Yale’s first-rate business curriculum and depth of knowledge in finance provide a foundation for your aspirations. You’ll also draw on the full power of Yale University and our network of graduates in the field, as you gain an elevated perspective to see the big picture that enables you to be a leader.
Specializing in asset management will elevate your career trajectory within the field. Courses and colloquium sessions from our asset management area of focus provide deep insights and illuminating perspectives for leaders in every field.
Asset management forms a critical link in how individuals and organizations prepare for the future—from the mutual funds that support millions of retirement accounts to endowments that sustain major cultural and educational institutions, to sovereign wealth funds that benefit nations and states. With new technologies, ever-expanding global markets, shifting regulatory requirements, and increasing competition, the demands, and opportunities in the industry have grown exponentially. To be a leader, you also need an in-depth understanding of the underlying logic of risk and return, a grasp of how markets and organizations function across economies, and the vision to see how global trends are going to affect your business.
The business of asset management demands a whole set of MBA skills. For instance, any asset management company is fundamentally dependent upon selecting people of high integrity to handle investors’ money, and so their futures. How do you find and retain the right people? How do you identify and meet client’s needs? How should services be priced? You’re constantly dealing with innovations from your competitors, as well as the drumbeat of information technology and shifting regulatory requirements.
A World-Class Finance Faculty
The Asset Management area of focus draws on the diverse expertise of our faculty at the cutting edge of finance research in topics such as behavioral finance, global markets, and financial stability. Heather Tookes, Professor of Finance, talked more about the work that they do:
Area of Focus Progression
Year 1
Alongside the integrated core curriculum, in your first year you will increase your grasp of big ideas and trends in investments by participating in the Colloquium on Asset Mangagement, a series of candid talks with leaders of major investment funds, heads of hedge funds, policymakers, and other people shaping the field. The schedule also provides the opportunity for students to hear from experts across all other areas of focus. In addition, you will build your network and benefit from the perspectives and experiences of classmates from all facets of the industry.
Year 2
In the second year, you deepen your expertise. You take a slate of advanced business and management courses, and a series of deep explorations of topics in asset management. These courses are taught by experts from the School of Management, drawing on the leading academic expertise of the International Center for Finance, and other parts of the university.
Our community
The world isn’t perfect, so we can all make it a little bit better. That’s really the concept behind Yale SOM’s EMBA program: You expand both your skill set and your perspective so that you’ll be able to make an impact on the industry.
Asset Management Courses
Entrepreneurial Finance
This course is designed to introduce students to the challenges and pitfalls of financing new enterprises and covers the full life cycle of entrepreneurial investing, from identifying opportunities and refining the business plan, to marshaling resources to takeadvantage of these opportunities and executing the business plan, through harvesting the venture's success.
ESG Investing
This course discusses how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) information can be incorporated into investment portfolios. ESG objectives are important for investors representing trillions of dollars and may affect their portfolios’ risk and return. We will consider ways investors can articulate their financial and non-financial portfolio goals, as well as the potential for ESG-minded asset owners to impact the companies they invest in.
Financial Markets & Macroeconomic Policy
This course delves into the rich set of interactions between financial markets, business cycles, and macroeconomic policy. It develops a framework to understand how asset prices and other shocks drive business cycles, and how central banks set interest rates to stabilize cycles and inflation.
The Future of Global Finance
The course deals with questions such as: What is the global financial system and how does it work? What are the pressures on that system including market, regulatory, political, and social dynamics? What are the key challenges to that system? How can the system be strengthened?
Investing in Alternative Asset Classes
This course studies a succession of asset classes using current academic and practitioner research. Students will study portfolios in the spirit of the Yale Model and address the range of institutional issues raised by the use of illiquid, new, or sophisticated investments.
Investment Management
The course provides a broad overview of quantitative investment management, focusing on the application of finance theory to the issues faced by portfolio managers and investors in general. Topics include asset allocation, asset pricing models such as the capital asset pricing model and arbitrage pricing theory, performance evaluation, and an introduction to the use of derivatives for risk hedging.
The asset management courses list represents current and planned program content. Exact course lineup and/or titles may change.
