Driving Sustainable Growth and Profitability in the Contemporary Business World
As the business landscape rapidly evolves, professionals must continuously reskill and upskill to keep pace with the latest industry tools, trends, and terminology. The constant influx of new applications, methodologies, and technologies requires diverse finance experts who possess both evolving knowledge and up-to-date tool kits.
Certificate Overview
Leveraging the University of Chicago’s leadership in analytics, economics, and finance, this ten-month Professional Certificate in Strategic Financial Management program is designed to provide solid theoretical knowledge of cutting-edge financial topics and practical applications to solve real-world business problems. Our instructors—seasoned industry experts all—will guide you through impactful approaches to financial analysis, strategic planning, and decision-making to help you drive long-term profitability. You will emerge from this program with new strategies for balancing risk mitigation and the pursuit of growth in today’s dynamic business landscape.
Are You Looking to Boost Your Career in the Modern Financial Industry?
If you are a professional in a finance role—financial analyst, financial advisor, consultant in the financial industry, investment fund manager, portfolio manager, venture capital and private equity manager, or capital market professional—you will benefit from this certificate program. Decision-makers such as chief financial officers, financial controllers, risk managers, business development managers, as well as fintech-dedicated professionals and entrepreneurs will also gain valuable insights from the program.
About the Learning Journey
The Professional Certificate in Strategic Financial Management comprises the following eight-week courses:
Course 1: The Psychology of Finance
This course explores money management and financial trading from the behavioral finance perspective. It is designed to teach you the biases that influence decision-making processes and how to apply this knowledge to make rational choices with lasting impacts across a range of investment scenarios.
Course 2: Corporate Financial Strategy
Corporate Financial Strategy will teach you to evaluate levels of risk and rates of return on corporate investments and resource allocations. The course allows you to delve into real-world case studies of organizational strategy, where you will analyze successful approaches and failures, and uncover the reasons behind their outcomes. You will also learn to recognize potential threats and opportunities impacting your organization and use these insights to create and implement effective financial strategies.
Course 3: Decision-Making and Risk Management
Our Decision-Making and Risk Management course focuses on the key concepts, definitions, principles, and practices in risk management from the perspectives of the corporation, the market, and the regulator. Topics include corporate risk governance and enterprise risk management, assessment of risk at the corporate and capital allocation level, risk management products and structures, tools for decision-making in risk management, and regulatory risk monitoring and compliance. The course will be taught based on Harvard Business Review (HBR) cases and articles on financial risk management.
Course 4: Fintech
Our Fintech course focuses on applying the fundamentals to different areas like risk modeling, banking, and market microstructure. You will discover the impact of fintech from multiple perspectives—investor, corporate, and consumer—and learn about the regulation behind it. This course gives you the opportunity to learn through practical case studies included in every module that will help you understand fintech with real-world examples that can then be applied within your working environment.
Course 5: Machine Learning for Finance
Our Machine Learning for Finance course focuses on collecting, organizing, and using data to perform advanced financial analysis with algorithms and statistical techniques and tools. Throughout the course, you will work through real-life case studies and examples giving you an opportunity to practically apply the theory you will be taught to financial models.
After completing the program, you will be able to:
- Identify and understand psychological influences on decision-making.
- Read, analyze, interpret, and use your organization’s financial statements and data.
Introduce risk governance and management into your organization. - Implement real-world fintech innovations in your working environment.
- Perform advanced financial analysis using algorithms and statistical tools.
Earn a certificate of completion from the University of Chicago and become part of the UChicago network.
Meet Your Instructors
George Dan, MBA
Founder and CEO, User Nudge Inc.
George Dan founded User Nudge Inc. as part of a lifelong journey to understand human decisions. Leveraging behavioral science, the company focuses on how those using online interfaces make decisions. Dan earned his MBA from Chicago Booth in 2008.
Sourav Ghosh, MSc
Vice President at an Investment Bank
Sourav Ghosh has worked in high-frequency algorithmic trading firms for over a decade. Along with fintech, his areas of interest include probability theory and stochastic processes, statistical learning and inference, and natural language processing.
Borislava Karageorgieva, CFA, MBA, PAHM
Senior Finance Professional
Borislava Karageorgieva is a corporate finance expert with international experience in financial compliance, mergers and acquisitions, angel investing, and board governance. She earned her MBA from Chicago Booth and is a CFA Institute charterholder.
Lara Kattan, MPP
Data Science Educator and Curriculum Writer
Lara Kattan teaches for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and data science learning platforms. Previously, she was a consultant at McKinsey and EY. She has an MPP in public policy with a concentration in econometrics from UChicago.
Career Outlook
As a vital activity for business survival and growth, financial management offers a wide range of prominent job prospects and career paths. Corporate finance-related roles hold six of the top ten positions in U.S. News and World Report’s Best Business Jobs for 2024 ranking. As for data-based financial analysis, the increasing demand for advanced functions has led to this market’s current value of 10.83 billion dollars. The practice of behavioral finance is also growing rapidly, as more financial advisors use techniques in this field to build their clients’ portfolios. Risk management operations follow the same trend, with its market growing at a rate of 15.4%.
1
The position of financial manager in the ranking of best business jobs.
Source: U.S. News and World Report
156
kThe average annual base pay for a financial manager in the United States.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
16
%The projected growth in employment of financial managers from 2022 to 2032.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Accountant
- Actuary
- Behavioral Scientist
- Business Operations
- Manager
- Chief Financial Officer
- Chief Revenue Officer
- Chief Risk Manager
- Controller
- Financial Advisor
- Financial Analyst
- Investment
- BankerManagement
- Analyst
- Model Risk Specialist
- Real Estate Manager
- Risk Manager
- Treasurer
- Wealth Advisor
Admission Process
1
Application
Complete the application form and pay the non-refundable fee.
2
Interview
Receive a call for an interview with our Admissions Team.
3
Results
Our Admissions Committee will inform you of their final decision within two business days.
