The Corporate Finance Lens™
A practical system to think like a strategic CFO and make better capital allocation decisions.
Capital allocation is now everyone’s job.
AI accelerates the analysis, but judgment is what gets rewarded.
This course teaches you the judgment.
Do I spend, cut, or double down?
If you’ve ever stared at the numbers and thought: “Do I spend, cut, or double down?”, this is the system that keeps you from guessing.
Most business education gives you frameworks that don’t hold up when the situation is messy. What it doesn’t give you is the judgment to allocate capital when pressure is high and the stakes are real.
You’ll learn the frameworks top investors and operators rely on and how to use AI tools intelligently to accelerate, not replace, your judgment.
Built for clarity. Priced for action.
A practical decision system for capital allocation under uncertainty
Learn how strategic CFOs actually frame, pressure-test, and commit to high-stakes financial decisions when the numbers are incomplete and the tradeoffs are real.
Pricing
$699
Early Learner Pricing (Increases After March 2026)
Everything you need to think and operate like a strategic CFO
Designed to replace fragmented frameworks, ad hoc analysis, and intuition-only decision making in high-stakes capital allocation.
The full decision system, including:
- A structured capital allocation decision system used by strategic CFOs
- 9 applied modules and supporting materials covering capital allocation, valuation, liquidity, risk, and tradeoffs
- Real-world scenarios and pressure-testing exercises
- CFO-grade AI Prompt Clinics embedded within the system
- Decision guardrails, accept/reject rubrics, and audit checks
- ~20 hours of applied learning, combining expert instruction with hands-on decision exercises and scenario work
Who This Is For
This course is for anyone who makes decisions that affect capital, resources, or strategy.
Operators and founders
who make capital allocation calls under pressure.
Engineers, PMs, and builders
who must justify priorities and tradeoffs.
Finance professionals & early-career
including undergrad business majors and recent MBAs, who want practical, real-world capital allocation skills rather than classroom theory.
Strategic thinkers
who want to see the whole picture, not just the spreadsheet.
You don’t need a finance background.
If you already know finance, this strengthens your ability to see the whole picture and make better decisions when the numbers aren’t neat.
What You’ll Learn
This course is for anyone who makes decisions that affect capital, resources, or strategy.
Operators and founders
who make capital allocation calls under pressure.
Engineers, PMs, and builders
who must justify priorities and tradeoffs.
Finance professionals & early-career
including undergrad business majors and recent MBAs, who want practical, real-world capital allocation skills rather than classroom theory.
Strategic thinkers
who want to see the whole picture, not just the spreadsheet.
You don’t need a finance background.
If you already know finance, this strengthens your ability to see the whole picture and make better decisions when the numbers aren’t neat.
Curriculum
20 hours of applied learning designed to build a complete,
compounding skill set in strategic capital allocation.
What You’ll Be Able To Do
By the end of this course, you’ll know how to think and operate with a strategic CFO-level orientation even if you’ve never worked in finance.
1.
Frame business problems through the Corporate Finance Lens
See the full picture, not just metrics. Understand how cash flow, strategy, risk, and market expectations connect and what actually drives a company’s real limits.
2.
Build flexible, defensible cases
Trace cash flow → FCF → firepower → balance sheet capacity. Flex assumptions with switches, run sensitivities, and design scenarios that mirror how operators and investors test decisions.
3.
Evaluate real
trade-offs under
pressure
Weigh resilience vs growth, liquidity vs investment, reinvestment vs dividends vs buybacks. Make calls when capital and judgment are on the line, not in a classroom.
4.
Benchmark credibility using investor and ratings logic
Interpret peer gaps, compare leverage and liquidity profiles, read credit signals, and understand how markets infer risk, value, and constraints.
5.
Communicate decisions with a strategic CFO narrative
Defend assumptions, show ranges, anticipate pushback, and tie recommendations back to strategy and capital allocation priorities.
6.
Use AI as a
force-multiplier,
not a shortcut
Apply battle-tested prompts to benchmark companies, pressure-test narratives, interrogate assumptions, and accelerate analysis without outsourcing judgment.
Modules
Module 1: Where are we?
Situate the business in its sector, industry dynamics, and peer benchmarks to establish the baseline reality for capital decisions.
Module 2: What capital will we generate?
Map the cash engine: recurring cash flow and FCF durability, structural commitments, and the discretionary capacity available for investment.
Module 3: How much firepower do we have?
Define firepower as a capacity band, integrating cash flow resilience and leverage headroom within credit constraints.
Module 4: Can we survive and stay optional?
Build a liquidity system rooted in usable cash, committed credit, stress-tested buffers, and policy choices that balance resilience and return.
Module 5: What’s our true hurdle rate?
Translate cost of capital into an operating rule for value creation, setting defensible return thresholds for capital deployment.
Module 6: What is the business worth?
Construct a coherent valuation approach using both relative and intrinsic valuation techniques as complementary lenses.
Module 7: How do we return capital?
Design sustainable returns policies anchored in cash generation, signaling, and long-run credibility.
Module 8: What balance of debt vs equity gets us there?
Optimize capital structure to balance cost, downside protection, and strategic flexibility.
Module 9: What’s the full picture?
Integrate every dimension – cash engine, firepower, liquidity, hurdle rates, valuation, returns, and capital structure – into a coherent strategic capital allocation system.
Module 10: Bonus
A: Using AI Safely in Corporate Finance
How to apply AI without weakening judgment, governance, or signal quality. Where automation helps and where it quietly destroys credibility.
B: Introduction to The Founder’s Toolkit (Upcoming Course)
A preview of the next program: why founders fail institutional readiness, how governance maps to capital trust, and what the Toolkit will teach about credibility, structure, and optionality before scale.
Learn Frameworks
Built from 18+ years advising the C-suite and training operators to think with discipline.
Master the frameworks strategic CFOs and investors rely on: valuation, capital allocation, capital structure, and tradeoff analysis.
Use AI to accelerate judgment. Turn each framework into practical outputs with tested prompts built for real capital decisions.
Train under pressure. Each module follows real-world sequencing, so you learn to make calls the way operators do when the stakes are high.
This closes the gap between theory and execution, giving you confidence when capital is on the line.
Apply Under Pressure
This isn’t CFA prep, an MBA syllabus, or a spreadsheet bootcamp.
It’s the missing link between classroom theory and real-world execution.
MBAs and certifications teach you frameworks in controlled settings; this course shows you how to apply them when capital and judgment are on the line.
Leverage AI Prompts
Other courses ignore AI or treat it as a gimmick.
We teach you how to use LLMs as an accelerator: to interrogate assumptions, pressure-test scenarios, and free your judgment for the decisions that matter.
The result: speed and rigor without losing control.
What Finance Leaders Say
Forma is helping operators sharpen their capital decisions.
More stories coming after public launch.
This framework changed how we make investment calls.
Strategic Finance Leader
Next In The Forma System
New programs expanding the Forma decision stack.
Operator-grade courses built to cut through noise and drive decisive action.
Launching 2026-2027.
Capital in Practice: The Founder's Toolkit
- Launches 2026
- Founders & Operators
Most founders can explain their product. Few can explain their capital model. This program gives you a CFO-level system for structure, discipline, and institutional capital readiness.
You’ll build financial architecture that scales, controls that survive diligence, and capital sequencing that protects value. Each module creates real outputs: governance maps, capital trackers, readiness scorecards, and an exit playbook. Make the shift from founder finance to institutional credibility.
Strategic Finance for Scale Ups
- Launches 2027
- Corporate Finance Deep Dives
Scaling exposes every weakness in your financial system. This course gives operators the CFO-level frameworks to manage cash, risk, capital structure, and growth decisions under pressure.
You’ll tighten the finance stack, create a capital allocation rhythm, pressure-test reinvestment choices, and build the institutional logic required to operate at Series A and beyond.