Finance for Executives: A Practical Guide for Managers

The book Finance for Executives: A Practical Guide for Managers meets the needs of global executives, both finance as well as non-financial managers. It is a practical and fundamental finance reference book for any manager, as it makes a perfect balance of financial management theory and practice. It focuses on corporate finance concepts from value creation to derivatives, including cost of capital (and WACC), valuation, financing policies, project evaluation, and many other essential finance definitions.

Finance for Executives makes finance simple and intuitive, through the use of real world data (brief company case studies and empirical examples of concepts), Excel financial modelling tools, and practical short chapters.

Target Audience
This finance book is appropriate for business executives, from all backgrounds, seeking to

• Focus on the links between financial management and the strategy of their company, be it a private or publicly traded company
• Discover how to create value for their company and boost its financial performance
• Understand the key topics of corporate finance for non-financial managers
• Create a cost of capital culture within a company
• Refresh and broaden their understanding of the latest financial concepts and tools
• Learn about financial management for decision makers – including financing and dividend policies, company valuation, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), project evaluation, cost of capital (WACC) estimation, or risk management and derivatives

Finance for Executives is suited as a finance textbook for corporate finance programs, executive education courses, as well as in MBA, master’s, and executive MBA programs. Indeed, the book is based on many years of executive education and consulting with world-class corporations from all continents of the world.


What Is This Book About?

Finance should be fun, and practical as well. With this book at hand, you will have access to a set of tools that will help you develop your intuition for solving key financial problems, improve your business decisions, and formulate strategies.

This finance for managers’ reference book is based on

• Simplicity - The core concepts in corporate finance are simple, and will become intuitively clear after using this book
• Conciseness - The chapters are short and self-contained to appeal to busy executives who are keen on value-added activities
• Practical focus - The key concepts of financial management are explained (and linked to Excel modelling tools), while you learn to identify the problems and pitfalls of different managerial choices
• Application of theory to practice - It highlights key academic research results that are relevant for practitioners
• Real-world focus - The book includes empirical data on several companies and industries around the world. Working with real-world problems and real-world data is more fruitful than theoretical discussions on formulas

Excel Templates

An Excel spreadsheet containing all the financial models used in the different chapters is available for download from the book’s website. Practitioners will find the file easy to customize to their own requirements. It is useful in a variety of situations: value creation and its decomposition into managerial drivers or key performance indicators (KPIs), cost of capital (WACC) estimation, project evaluation, mergers and acquisitions, company valuation, derivatives valuation, etc.

Nuno Fernandes is Full Professor of Finance at IESE Business School. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Auditors of the Portuguese Central Bank (Banco de Portugal), Non-Executive (Member of Audit Committee) at the European Investment Bank, and a Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute.

Prior to joining IESE, he was the Dean of Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics. In addition, he was, for a decade, Professor of Finance at IMD (Lausanne, Switzerland). He was also a member of the Advisory Committee for the World Economic Forum, and a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Business School (New York).
 
A specialist in valuation, international financial markets, and emerging market risks, Professor Fernandes has received numerous teaching and research awards. He has been published in leading international academic journals, including the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, and the Journal of Portfolio Management. 
 
He speaks at business conferences worldwide, and is a regular contributor to international media, including the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. 
 
Professor Fernandes regularly advises companies and financial institutions in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East on formulating winning financial strategies, investments, international valuations, M&As, and risk management.