MBA in Corporate Finance & Investment Banking

Curriculum

We integrate a strong foundation in general management with highly focused preparation. Specialized finance courses begin right away. Gain a deep understanding of finance—including markets, investment decisions, transactions, financial instruments—while honing your general management and critical thinking skills.

Year 1

The corporate finance and investment banking specialization begins with a foundational class on financial modeling and valuation. In this class, you build financial models from scratch and analyze industry-defining M&A transactions, such as Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods. This class sets the tone for the program and prepares you for recruiting and internship success.

Year 2

In your second year, you collaborate with a team on a consulting project to engage in real-world business problems and connect with industry leaders. You use your quantitative skills to analyze problems and present your recommendations to high-level executives.

Applied Learning

Get industry exposure at the highest levels, including international experience on global trips. Develop financial acumen and keen research skills consulting with leading global companies. Gain a significant career head start. Top employers value this firsthand industry experience since our graduates are highly prepared to delve into complex research and present with confidence.

Work With Real Companies

Learn by doing, with consulting projects built into the curriculum. Advise companies like Amazon, 3M, and Procter & Gamble on important real-world business problems. Consulting projects are sourced directly from key decision-makers—CEOs, CFOs, or our board of advisors—and analyzed by a student team led by the center director. Students deliver recommendations directly to the client.

Engage With Key Business Leaders

Engage with key business leaders on industry-defining transactions and trends through our Nicholas Center Speaker Series. Each year we host approximately 20 speakers on campus on a variety of finance topics. Past events include:

• A Wall Street Journal Reporter on activist investing
• Jim Chanos on cryptocurrencies
• A CFO discussing a decision and risk analysis framework her board uses when approving major M&A deals
• A hedge fund analyst discussing public market investing
• A discussion of automation and its impact on finance professionals

Experience Trips to New York City and Chicago

Every year our MBA students travel to New York City and Chicago to meet with influential alumni and employers and visit important institutions. A recent New York City trip included:

• A visit to the New York Stock Exchange for an opening-bell ceremony
• A private tour of the New York Federal Reserve
• Touring a trading floor of Goldman Sachs and meetings at Ernst & Young and FTI Consulting
• A meeting with influential alumni in the hedge fund and investment banking community
• A visit to an iconic WeWork building in Bryant Park and a walking tour of the historic Wall Street area

Gain Hands-on Experience With Case Competitions

Participate in case competitions, important building blocks of an MBA experience that hone analytical skills, presentation skills, and teamwork. Participation in an ACG Cup Case Competition in the spring semester is encouraged.

“Our class consulted with Amazon on how to value recently enacted U.S. tariffs vis-à-vis Amazon’s value chain. I developed a proprietary model in R and Excel that informed our strategic recommendation. There were no other publicly available models or reports that could provide a comparable level of detail and analysis. Amazon later pursued the model for in-house use.”

Michael Hilfiker (MBA ’19)

2019 Poets & Quants Best & Brightest MBA
Associate at Cornerstone Research

Expert Support and Career Connections

Knowledge Center

The corporate finance and investment banking specialization is supported by the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking. Participating industry experts and alumni guide curriculum, serve on advisory boards, initiate applied learning, contribute to the classroom, mentor students, and assist with recruiting and placement.

Learn more about the Nicholas Center

Specialization and Center Leadership

Brad Chandler, Director

Brad Chandler applies broad experience as an investment banker and former managing director at Morgan Stanley. He develops leaders in finance and investment banking by contributing vital mentorship, industry know-how, and linking you to a professional network to fast-track your career in finance.

See our center staff

Advisory board

A highly engaged advisory board of 11 finance leaders consults with the specialization on curriculum, projects, and networking. Members also provide valuable industry connections for internships and full-time positions.

See full advisory board

Executives in Residence

Our executive-in-residence program identifies senior executives and board members of leading companies with success guiding mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, restructurings, divestitures, shareholder activism, and other capital-market activities. They share insights on corporate strategy and leadership, mentor students, and advise the Nicholas Center.

Learn more

Program Voices

“I chose the specialized Wisconsin MBA Program to get an in-depth understanding of the finance industry. The corporate finance and investment banking specialization goes well beyond the basics you’d get in a general MBA. I wanted to enter the finance industry with deep financial acumen and connections to players in the financial industry. The specialized focus at Wisconsin has a great industry reputation and is allowing me to earn both my law and MBA degrees at the same time, which is a huge advantage.”

---

Mary Parmeter (JD ’17, MBA ’18)

Attorney, Axley Brynelson

“In my first semester, our cross-functional team performed an integrated company analysis (ICA) on a publicly traded company. Our task: recommend a new product or service to enhance or support the company’s brand, operating performance, and share value. We gained proficiency to understand business strategy and learned a framework to explore new product and/or service ideas for any organization.”

---

Melanie McEwen (MBA ’16)

Senior Director/Principal-Distribution Performance, Northwestern Mutual

“The caliber of the School’s corporate project partners is one reason I chose Wisconsin. As a first-year MBA student, we worked with medical device company Medtronic on a way to advance diabetes care in sub-Saharan Africa. It provided an exceptional opportunity to integrate things we learned in several of our core classes—including Strategy, Marketing, Corporate Finance and Operations, and Technology Management—and apply them to a real-word business challenge.”

---

Emma Ebert (MBA ’19)

Associate Manager Procurement Finance, SC Johnson

previous slide

next slide

Get To Know Our MBAs

Hear about students’ experiences in the program.

Feeling at Home While Building on My Career

Angela Lee, MBA ’20

Launch a New Career Path

Terry Brimley, MBA ’20

Succeed Through Specialized Learning, Alumni Support

Peter “PJ” Hopkins, MBA ’19

Connect With Top Employers

You’ll have many opportunities to connect with employers through classroom visits, networking events, and applied learning projects. Frequent recruiters:

“The notion of practical and real-world application of classroom learning is an awesome idea. There is a real divide between the purity of the theory of finance and the murkiness of its application. The attempt to try to bridge that is genius. I’ve been lucky to have a couple of consulting projects done by Wisconsin MBA students in corporate finance and investment banking and they have been great.”

Doug Baird

Chairman, Equity Capital Markets Citigroup

Your MBA. Your Career Success.

High staff-to-student ratio means you get unlimited support—and exceptional connections—as you step into your ideal career.