variety of innovations—derivatives, structured products, asset backed securities—and the changing nature of competition across financial markets. Presently, there remain significant risks in a variety of areas, such as government debt, energy markets (cap and trade), the banking system, derivatives markets, etc. This course surveys the financial product landscape and the macroeconomy to understand the causes of the recent financial crisis and to articulate the fault line likely to lead to the next crisis. The central motivating question for the course is “How can individuals and corporations mitigate, or even leverage, the risks in the current financial environment to their advantage?”

Note: The course assumes familiarity with basic finance concepts, such as NPV, portfolio diversification, and company financial statements.

Faculty: Dr. Albert (Pete) Kyle

Eighty percent of growth in the next year is projected to be outside the developed world. Many international corporations now derive more than half their profits outside their home markets. Reverse mergers and acquisitions, guerrilla innovation, and other management trends originating in places like Brazil, Russia, India, and China are gaining momentum around the globe. And governments have dramatically expanded their share in the economy. What are the essential strategy lessons and frameworks for this era? What are the key trends to know what tools will help, what tools will help you anticipate and respond better to strategic change in a dynamic world?

Faculty: Dr. Anil Gupta

Marketing strategy has been revolutionized by the rise of social networks, real-time tools like Twitter and Facebook, user-generated content (e.g., blogging) and a shift in consumer attention to new media. Old paradigms of word of mouth marketing, viral strategy, consumer targeting, brand and reputation management are being radically altered for this business 2.0 phenomenon. The course will address key strategic and tactical aspects of social media marketing, using examples and techniques from corporations, election campaigns, and recent startups. The strategic themes focus on the business case for using various social media approaches and examples of successes and failures. The tactical aspects will introduce participants to the capabilities and uses of individual technologies through case examples and hands-on exercises.

Faculty: Dr. David Godes

Business Analytics is transforming decision-making at all levels and in all aspects of business. Consumer data pervades all facets of life from transactions at the retail store to web-surfing behaviors of individuals, to HR data on employees, and to data about your movie preferences on Netflix. Companies are analyzing these “digital footprints” to understand customer's needs and preferences, make recommendations to customers based on their peers, transform business processes, and drive significant operating leverage in their models. Prime examples of companies mastering analytics include Google which analyzes terabytes of web data in real time, AT&T which scrutinizes large telephone networks to detect fraud, or Netflix or Amazon which can predict what kind of products/services a customer needs. This course will provide an appreciation of data mining techniques and their application to complex business decision-making scenarios. The course combines hands-on opportunities to understand core tools for mining data and strategic approaches for building/maintaining competitive advantages by using analytics. The tricky challenge of data privacy will also be addressed.

Faculty: Dr. Wolfgang Jank

This course will help prepare executives to understand and embrace technology strategies that transform their business in disruptive markets. Digital technologies are a significant force in global markets. They impact companies and the competitive forces they face. By embracing digital transformation, companies can unlock the potential of information goods and network effects to increase profits. Companies that ignore these transformations do so at their own peril because they may miss windows of opportunities seized by their competitors. This course will help executives understand how to recognize a transformation and help them know how and when to act strategically.

Faculty: Dr. Joseph Bailey

Firms are increasingly confronted by issues of sustainability, whether via demand side or social pressures (e.g., through changing consumer preferences or pressure from NGOs), a quest for superior and sustained performance or a need to comply with regulation. Sustainability issues facing firms are multi-faceted and, in most cases, without clear strategic solutions. Firms often must choose between sustainability and short term profitability.

The goal of this course is to better understand the issues of sustainability in several different contexts. We will discuss the tradeoffs firms face in thinking about sustainability problems and areas where firms are making high impact decisions about sustainability, specifically, green design, manufacturing and architecture practices. Participants will gain exposure to current and new thinking about sustainability and where sustainability most closely aligns with new business opportunities.

Faculty: Dr. Rachelle Sampson

More and more organizations are recognizing that project management is a core competency of everyone in their organization. Yet, the complexity of managing resources across geographies, business units, and virtual teams often frustrate project outcomes. This course provides a simple framework for organizing and managing project-like work within your organization. Through interactive lectures and hands-on exercises and simulations, gain the knowledge to improve your project management skills. Industry practitioners will share worst-case horror stories and identify the common pitfalls in project management.

Faculty: Bryan Palma

Team-based work and virtual collaboration are quickly becoming the norms for workplace interaction. In such environments, managers must master interpersonal competencies, lead diverse individuals, and manage conflict among team members. This course will address the confluence of interpersonal, cross-cultural, and structural/design challenges faced by today’s global virtual teams, and discuss strategies by which team leaders can more effectively build and lead global virtual teams.

Faculty: Dr. Gilad Chen & Dr. Paul Tesluk

Financial Statements are the scorecard for decisions taken by a firm and a critical building block for corporate valuation. Understanding the impact of managerial choices on financial outcomes, and vice versa, is a critical skill. However, for the novice, financial statements feel like reading in a foreign language. This course will use case studies, spreadsheets, and scenarios to improve familiarity with key financial terms, ratios, and statement analysis techniques. The course also highlights accounting tricks and shenanigans that have been used in recent years (e.g., WorldCom, Enron, Tyco, etc.) to teach executives to read financial statements with a critical eye.

Faculty: Dr. Progyan Basu

Emerging market countries such as China, India, Russia, and Brazil are expected to be a major sources of global economic growth in the coming years. This class will provide conceptual frameworks to analyze emerging markets. There will be a focus on the strategic and public policy issues associated with entering, investing, operating and managing emerging markets.

Faculty: Leandro De Sa