Finance Essentials for Managers: The Tools You Need to Succeed as a Nonfinancial Professional

Book excerpt: Must-know financial concepts you need to know to succeed in today's world of work—from the new Essentials series for business professionals From reading an income statement to analyzing valuation methodologies, understanding the basics of finance is an essential part of your professional knowledge tool kit—even if it's not your primary role in the company. Finance Essentials for Managers delivers the key concepts you need to know, so you can master the topics required for moving to the next step in your career. Best of all, no prior accounting or finance experience is required. Based on author Chris Haroun’s hard-earned experience on Wall Street, at Goldman Sachs, in the venture capital industry, and serving at some of the world’s leading hedge funds, this practical guide is organized into three thematic sections: Part 1: The Essentials delivers a solid overview of accounting, financial ratios, forecasting financial statements, valuing companies, investment research, investment banking, private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, options and more. Part 2: The Essentials Applied highlights which areas of finance you need to focus on and provides exercises for creating and forecasting financial statements, using investment research and more. Part 3: Beyond the Essentials illustrates five different case studies on specific finance topics, including investments in Meta (formerly Facebook) and other pre- and post-IPO investments that Haroun has participated in. Finance Essentials for Managers also provides access to the authors downloadable comprehensive 100-step investment research template that he designed in Microsoft to analyze the financials, fundamentals, valuation and much more on any company. Filled with practical advice, useful tools, assessments, and more, Finance Essentials for Managers ensures that you will walk away feeling fully prepared to put your sharpened skills into action right away―even if you've never received formal training in finance before.