The Finance Leaders’ Bootcamp (Run 10) (Online Zoom)
The Finance Leaders’ Bootcamp (Run 10)
(Commencing on Fri 17 Jan 2025 over 6 evening sessions from 7 pm to 10 pm.
The Finance Leaders’ job is the most challenging and onerous in any company, especially in a public-listed one. Most Finance Leaders (Finance Directors, CFO, Finance Managers, Finance Supervisors and the like) are promoted from within the company, and the overriding difficulty is that incumbent does not have the full knowledge of the role and functions of the next level and how to execute them professionally. Admittedly, in SMEs, the finance manager may have to function like a CFO.
Finance Leaders engaged from outside the company are better off as they would have learnt the ropes over time, however daunting. Still, the depth and breadth of experience and exposure vary, depending very much on the industries they serve, and the opportunities available to them to handle/manage M&A, due diligence, corporate restructuring, corporate funding, IPO, special projects, and other corporate finance activities.
This Bootcamp is therefore designed to enhance these knowledge and skillsets and fill gaps, enabling the Finance Leader to function confidently and execute corporate finance activities professionally. It is a hugely practice based as case studies are drawn/adapted from actual cases managed by the trainer/facilitator over his more than 40 years of corporate experience as Group CFO and CXO of both large Main Board listed companies and non-listed companies.
These corporate exercises, which will be covered in the Masterclass, are:
- Corporate restructuring
- Corporate turnaround
- Corporate strategic planning
- Resolution of corporate problems and issues.
In an Aug/Sept 2017 survey of Singapore’s finance and accounting professionals, an overwhelming 79% of the respondents say that they are not equipped with the necessary skills to meet the increasing demands and challenges of their profession in the future. These include strategic thinking, business acumen, leadership, communicating and influencing, and analysis & advisory. Melvin Yong, then Singapore’s Country Head for CPA Australia says, “Acquiring skills of the future is a life-long learning journey that individuals must personally own.” This Bootcamp is designed to fill these skill gaps in that life-long learning journey ….
Objectives and Structure of this Masterclass
There are 4 key areas that a Finance Leader must be highly proficient in to enable him/her to conduct the corporate exercises professionally and with confidence. These topics will also be covered in the Masterclass.
- Financial Statement Analysis
- Know what lagging and leading indicators are and the difference between them.
- How to use leading indicators to prevent and protect the company against impending or future financial disasters
- How to apply the V.I.S.A. Approach for sustainable financial performance
2.Cashflow Statement (CFS) Analysis
- How to interprete each item in the CFS
- How to gain an insight into current CFS within 5 mins using the 7-step approach, and asking sharp, profound questions.
- How to decipher past CF trend to unlock cashflows for growth and sustainability
3.Financial Modelling (FM)
- Accountants and Finance Leaders often shy away from FM as they consider it to be highly complicated and technical. It need not be!
We can use simple Excel functions to create FMs that help business decision-making effectively!
- Learn basic to difficult FMs to solve business valuation, M&A, and capital structure, and corporate planning issues/problems.
4.Business Valuation
This financial area is the future of accounting & finance and every CFO must know how to perform it, at a moment’s notice.
- Learn which method of valuation to apply in any valuation situation.
- How to interprete the range of values
- How to use FM effectively in any valuation exercise.
As this Bootcamp is practice-based or pragmatic, you will learn how to execute the above exercises step by step. This will ensure that when you are tasked to perform similar exercises, you will be able to execute them with full confidence. In any case, there is always my mentorship support (advice/guidance) after completion of this Bootcamp!
Who should attend?
- Newly appointed Finance Leaders
- Finance Leaders who want to widen their scope of knowledge and skill sets
- CFO-aspirants
- CFOs who are seeking a refresher course
- Part-time CFOs
- Heads of Finance Department
- Finance Managers
- Finance Leaders who want to fill knowledge and skill gaps.
- Relationship Managers (banks) who need to interface with CFOs
- Financial consultants
Methodology
This Bootcamp will be conducted in an environment conducive to learning where trainer’s sharing of practical examples/illustrations/cases, and coaching reinforce learning.
Duration of Course
Commencement date: Fri 17 Jan 2025
Duration: 6-weekly sessions of 3 hours each, from 7 pm to 10 pm.
Registration through Michael M Lee at mtclee@singnet.com.sg or ACCA Singapore Tel:+65 67348110
Course Fee
$850
Venue
Online Zoom facility
Principal Trainer Profile
Michael Matthew Lee is a trained teacher, lecturer, coach and facilitator, and is himself a life-long learner. Being trained, he is skilful in explaining difficult concepts in a simple and understandable manner. With his more than 40 years of corporate working experience, which include serving as Group CFO of 3 large Main Board public-listed groups, and as CXO (MD/CEO/COO) of various companies across industries, he specialises in Finance and Strategic Marketing and is exposed to senior executive management practices, issues and challenges. He adopts a practical approach to his training and facilitation and draws case studies from actual cases (adapted) he personally managed over his 4 decades of corporate working experience.
Michael Matthew Lee’s credentials are:
MBA (Finance, NUS Business School)
MBA (Strategic Marketing, University of Hull)
BAcc (NUS); DipM (UK); PDipM (APAC); ACTA; PMC
ASEAN CPA; FCA(Singapore); FCPA(Aust); FCCA(UK); FCIM(UK); MSID.
Note:
Michael has written 17 accounting & finance articles to-date and they can be accessed through
Website: www.cfodesk.com.sg;
LinkedIn: “Michael M Lee”; and
Facebook: “Michael M Lee”
- 8 Oct 2018: “Debit & Credit” – Upon this Rock, the House of Accountancy was built!
- 17 Oct 2018: Financial Statement Analysis (an overview) – moving from lagging (historical) indicators to leading (predictive) indicators.
- 26 Nov 2018: Traditional Financial Statement Analysis – using lagging indicators (Part 1)
- 17 Dec 2018: Financial Statement Analysis – using leading indicators (Part 2)
- 24 Jan 2019: Financial Statement Analysis – Is there an optimal capital structure? (Part 3)
- 24 Feb 19: Financial Statement Analysis – What is V.I.S.A.? (Part 4)
- 7 Apr 19: Financial Statement Analysis – The V.I.S.A. Approach (Part 5)
- 26 Apr 19: Cashflow Statement – an enhanced presentation
- 28 Jun 20: Cashflow Statement – Period & Trend Analysis
- 3 Feb 21: The Economic Resources Approach to Accounting (ERAA)
- 18 Apr 22: Business Valuation – A primer
- 12 May 22: Business Valuation – Income Approach
- 24 Sept 22: Corporate Cashflow Sustainability – The foundation for corporate growth.
- 4 Dec 22: Stock options trading & investment : An introduction
- 19 Nov 23:Stock options trading & investment : The Greeks
- 16 May 24: Acquisition Appraisal – The M&A IRR test
- 3 Dec 24 : The 3 huge unresolved gaps in A&F and Corporate Management & Operations.
My 2nd book entitled “Corporate Growth & Cashflow Sustainability” was launched on 6th Jan 2024. This book is targeted for C-suite executives, locally and internationally. It is also suitable for all accountants, finance leaders, directors, and those professionals who seek career enhancement and advancement. As a sequel to “The Essence of Corporate Cashflow Sustainability”, launched in June 2022, It is a book that brings the company’s growth to a whole new level!
I shall be embarking on my 3rd corporate finance book entitled “The Finance Leader’s Handbook” to be launched tentatively in Dec 2025.
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THE FINANCE LEADERS’ BOOTCAMP
Course Content
1.Finance Leader’s role & functions/ Reporting regime
a)The role and functions of the Finance Leader
-Expected, Enhanced, CFO/CEO partnership
b)Scope of Finance & The Accounting Framework
–Scope covering managerial finance, corporate finance, ethics & governance environment, shareholder value creation, etc
–Framework covering assumptions, principles & conventions; interrelationships among financial statements; integrated framework of Accounting & Finance.
c)Corporate Reporting Regime
–Monthly, quarterly, yearly; template design
d)Working capital management
-Management of cash, receivables, inventory, and payables.
2.Financial Statement analysis
a)Trend analysis, ratio analysis,
-Dupont method, Capital structure and operating & financial leverages and business & financial risks, a systematic and integrated approach will be introduced
b) What is VISA and how to monitor the variables?
c) Financial limits to growth (FLTG)
– FLTG formula, how to track sustainability of company’s growth, its danger signals, and going concern implications.
d)Capacity & capability limits to growth
e) Competition limits to growth
f) A framework for corporate growth incorporating b, c, and d.
3.Cashflow Statement (CFS)
a)Preparation and analysis, treatment of items, quick comprehension of cashflow elements
b)7-step approach to analyse CFS in 5 mins
c)5-step approach to unlock cashflows for growth and sustainability
4.Financial modelling
a) The 5 phases of financial modelling
b) How to prepare base model, financial model, sensitivity analysis, selection of variables, for breakeven analysis, proforma financial statements, capital structure analysis, M&A, corporate planning.
5.Business valuation
a) Methodology & application
b) Valuation of business and shares
c) IPO, M&A
6.Corporate exercises
a) Corporate turnaround
-How to “clean up” a messy department/subsidiary, either to bring it back to health or to downsize or divest.
b) Corporate Strategic Planning
-Introducing a corporate planning framework to bring company/subsidiary to its next stage of growth. This is based on the trainer’s MBA dissertation of the same topic and its actual implementation.
-Learn Ansoff Matrix, BCG Model, Porter’s 5 Forces Framework, and other business models and how to apply them in practice.
c) Restructuring of a group of companies.
d) Corporate funding/ IPO preparation
-placements, rights issues, corporate bonds, convertible bonds, etc
-How to prepare for IPO (assess IPO-readiness, cleaning up group companies, establish group structure for IPO, engage professionals, IPO kick-off meeting, etc)
f) Shared service pooling
-How to create a pool of corporate /common services to appropriately allocate to departments /subsidiaries fairly, without inordinately penalising individual department/subsidiary’s performance.
g) Shareholder value creation
-How to create value for shareholders to improve returns to shareholders and value of the enterprise (including share price).
h) Corporate governance & risk management
– Code of Governance, Duties & responsibilities of directors, Internal audit function
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