A Closer Look at the Finance Faculty
While the endgame—where graduates land jobs—is understandably on everyone’s mind, we’d like to posit that who students learn from and what they learn is equally as important a consideration in where to attend business school. In this next section we’ll take a closer look at the finance faculty and related coursework at each of these leading finance schools.
Faculty and Coursework at Columbia
The advantages of a New York City location are also reflected in CBS’s faculty and coursework. The Finance and Economics division is the largest at the school, accounting for more than half of all classes and counting approximately 50 faculty members, including adjunct and visiting professors. As at Stern, their backgrounds represent a powerful mix of theory and practice. In addition, many of its finance courses involve visits from industry professionals, allowing students to gain a better understanding of how their course material applies to the real world. Among CBS’s star professors is Joseph Stiglitz, former senior vice president of development economics and chief economist of the World Bank, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for the analysis of markets with asymmetric information.
Also of potential interest to aspiring bankers, the CBS core includes a half-term course called “Global Economic Environment.” Taken during the spring semester, it examines the way a company’s performance and management may be influenced by external factors across an entire economy, drawing on current events to illustrate the practical implications of the concepts covered.
CBS’s Financial Studies Program also offers suggested electives for students pursuing careers in investment banking and corporate banking. These include “Financial Statement Analysis and Valuation,” which covers how firms communicate with one another through financial statements and involves analyses of publicly traded companies; “Debt Markets,” which provides a comprehensive survey of the five major debt markets and their derivative dependencies, and “Advanced International Corporate Finance,” which explores varied decision-making situations regarding international capital budgeting.
There is also a Value Investing area of focus available to CBS students, administered by the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing. Designed to teach students to find value that the market might not see and make profitable investments accordingly, this focus area includes courses ranging from “Security Analysis,” which teaches students to make investment decisions by analyzing business models and financial statements, to “Distressed Value Investing,” which covers the opportunities of investing in companies in bankruptcy.
Finally, second-year MBA students at CBS also can participate in project-based electives called Master Classes, in which they analyze the problems of a partner organization and make a recommendation on the issue at hand, and several involve projects related to investment banking.
Faculty and Coursework at Chicago Booth
Chicago Booth has long been considered a powerhouse in terms of its finance faculty and coursework. With approximately 40 finance professors on staff, Chicago Booth offers students interested in financial services careers access to a wealth of research, expertise, and course offerings in this area.
Faculty members include the distinguished Eugene Fama, who is known as the “father of modern finance” for his research on markets and market efficiency and holds the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics. There’s also Steven Neil Kaplan, a professor of entrepreneurship and finance who ranks among the top 60 in paper downloads and paper citations on the SSRN (Social Science Research Network). Other finance professors bring experience as executives of major investment banks, board members of public and private companies, and members of the Federal Reserve Board.
In terms of coursework, Chicago Booth’s MBA curriculum is known for its flexible structure. To fulfill disciplinary requirements, students are able to select one of 14 options to tailor their studies to their interests, objectives, and current level of knowledge.
Under the Foundation Courses element of the core, Chicago Booth students take one course each in “Financial Accounting,” “Microeconomics,” and “Statistics.” Students can select a Fundamental Course in each of these areas or select from a list of Advanced Alternatives if they already demonstrate a sound foundation in the subject.
In addition to enrolling in three Foundation courses, Chicago Booth students can choose one of 14 areas of specialization. While not required, students usually choose between one and three concentrations to develop the tools and analytic skills relevant to areas of particular interest.
Chicago Booth students who hope to enter investment banking might choose to concentrate in both Accounting and Finance. Through the Accounting concentration, students learn how to assess a firm’s financial health while making investment decisions. The Finance concentration, meanwhile, covers both corporate finance and investments, preparing students to make decisions at the business and market levels. Among the courses offered as part of the Finance concentration are “Advanced Investments,” which picks up where the introductory “Investments” class leaves off, examining the activities of top financial institutions and the changes in asset pricing over the past 20 years. Other courses include “Financial Instruments,” which examines the pricing of derivatives with a pointed focus on managing risk, and “Financial Markets and Institutions,” which delves into studies of financial institutions, financial crises, and the design of financial contracts.
And students seeking a very deep grounding in finance theory and practice could also complete the Analytic Finance concentration, which will equip them to apply sophisticated quantitative tools to complex financial questions in a range of contexts.
Faculty and Coursework at NYU Stern
While top-tier business schools across the board boast star faculty and fantastic foundational courses in finance, NYU Stern sets itself apart in terms of the array of specializations offered that are especially relevant to students interested in financial services.
Of its 25 specializations, seven in particular—Banking, Corporate Finance, Finance, Financial Instruments and Markets, Financial Systems and Analytics, Quantitative Finance, and FinTech—fall into this category, and Stern students can take up to three. Stern also offers a number of individual courses focused on the investment banking field, including “Law and Business of Investment Banking,” “Investment Banking,” “Private Equity in Entertainment and Media” and “Entertainment Finance.”
As for its finance faculty, in addition to more than four dozen full-time faculty in the field, there are also more than 50 adjunct faculty members and visiting professors. This combination of leading academics and practitioners includes NYU Stern Finance Professor Robert Engle, who won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on statistical modeling of time-varying volatility, as well as Professor Edward Altman, who was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Finance” by the Treasury & Risk Management magazine in 2005.
Faculty and Coursework at Wharton
At Wharton, there are approximately 40 standing finance faculty, which doubles when you include the secondary, affiliated, and emeritus faculty. This offers Wharton MBA students the opportunity to learn from professionals with a wide range of specializations from international banking to corporate investment and financing.
As for the leading practitioners at the school, there are many professors that stand out. For example, Michael Roberts has won more than 30 awards over the course of his teaching and research career including the 2004, 2006, and 2008 Excellence in Teaching Award at the Wharton School as well as the Jensen Prize—for his first-place paper on corporate finance and organizations published in the Journal of Financial Economics 2016. There’s also Robert P. Inman who has consulted for various esteemed organizations around the world, including the World Bank from 1994 to the present and the Republic of South Africa from 1994 to 2000. And it’s hard to think of finance at Wharton without Professor Jeremy Siegel immediately coming to mind. In addition to teaching at Wharton, Siegel comments extensively on the economy and financial markets in regular appearances on networks including CNN, CNBC, and NPR.
When it comes to coursework, Wharton MBA students enjoy a flexible core curriculum that includes 19 majors and nearly 200 electives. Of those majors, students can choose between Accounting and Finance for their specializations. The Accounting major includes classes such as “Cost Management” and “Corporate Valuation,” all of which prepare students for a career in financial accounting. As for Finance, there are courses on “Corporate Finance,” which serves as an introduction to modern financial theory, as well as “Financial Derivatives,” which covers derivative securities within the modern financial architecture.
Faculty and Coursework at Cornell Johnson
Cornell Johnson is another powerhouse of finance. With approximately 22 finance professors on staff, Johnson offers students interested in banking careers access to a wealth of research, expertise, and courses in this area of study. Faculty members include Harold Bierman, who has authored more than 150 books and articles in the fields of accounting, finance, investment, taxation, and quantitative analysis. There’s also Professor Murillo Campello, whose work has been cited by the Federal Reserve chairman, mentioned in Congressional hearings, described in the “Economic Report for the President,” and used to advise the U.S. Supreme Court.
As for coursework, Johnson is known for its flexible two-year and one-year MBA programs. As part of the core courses, MBA students are expected to take “Financial Accounting,” “Microeconomics for Management,” and “Managerial Finance” in their first semester. In their second semester, students can choose between seven immersion experiences, three of which deal with the finance industry.
The Corporate Finance Immersion (CFI) teaches MBA students to apply theory with hands-on experience. Students who choose CFI gain a comprehensive understanding of the issues that CFOs encounter and take courses and practicum sessions that give them a competitive edge in the industry. There are also two other Immersion options for students including Investment Banking (IBI) and Investment Research and Asset Management (IRAM). In IBI, MBA students analyze actual transactions and develop new business pitches for CEOs. In IRAM, students acquire critical financial modeling knowledge, analytical tools, and hands-on experience. Some of the courses offered in these immersion experiences include “Financial Statement Analysis,” “Financial Modeling,” “Valuation,” and “Financial Policy.”
Finally, MBA students at Johnson can choose up to two concentrations out of seven offered to go in depth into a specific area of study including Corporate Finance, Financial Investing, and Financial Analysis.
