Financial Intelligence for Strategic Leaders

Financial Intelligence for Strategic Leaders Value creation and corporate finance for non-finance professionals

“As a non-finance professional, I now feel much more confident in tracking financial performance, spotting risks, and using data to guide strategic decisions.”

Brent Jenkins Development Manager

Understand the financial implications of your strategic decisions, interpret corporate financial data with confidence and use financial insight to create value for your organisation. The Finance for the Boardroom programme is designed for non-financial professionals. It will provide the skills and tools you need to successfully address financial performance, evaluate business plans and use financial strategy to create long-term value. This programme will not turn you into an accountant, but it will help you develop a deeper understanding of the financial information you use to make strategic decisions. You will learn to analyse financial data, expand your awareness of key corporate finance practices, and build your confidence to engage knowledgably with your finance teams.

Who should attend?

Senior leaders with a non-finance background: • C-suite and board level executives, • Directors and senior managers, • Heads of department or business unit, • Partners and senior consultants, • Senior technical experts.

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What you will learn

The programme brings corporate finance to life with practical and relevant advice that can be implemented in your organisation. Key outcomes include: • Develop confidence in corporate financial language, strategies, initiatives and impacts. • Evaluate financial performance and data that unlocks new insight to support strategic decision making. • Cultivate deeper insight into how your business model translates into the financial numbers.

You will gain: • Advanced insights into how financial strategy can help drive value in your organisation. • A greater ability to make knowledgeable contributions at a senior level through your understanding of financial statements and reports. • Insights into the practical implications of investment decisions and acquisitions. • Improved confidence in corporate finance with an ability to challenge financial presentations and recognise opportunities.

Your organisation will gain: • A senior leader with enhanced financial literacy, able to offer meaningful contributions that encourage better strategic decisions. • A more knowledgeable and effective executive with a clear understanding of the organisation’s financial performance, and the implications that come with it.

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“Just brilliant! This programme offered a very slick set up in every respect.” Marianne Ellis CTO and Co-founder

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Programme experience

The three-day programme is designed to offer practical and adaptable content to address the real-world challenges you face when interpreting corporate financial data and discussing strategic decision making at a senior level. You will benefit from the creative practices, diverse ideas, and successful methods that the programme director and your peers on the course have used to overcome challenges in a range of sectors. You will leave fully equipped with the tools and frameworks needed to successfully improve financial performance and shareholder value in your organisation. The programme delivers best practice models to: • Support you in your role and increase your strategic impact. • Understand long-term value and how to best achieve it. • Recognise the cost of capital and determine appropriate capital structure. • Implement investment appraisal techniques. • Understand your organisation’s valuation methods. • Gain advanced insights into what your organisation’s accounts really tell you and what they don’t disclose.

Day two

• What is shareholder value and why does it matter. • Balancing risk and return. • Cost of capital. • Seven drivers of value. • Linking financial and business strategy. • What the accounts tell us. • Interpreting the balance sheet and income statement. • Ratio analysis. Day one

• Commonly used methods of investment appraisal. • Making the business case. • Common errors in preparing forecasts.

Day three

• Acquisitions. • Additional content led by participants’ circumstances and organisational challenges. For example, initial public offerings (floating a company) or private equity.

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Programme director

Professor Steve Seymour Steve is a highly experienced teacher and finance professional, with a background spanning the private and public sectors, both with business schools internationally and also directly with organisations. He has taught on and directed undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, delivered both open and customised executive education programmes, and has provided 1-1 executive support and coaching. Steve has a BA in Economics and Accounting from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, an MBA and PhD from Loughborough University, and is a professionally qualified chartered management accountant. Prior to his focus on education, Steve was employed by PowerGen (now E.ON) where he was CFO for one of the company’s three operating divisions. Before that he was a management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) consulting with both private and public sector clients, having previously been Financial Controller for the airline BMI, and held finance posts in the public sector. Outside teaching he holds non-executive director appointments and is a pension fund trustee.

To book contact: Cranfield Executive Development team Tel: +44 (0)1234 754500 Email: execdev@cranfield.ac.uk For more information visit: www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/fisl

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Learning and courses for the decade ahead. Our business development team are waiting to talk to you. T: +44 (0)1234 754500

E: execdev@cranfield.ac.uk www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/fisl

The solution described in this document is provide by Cranfield Management Development Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cranfield University. Every effort is made to ensure that the information in this leaflet is correct at the time it is printed. Please check www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/executive for the latest details.

Terms and conditions can be found at www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/executivetc

Version 1. Apr 2025.

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