Executive Technical Leadership

This finance course provides a survey of the concepts and tools required to make value-maximizing decisions. Financial management concerns itself with two fundamental questions that every firm faces: What projects should the firm undertake and how should the firm obtain the funds necessary to undertake them? The finance function with the firm seeks to answer these questions such that the value of the firm is maximized. You will learn about:

• Key financial metrics for performance management
• Principals of financial markets and market pricing
• Capital investment decisions

Data visualization is one of the most important tools to analyze, comprehend, and communicate business insights from data. In this course, you will learn fundamentals about data visualization using Tableau Desktop. This course will be highly applied in nature and touch on the skill sets and design art needed to build interactive dashboards that mash-up data from multiple sources, discover and answer questions, and enable you to effectively communicate the insights. As managers and leaders, you will differentiate yourself and your organization by mastering the ability to make business decisions via powerful visualizations.

Good executive presence starts by learning about and practicing foundational communication principles, including emotional intelligence and audience analysis. You will develop these essential communication skills so you can leave with a renewed sense of confidence in your abilities to lead as effective communicators.

Well-designed managerial accounting systems will maximize profits and investment return to business owners. This course introduces you to managerial accounting concepts and techniques and provides an understanding of how managers within an organization use accounting information in order to plan operations, control activities, and make decisions.

After completing this course, you should be able to:

• Understand the sources of accounting and financial information and how these numbers are used in the management decision-making process.
• Interpret accounting and financial data for the use in planning business operations.
• Use accounting and financial data to control the operations and make operational decisions to improve the company’s financial performance.

With an explicit focus on leadership of technical employees and the unique factors that help motivate them, this course is taught from a managerial perspective, with an emphasis on what practicing managers need to know to effectively lead and motivate employees, especially technical employees. By the end of this course, you will:

• Identify roadblocks and challenges of leading technical teams
• Understand how to leverage individual differences to enhance team diversity and productivity
• Improve your ability to communicate effectively in teams as a leader or team member
• Improve your ability to create a vision and influence others to follow a vision because they want to, not because they have to
• Develop a methodology for leading your team toward high-quality decisions
• Improve your ability to foster success in others

This course is a fast-paced experience that will focus on the strategic value of projects and how project management principles are used to deliver business value. You will acquire skills that will aid in completing projects on time, staying within budget, maintaining consistently high quality, and gaining a competitive edge in the marketplace. You will learn the essentials of defining, scheduling and staffing a program or project, as well as executing a program plan with the teamwork necessary for success.