Managers and executives in all industries use financial information to inform and evaluate their actions. Being a leader in healthcare and life sciences means facing significant financial complexities and pressures. As a result, financial fluency and confidence are critical for effective leadership. In this course, we aim to build up your financial abilities and confidence.

To do this, we will develop a framework for understanding and evaluating the financial health of organizations by using financial statements. We will connect this framework to other courses in the program, building especially on the work you have done in Strategy and preparing you for Finance. Our approach will be to "learn by doing" and we will analyze the financial statements of key global organizations impacting healthcare and life sciences. While we will mostly focus on for-profit, publicly traded companies, our framework will generally hold for other organizations as well.

Ultimately, this course will expand your leadership toolkit by developing your financial skills and confidence. It will empower you to understand and shape the narratives around financial information — helping you make better decisions and communicate more effectively with other executives, your board(s), funders, and other key stakeholders.