[MUSIC PLAYING] JAMES WESTON: Hi.

Welcome to Finance for

non-finance professionals. My name's James Weston. I'm a professor here at the
Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. I've been a professor
here for about 17 years. Before that, I was an economist at
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. KRISTINE BOYD: And I'm Kristine Boyd. I've
worked in corporate
finance departments in roles including financial analyst,
investor relations, and treasurer. If you want more background
in finance and the ability to communicate with financial
managers, this is the course for you. JAMES WESTON: This course
is going to be self-paced. It's been specifically designed for
non-finance students and managers. No background or experience
with finance is necessary. We're going to cover
all the major topics that I would cover in a
full semester MBA class, but we're going to do it at a higher
intuitive or conceptual level. The idea is to give you a
roadmap or a framework for how finance professionals make decisions. KRISTINE BOYD:
We start by exploring
the time value of money-- compounding, discounting, and financial valuation. From
there, we examine the perspective
of a corporate financial manager and think about how, when,
and where to spend money. JAMES WESTON: We'll
develop a set of tools for making good financial
decisions, like net present value and internal rate of return. Cash creation will
take center stage,
and we'll go on a treasure hunt through the financial
reports to find it. We then turn to the trade
off between risk and return from a Wall Street or
capital market's perspective. We consider how financial markets help
define, measure, price, and spread that risk through the economy. KRISTINE BOYD: At
each
point along our journey we stop to consider the practical
implications of what we've learned and walk through real
world applications. JAMES WESTON: Enroll now to gain
confidence in your knowledge and understanding of finance. We look forward to
seeing you in class. [MUSIC PLAYING]