BAINBRIDGE GRADUATE INSTITUTE
ALL THINGS QUANT MEETING
Seattle Learning Site
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Noon-3 pm
Faculty and Administration Present: John Gardner (facilitator), Gifford Pinchot, Kevin Wilhelm, Bert
Loosmore (scribing), Jane Silberstein (scribing), Quentin Dombro; online: Jill Bamburg, Kate Lancaster,
Don Piper
Student Alum present 12:30-1:30: Ryan Jones-Case, Laura Raymond, Alex Moore; online: Cheryl Kollin,
Alex Lamb, Natasha Lamb, Callie Ridolphi, Julie Beall (notes also include input via voicemail from Libby
Johnson-McKee and email from Sabrina Watkins)
Academic Guests present 1:45-2:45: Jane Cote, John Becker Blease (see information from the Aspen
Institute related to their work on related curriculum).
Private Sector/Banking Guest present 1:45-2:45: Dave Williams
ALUMNI INPUT
1. Answers to Question 1: In your current job (business career), what skills and concepts from the
fields of accounting, finance and quantitative methods do you use?
How to read financial statements and draw conclusions
How to interpret monthly financial reports;
Cost accounting in internship; teasing out cost and profit
Calculating ROI
Using pro forma background; make projections
Regression analysis
Good vocabulary to at least sound informed
Cost projections
Max-Neef principles/valuations
P/L statements
All quantitative methods
Statistical models
Business cases useful: uses for absorption rate
Monte Carlo analysis; being able to explain how analysis is working
High level vocabulary from finance and quant
Intro to SRI
Modern portfolio theory
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What faculty heard from alums in response to Question 1:
Greater need for opportunities to apply skills; case studies; reading financial statements; building
financial statements; making pro forma; vocabulary; making the business case for sustainability; activitybased costing; SROI AND ROI, more on integrated reporting
What is valuable: cost accounting; financial analysis; quant; case studies; raises the question
“how can we cover all of this when these are survey courses?”
2. Answers to Question 2: In what ways did your education at BGI prepare you to meet those
requirements? How might we have prepared you better?
[Note: the answers focused primarily on how BGI might have better prepared them; thus, the areas
listed below are those where emphasis or more emphasis is needed]
SRI
Portfolio work (ref: Leslie Christian)
Internal controls
Valuation
Risk analysis
Stock options
Would have liked the choice of taking sustainable finance instead of all of LPD, for example
Working some of the numbers/quant skills into other courses
If not interested in entrepreneurship, then option of SRI and/or finance
Social Venture Accelerator
Fluency in SROI
Portfolio analysis
Excel as prerequisite
Accountability, personal
Environmental p/l statements
[could we develop in-house unique accounting formulas? ]
Valuation
Building the case for sustainability
How to a traditional P/L pro forma and then do Triple Bottom Line
A textbook to which to return
On teams, would have loved to have prepared financial statements for real or imagined businesses
Quant methods (correlation factors of business); forecast and planning
P/L
Less accounting, more finance (hedge funds, debt equity, banking systems, etc.)
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Practical application of case studies
ESG and financial metrics and how to integrate/bridge the divide
The state of the financial industry
JANE COTE, JOHN BECKER BLEASE, DAVE WILLIAMS
David Williams: former CEO Shorebank Pacific
Jane Cote: accounting prof; business school; MBA program has a stakeholder approach; courses
connected through stakeholder theory; Aspen Institute Curriculum sent out earlier
John: OSU; corporate finance person; acquisitions; redesigned finance curriculum
J. Cote:
Students should have had financial accounting prior to coming into her class
She starts with mini-module on financial statements
Asks what do future business leaders need to know to do well in their jobs? What are tools to measure
performance?
Need for students to ask informed questions of the data they are looking at
Teach balanced scorecards
Students need to know elements of financial statements (cash flow, accruals, how to read) and that
there are different methods, but not necessarily how to do them all
Uses the accounting game: basic accounting – lemonade stand (takes students through all important
principles and works well)
Live case analyses
Cash flow but not cash flow creation
Does not incorporate anything like Bloomberg’s social and environmental metrics
No need for first 15 chapters of standard accounting textbook
Should know different inventory evaluation methods but not know how to do
Need to stress that depreciation is not really declining in value; financial statement analysis
Income statement and balance sheet relationship exercises
Prereq: financial accounting basics (online tutorials, WSU College of Business)
Cash flow vs. cash flow statements; more on former; no need for statement prep; no need to focus on
debits and credits
John BB:
Need prior exposure to corporate finance (suggests one week intensive review)
Element of review in course; then immediately into corp finance
At OSU on quarter system; two week boot camp in finance; valuation; rampant market failures
What is nature of conflicts that arise?
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Relationship with stakeholders important; as a manager, how to consider ramifications of decisions
Understanding dynamic environment important
Best way to learn is through “rote intuition;” return repeatedly so that ideas continually reinforced
In current environment, not here to teach you a lot of facts; here to teach you how to teach yourself; as
a financial accountant, know risk, for example
SUMMARY
F2F tutorial students extremely important; teacher will know whether the students get it
Need to address questions that acct does not answer
Need to teach students to teach themselves and build their confidence to do math related techniques
Need to include quant skills in other classes (Entre, Strategy, Marketing, Ops); for example, marketing
class could include a regression analysis, pro forma (repeat use of skills); financial viability; risk
analysis in marketing, operations
Need more on integrated reporting; asset and intangible assets?
Add financial statements, pro forma, budget to actuals; psychological as well as the numbers; valuation;
business performance, given market; how to analyze market failure; corpus callosum – how to tie
working with numbers with qualitative stuff; how to build cases to think in both realms at once ( good
entrepreneurs can do this)
Drill down into basics/fundamentals, but be sure we know what we mean by basics/fundamentals
Need more emphasis on financial language skills WITH reinforcement; risk analysis, pro formas
Need reinforcement during second year
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