Chief Financial Officer (CFO): practices in analysis, budgeting and planning

Course overview

Description generated based on course syllabus and open data.

The materials cover IFRS-based financial analysis, budgeting, working capital management, investment appraisal, and risk management in the context of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) role.

Instructor — Andriy Drobot

• 18 years of experience in investments and finance;
• developed strategic plans for leading Ukrainian banks;
• teaches with CMA, MBA, CFA methodologies and cases;
• courses in Finance, Financial and Managerial Accounting, Capital Markets at Kyiv School of Economics (MBA, BBA levels);
• experience in business and strategic planning for logistics and express delivery;
• involvement in M&A, Due Diligence, target search, and fundraising.

Who the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) path fits — and who it doesn’t

Suitable for

• finance managers and heads of finance moving into a CFO role;
• economists, analysts, controllers seeking a structured CFO toolkit;
• business owners building the finance function and IFRS reporting;
• leaders responsible for budgeting, investments, capital and risk management.

Not suitable for

• beginners without basic accounting and financial reporting knowledge;
• those expecting a purely theoretical or narrowly industry-specific track;
• those looking only for accounting tools without the strategic CFO dimension.

CFO problems → working solutions

• Fragmented reporting → integrated logic of P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow and metric links.
• Poor cost control → cost management, unit economics, relevant costs.
• Liquidity gaps → working capital levers, turnover, credit policy.
• Investment uncertainty → DCF, IRR, NPV, cost of capital (WACC) estimation.
• Disjointed budgets → master budget, revenue/cost drivers, scenario planning.
• Opaque risks → risk identification, assessment, monitoring for finance risks.

Alternatives for a Chief Financial Officer (CFO): comparison

• Self-study: flexible, but high time costs for structuring and source validation.
• Short webinars: fast, yet limited systematic practice and topic interlinks.
• MBA/long programs: broad management context, less focus on applied CFO tools in a compact horizon.
• In-house training: context-relevant, often constrained by a single organization’s toolkit.

CFO competencies and learning outcomes

• reading and analysis of IFRS financials; communicating insights to stakeholders;
• building a master budget and forecast models (P&L, CF, BS) with scenarios;
• working capital management: policies for inventory, receivables, payables; cash conversion cycle;
• investment appraisal (NPV, IRR, PI), WACC estimation and capital structure effects;
• cost control, break-even analysis, margin of safety, relevant costs for decisions;
• risk management: identifying financial risks, basic hedging and control tools;
• M&A exposure: preliminary screening, due diligence approach, integration finance aspects.