Author: Finance Training Course

Missed you Fawzia. Wish you were here. 

It’s a reunion we had planned forever.While I made many good friends at Columbia, four were very special. Ken Uesugi who went back to Tokoyo to work for Lands End. Qamar Bakrin who now rules the Private Equity world in West Africa. Arno, my friend from the banking world and Ken Bates, the wisest of [...]

I had always wondered what it would feel like to be shot by the remarkable Zaka Shafiq.Zaka is a Columbia Business School Class of 2013 candidate who is really handy with a lens. We have all seen his work over the last two years as he documented his business school education through his camera lens.This [...]

Thursday night fire side chat on startup failure organized by the OPEN Washington DC chapter turned out to be a brilliant experience. In the end it’s the audience that determines how well a session goes and the OPEN DC audience was everything a speaker could ask for. Receptive, interactive and generous with their feedback [...]

This Saturday, at midnight, somewhere over the Persian Gulf, I stooped to an all time low.Our creative and editing team had been burning the midnight oil for the last week to ensure that we were able to ship Reboot, 3rd edition for the iPad before I headed out to New York. At 254 pages, 8 [...]

Ever wondered what it feels to go through the failure of your startup? How do entrepreneur deal with it? Was it really as bad as you thought it would be?Come see my short lecture Columbia Business School this evening (16th April) and at the OPEN fireside chat on Thursday (18th April) in DC.Format is [...]

Finally got a chance to go back to Columbia’s campus yesterday evening and spend some time shooting the cherry tree in bloom at the entrance to Earl Hall. Brought back fond memories.Broadway and Amsterdam. New York, the year 1999. Cherry trees in full blossom, sunny afternoons, and Sundays. That’s how I remember the beginning. Sunday [...]

New York, New York.Saboor Bhai and I go for a drive down memory lane in Manhattan. Figure 1 18 month at 122nd & Broadway. The fondest of memories Figure 2 Warren Hall, the joint Columbia Business, Columbia Law School building Figure 3 Church of St. John Divine on Amsterdam, my all time favorite Figure 4 Newyork Spring. Cherry trees [...]

Data Analysis, Data Tables & Excel. This is our third post in our Data Analysis series using Excel spreadsheets. The series covers correlations, trailing correlations, histograms, pivot charts and data tables. See the following prior posts for data analysis context.Correlations basics Data Analysis. 5 tools in twenty minutes Data Tables introductionThere are many questions that Excel can help [...]

Data Analysis. Using Excel Data Tables for Sensitivity Testing You have built your financial model, now is the time to test it. The objective of stress testing or sensitivity testing is to evaluate your financial model across a range of values. Sometimes we do this to test the model, more often the objective is to present a [...]