DAS in Finance

Successful management requires a deep understanding of economics, accounting, finance and analytics. Join block I of our international Executive MBA class to acquire a solid foundation in these disciplines and learn to assess environmental and economic behavior, measure and track success, plan and finance your activities, and analyze data to generate new business.

Study Structure

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING

In the financial accounting course, we discuss the different types of financial information that companies on the stock market prepare. Financial accounting creates transparency in financial markets and helps capital providers of companies to make good decisions on the allocation of funds. After the course, you will understand the different financial statements (balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements) that a company publishes externally. You will also realize that estimates will impact the financial information that companies publish externally.

VALUATION

This course provides the conceptual framework necessary to help managers decide what investment decisions make sense. We start with investment projects, such as replacing machines, launching new products, or building new factories, and end with the exciting topic of computing the value of companies and negotiating agreements about the acquisition and sale of companies. The perspectives presented here cover both theoretical and practical issues. While the course’s focus is on investments, the principles we develop apply to management decisions in general. Ultimately, these principles should help you make better management decisions.

MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING

In the managerial accounting course, we use case studies to show how internal information within companies can be used by managers to make better decisions and to create value for a company. One of the key contributions of the finance function in companies is indeed strategic decision-making and strategic performance measurement. After the course, you will understand how reports designed by the finance function can help non-financial managers to make better decisions and how the finance function can measure the strategic process a company makes.

MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS AND ORGANIZATINAL PRINCIPLES

This course applies the fundamental tools and concepts of microeconomics – an economic view of behavior, marginal analysis, opportunity cost, supply and demand analysis and alternative market structures – to managerial decision-making. The course also uses economic analysis and tools to provide insights into internal organizational policies, including decision right assignments, performance, evaluation and compensation plans. The learning objective of the course is to develop your economic intuition about a broad range of problems related to business and everyday life, so that an economic way of thinking becomes second nature.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT

This course aims at providing the major tools for an understanding of the macroeconomic environment in which a company operates. The course aims at providing a few key concepts that can be used to analyze many different macroeconomic questions. We emphasize intuition and application of the concepts. Furthermore, we try to give an overview that covers the most important macroeconomic areas and questions such as growth, business cycles, monetary policy, exchange rates or financial crises.

MANAGERIAL DECISION ANALYSIS

In the era of data science, managers need to have a good understanding of the foundations of uncertainty modelling and business analytics. In this course, you will first learn about fundamental concepts of uncertainty management. Subsequently, you will study both the opportunities and the limitations of data analysis in business. Finally, you will tackle some interesting business problems using regression analysis – perhaps the most important tool of modern data science.

CORPORATE FINANCIAL POLICY

In this course, you learn how different financing instruments can be used to bridge disagreements, make deals more valuable, set the right incentives, and even serve as a truth serum. You discover the power of these tools in financing decisions along the lifecycle of a firm, including seed financing, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, and initial public offerings. Finally, we extend this logic to financial risk management and learn how different financial instruments can be used to mitigate risk.

Requirements

A diversity of profiles in the classroom is an important characteristic of our Executive MBA. Since participants of the DAS in Finance (Focus Business Analysis) will join our EMBA class, the same requirements apply for them as for our EMBA students. Classes are composed of executives whose backgrounds include business, engineering, law, medical studies, and other fields.

To join the program, candidates need to fulfill the following requirements:

• Mid- or senior-level manager with the potential for taking on increased responsibilities within the organization
• University degree (or equivalent) plus at least 5 years of management experience (as a project or line manager)
  OR
  10+ years of managerial and leadership experience in lieu of academic qualifications
• Convincing character with a team spirit
• Ability to set priorities and balance family, job, and studies
• Fluent in English