Financial Management for Chief Financial Officers Training Course

Course overview

Chief Financial Officers must turn fragmented financial data into decisions that protect liquidity, improve returns and sustain stakeholder confidence. This requires more than accurate reporting: CFOs need to challenge assumptions in forecasts, explain cash constraints to operating leaders, allocate capital across competing initiatives and identify control weaknesses before they become losses, restatements or covenant breaches. This course addresses the practical demands of leading the finance function when boards, investors, lenders and business-unit heads require timely, defensible financial judgement.

Participants work through the CFO management cycle: setting financial strategy, building driver-based budgets and rolling forecasts, managing working capital, evaluating investment proposals, interpreting performance through value-based measures, and strengthening governance. They apply discounted cash flow, scenario and sensitivity analysis, economic value-added measures, covenant monitoring, liquidity forecasting, balanced scorecards and risk-control mapping. The programme also examines how IFRS reporting choices, treasury decisions and enterprise risks affect business value and board-level communication.

Delivery combines instructor-led finance briefings with spreadsheet modelling, CFO case discussions and decision workshops based on a multi-division company. Participants build and refine a CFO Financial Management Playbook containing a liquidity dashboard, rolling forecast model, capital-allocation template, board reporting pack and 90-day finance-function improvement plan. This gives attendees a practical set of documents they can adapt to their own organisation rather than leaving with theory alone.

The course is best suited to serving CFOs, newly appointed finance leaders and senior finance professionals preparing to assume enterprise-wide responsibility for performance, funding, risk and financial governance.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Construct a driver-based rolling forecast using volume, price, cost and working-capital assumptions
• Evaluate capital investments with discounted cash flow, NPV, IRR, payback and sensitivity analysis
• Build a 13-week cash-flow forecast and liquidity dashboard for treasury decision-making
• Diagnose working-capital performance using DSO, DPO, DIO and cash-conversion-cycle metrics
• Design a board-level management pack linking financial KPIs, operational drivers, risks and actions
• Apply scenario analysis and stress testing to covenant, funding and profitability exposures
• Map finance-function controls using COSO principles and assign control owners and evidence
• Produce a 90-day CFO financial management improvement plan with priorities, milestones and measures

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Chief Financial Officers — who must lead enterprise-wide decisions on capital, liquidity, performance and risk
• Deputy CFOs — who are preparing to assume full responsibility for the finance function
• Finance Directors — who need to translate business strategy into robust financial plans and governance
• Financial Controllers — who oversee reporting integrity, controls and management-performance information
• Heads of FP&A — who must improve forecast quality and connect operational drivers to financial outcomes
• Treasury Managers — who manage cash, funding and covenant exposure and need stronger links to planning

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have substantial practical experience in corporate finance, financial reporting, budgeting, treasury, controllership or FP&A. They should already be comfortable reading income statements, balance sheets and cash-flow statements; interpreting common financial ratios; and using Excel for formulas, tables and basic charts. Familiarity with NPV, IRR, budgeting and monthly management reporting is assumed, although methods are refreshed before they are applied. Participants should bring a laptop with Microsoft Excel. Advanced VBA, programming, Power BI development, prior board experience and formal accounting certification are not required.

Training methodology

The programme uses short instructor-led briefings to establish each CFO method, followed by Excel-based modelling and facilitated decision sessions. Participants analyse a multi-division case company, challenge management assumptions, prioritise investment proposals, diagnose a cash squeeze and prepare a board response to a downside scenario. Small-group work mirrors finance leadership discussions with operations and treasury colleagues. Each day adds a component to an individual CFO Financial Management Playbook, and the final session converts course outputs into a 90-day implementation plan for the participant's own finance function.

Course outline

Day 1: CFO mandate, financial strategy and performance architecture

• The CFO value agenda: stewardship, performance, funding and strategic partnership
• Linking corporate strategy to financial objectives and value drivers
• Economic profit, ROIC and cost of capital as value-based performance measures
• Financial statement diagnostics for profitability, leverage and cash-generation trends
• KPI trees linking operational drivers to revenue, margin and cash flow
• Balanced scorecard design for board and executive reporting
• Materiality thresholds and exception-based management reporting

Workshop: Participants diagnose the case company's financial performance and produce a value-driver map with priority CFO questions for the executive team.

Day 2: Planning, forecasting and performance control

• Driver-based budgeting versus incremental budget construction
• Rolling forecast design and forecast-horizon governance
• Volume, price, mix and cost bridge analysis
• Scenario planning with base, upside and downside assumptions
• Variance analysis separating operational, commercial and accounting effects
• Forecast bias, management challenge and assumption registers
• Power BI dashboard principles for finance-performance communication

Workshop: Participants build a rolling forecast for the case business, test three scenarios and present the resulting profit and cash implications.

Day 3: Cash, working capital and funding resilience

• 13-week cash-flow forecasting structure and cash waterfall logic
• Direct versus indirect cash-flow forecasting methods
• Cash conversion cycle analysis using DSO, DPO and DIO
• Receivables, inventory and payables improvement levers
• Liquidity headroom, debt maturity profiles and refinancing risk
• Loan covenant calculation, monitoring and early-warning indicators
• Treasury controls for cash positioning, bank access and payment approval

Workshop: Participants create a 13-week liquidity forecast, identify a projected covenant breach and recommend a cash-preservation action plan.

Day 4: Capital allocation, investment and risk governance

• Capital-allocation frameworks for competing strategic investments
• Discounted cash flow modelling and terminal-value assumptions
• NPV, IRR, modified IRR and payback-period interpretation
• Sensitivity analysis, scenario matrices and break-even modelling
• Cost of capital, WACC and risk-adjusted hurdle rates
• Post-investment review design and benefits-realisation tracking
• COSO enterprise risk management and finance-control mapping

Workshop: Participants rank competing investment proposals using an Excel capital-allocation model and prepare a risk-adjusted recommendation for the investment committee.

Day 5: Board communication and finance-function execution

• Board-pack architecture: decisions, messages, evidence and actions
• IFRS judgement areas that affect performance narratives and comparability
• Integrated reporting of financial results, liquidity, risk and outlook
• Finance operating-model assessment across controllership, FP&A and treasury
• Control ownership, evidence standards and issue-escalation protocols
• Stakeholder communication with CEOs, boards, lenders and business-unit leaders
• 90-day CFO improvement planning and implementation metrics

Workshop: Participants deliver a simulated board briefing using their completed management pack and finalise a 90-day CFO Financial Management Playbook implementation plan.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, IFRS Accounting Standards, COSO Enterprise Risk Management Framework

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions