Directors and executives must understand the macroeconomic context and the socio-economic factors that affect the business environment in which they make decisions.

OBJECTIVES

• Discuss and understand the role of the macroeconomics in business development.
• Discuss and understand the role of government in fostering a favorable environment for business development.
• Understand the decision making process in a variety of contexts and situations.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

On completion, students should be able to:

• Understand the interaction among macroeconomics, government and business.
• Develop the “economic approach”, i.e. the economic way of thinking, to enhance gifted talents in the decision-making process.

FACULTY

The course will be lectured by Professors Richard Vietor from Harvard Business School, USA, and Ignacio Munyo from IEEM Business School, Uruguay

Familiy businesses are at the heart of most countries in the world, with a significant contribution to GDP and employment. However, most of the evidence shows that it is increasingly difficult for a family business to get passed on successfully from generation to generation.

OBJECTIVES

• Understand the forces at work within family business systems that make them both strong but also vulnerable in terms of ensuring their continuity.
• Delve into the typical traps in which families often get caught when trying to solve management and ownership issues, and how to overcome them.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Participants should develop and integrate interdisciplinary skills that will enable them to:

• Understand family and business dynamics.
• Plan succession and continuity in family businesses.
• Foster training and join-in processes for next generation members.
• Design family and business corporate governance structures.
• Cope with the challenges behind the development of the family constitution.

FACULTY

The course will be lectured by Professors Carlos Folle Estrada from IEEM Business School, Uruguay, and Yasaman Gorji from Concordia University, Canada.

This course is primarily designed for students who plan to get involved with a new venture at some point in their career -- as a founder, early employee, advisor or investor. However, the course is also appropriate for students interested in gaining a broader view of the financing landscape for young firms, going beyond the basics of venture capital and angel financing to look at venture debt, bank finance, corporate venture capital and receivables.

OBJECTIVES

• The goal of the course is to help managers make better investment and financing decisions in entrepreneurial settings. The course covers all stages of the venture's life cycle from startup to exit, and delves into issues such as deal structures, incentives, business models and valuation.
• The course address key issues faced by entrepreneurs: how much money should be raised at each stage; when should it be raised; what is a reasonable valuation of the company; and how should funding, employment contracts and exit decisions be structured. They aim to prepare students for these decisions, both as entrepreneurs and as investors. Finally we look at a variety of financing models across the venture's life cycle, with an aim to understanding the incentives of each type of investor, the relative costs and benefits of each source of funding and the connections between a venture's financing strategy and its product-market strategy.

FACULTY

The course will be lectured by Professor Stephanie Hussels from Cranfield School of Management, UK.