Global Financial Management is at the heart of navigating today’s interconnected global economy. This field examines how businesses operate in an international financial environment, focusing on topics such as foreign exchange markets, cross-border investment decisions, global risk management, and capital sourcing. As companies increasingly expand their operations and investments across borders, understanding international finance is crucial for ensuring sustainability and growth. From evaluating currency fluctuations to managing geopolitical risks, CEOs must be adept at balancing opportunities and challenges within a complex and ever-changing financial landscape.

While finance and strategy share common goals of driving business success, their priorities can sometimes diverge. Finance often emphasizes quantitative measures like cost control, liquidity, and return on investment, whereas strategy focuses on qualitative aspects such as competitive positioning, market entry, and long-term growth. This course highlights the tensions and synergies between these perspectives, equipping CEOs with the tools to align financial decisions with strategic goals. By bridging the gap between financial discipline and strategic vision, participants will learn to make informed decisions that optimize both short-term performance and long-term resilience in a competitive global market.

The course covers topics such as:

• Foreign Exchange Risk and Hedging (Sessions 1-5)
• International Capital Budgeting & Cost of Capital (Sessions 6-7)
• International Strategic Finance (Session 8)
• International Finance Practice (Session 10)

•      Understand the Structure of Financial and Currency Markets: Equip CEOs with a comprehensive understanding of global financial and currency markets, including their roles, participants, and mechanisms, to better assess their impact on corporate decision-making and strategy.
• Analyze Types of Foreign Exchange Exposures: Enable participants to identify and evaluate different types of foreign exchange exposures—transactional, translational, and economic—and understand their implications for financial performance and competitiveness.
• Governance of Risk Management: Explore the frameworks and principles of effective risk management governance, focusing on the CEO’s role in setting policies, aligning with corporate strategy, and ensuring robust oversight of financial risks.
• Develop Foreign Exchange Risk Management and Hedging Strategies: Provide tools and methodologies for designing and implementing effective foreign exchange risk management and hedging strategies, ensuring optimal trade-offs between risk reduction and cost efficiency.
• Optimize International Capital Structure and Cost of Capital: Teach participants how to structure a firm’s international capital mix, evaluate the cost of capital in different jurisdictions, and leverage global financing opportunities to enhance shareholder value.
• Master International Capital Budgeting: Develop expertise in evaluating cross-border investment opportunities using advanced capital budgeting techniques, accounting for exchange rates, political risks, and tax implications.
• Integrate Strategic Finance Concepts into Decision-Making: Examine advanced topics such as project finance, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) considerations, and cross-listing strategies, and their relevance to achieving long-term corporate goals in a global context.
• Cultivate Strategic Insight for Global Financial Leadership: Foster the ability to align financial strategies with broader corporate objectives, enabling CEOs to lead their organizations through the complexities of global financial management with confidence and foresight.

Attendance in 80% of contact teaching is mandatory

The course is taught in a blended format using a combination of class meetings and attached individual pre- and post-course digital learning phases. It will make use of a variety of teaching material (e.g. Power Point slides, textbooks, videos, podcasts, articles from academic journals and the business press, cases, exercises). Due to its workload, a significant part of the course consists of a student’s individual study of the relevant pre-course preparatory material and mastering of assignments before and after the meetings in class. Preparing case studies and other compulsory material before class is important to enable effective work and progress during this intensive class. Two multiple-choice quizzes will take place. To participate in these quizzes you need a device (e.g. smartphone, tablet, laptop) that can be connected to the CANVAS platform https://learn.wu.ac.at. Students are expected to participate actively in class. Therefore, attendance of at least 80% of total class time is required to get a passing grade of the course. Assignments missed due to missed classes cannot be compensated. In case of illness/injury preventing a student from participating, a medical certificate is required as documentary evidence.

•      Online Assignments                              30 %
• Online multiple choice                         15 %
• Final exam (individual)                          55 %
• Regular total:                                        100 %
• Bonus (Participation)                            10 %
• Total                                                   110 %

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Basics of financial management