Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Leadership

Catalog description

In this course, you will learn the key principles of CFO leadership. The course is organized around two themes. The first, CFO Foundations, covers the key functions a CFO must manage, including FP&A, treasury, tax, international operations, corporate development, and business partnership, drawn from best practices of industry-leading firms. The second, CFO Applications, examines the critical moments that define a CFO's career: preparing a company for an IPO, managing through a crisis, navigating business model transformation, and allocating capital at scale. Most class sessions will include an interactive case study discussion with a CFO guest speaker; in 2026, these speakers included the CFOs of OpenAI, Apple, Meta, Airbnb, Pfizer, and Walmart, among others. In addition, all students will be matched with a prominent CFO for a 2:1 interview for their final case study project. Grading consists of three in-class quantitative workshop activities (30%), one quantitative individual exercise (15%), final case study project (30%), and class participation and attendance (25%).