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Women at Work  ·  WAW-32

Finance Leadership Development for Women in Finance

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Live instructor-led  |  Private cohorts available  |  Group booking options available

Finance leadership begins when analysis changes a decision. The step up is from producing accurate numbers to helping the organization interpret choices, trade-offs and consequences.

Explanatory business visual for Finance Leadership Development for Women in Finance
Explanatory business visual for Finance Leadership Development for Women in Finance

Course Overview

This program is for women already working in finance who are moving toward finance business partner, FP&A leadership, controller, head-of-finance or broader finance leadership responsibilities.

It is distinct from finance-for-non-finance training. Participants strengthen business partnering, planning, commercial challenge, decision support, executive communication and the leadership of finance work.

Organizations can use the course within finance academies, women-in-finance development programs, succession planning and high-potential pipelines.

B2B course snapshot

Where this program fits

Best fit

Women finance professionals moving into business-partnering or finance leadership roles

Delivery

Live classroom, live online, or private in-house delivery with flexible duration.

Built around

Business partnering, planning, commercial challenge, decision support, executive communication and finance leadership

Take back to work

A finance-leadership plan tied to a live business decision or stakeholder relationship

Built for Corporate Cohorts

Private delivery can be aligned to the sponsor’s capability goals, participant roles, internal frameworks, business priorities and real workplace scenarios. HR, L&D, Talent and functional leaders can use the program as a standalone cohort or as part of a wider academy, succession pathway or women-in-leadership portfolio.

What Female-Forward Means Here

The program supports women already in finance to move from technical credibility toward wider organizational influence and leadership responsibility.

What Participants Will Learn

Move from reporting to decision support
Connect analysis to choices and business consequences.
Strengthen business partnering
Build productive challenge with operational and commercial leaders.
Improve planning conversations
Use forecasts and scenarios to shape decisions rather than explain the past.
Communicate with executives
Present financial implications with brevity and judgement.
Challenge commercially
Question assumptions, economics and resource choices constructively.
Lead finance capability
Create clearer standards, delegation and development within finance teams.
Capability journey

From insight to workplace application

01

Understand the business

02

Challenge the economics

03

Shape the decision

04

Lead the function

Course Outline

Module 1: The Shift to Finance Leadership

Understand the move from technical delivery to enterprise contribution.

  • Decision support
  • Influence
  • Judgement
  • Leadership scope
Module 2: Finance Business Partnering

Build stronger relationships with the business.

  • Stakeholder goals
  • Constructive challenge
  • Insight
  • Follow-through
Module 3: Planning, Forecasting and Scenarios

Turn finance into forward-looking decision support.

  • Drivers
  • Scenarios
  • Sensitivity
  • Resource choices
Module 4: Commercial Challenge

Ask better questions about value and economics.

  • Margin
  • Cost drivers
  • Investment
  • Trade-offs
Module 5: Executive Finance Communication

Make implications easy to act on.

  • Headline first
  • Recommendation
  • Risk
  • Decision
Module 6: Finance Leadership Plan

Apply the program to a real leadership transition.

  • Stakeholders
  • Decision contribution
  • Team capability
  • Next actions

Who Should Attend

  • Women finance business partners
  • Women in FP&A and management accounting
  • Finance managers preparing for Head of Finance roles
  • Organizations developing women in finance leadership

Organizational Benefits

  • Strengthen finance business partnering
  • Prepare women for senior finance roles
  • Improve forward-looking decision support
  • Build commercial challenge capability
  • Strengthen succession in finance leadership
Work products

Tools participants can use at work

Business-partner stakeholder map
Scenario planning template
Commercial challenge checklist
Executive finance brief
Finance leadership action plan

B2B Deployment Options

Use the program as a private cohort, as one component of a structured Women at Work pathway, or inside a function-specific academy. Multi-location live-online delivery can support geographically distributed teams.

Delivery Format

The program is live and instructor-led. It can be delivered in a classroom, live online, or in-house. Duration is flexible and should reflect participant level, selected depth, organizational objective and the amount of applied practice required.

For HR, L&D and business leaders: Explore in-house training or request a customized cohort.

Business Problems This Program Is Designed to Address

This course is designed around workplace problems that organizations can observe in real roles. The aim is to give participants a structured way to diagnose situations, make stronger decisions, practise difficult conversations and return to work with tools that can be used immediately.

Finance teams produce accurate reports that arrive after the decisionThe program strengthens forward-looking analysis, scenario thinking and the ability to influence choices before resources are committed.
Business partnering becomes relationship management without challengeParticipants practise constructive commercial challenge that improves a decision rather than merely maintaining stakeholder comfort.
Technical finance language obscures the business implicationThe course helps finance leaders communicate the few economic drivers, assumptions and consequences that decision-makers need.
Strong individual contributors struggle to lead finance teamsParticipants address delegation, review standards, development and the shift from personally producing work to leading finance capability.

Applied Practice and Scenario Work

The learning design uses realistic management situations rather than abstract discussion alone. Private cohorts can calibrate the scenarios to the participant population, industry and operating context.

A business leader presents an aggressive growth forecastParticipants test volume, price, capacity, cash, margin and execution assumptions and decide which sensitivities matter most.
A project sponsor wants finance to validate a preferred optionParticipants maintain partnership while independently testing the economics, alternatives and risk.
The monthly forecast keeps missing for the same reasonParticipants diagnose whether the problem is drivers, ownership, data, incentives or weak challenge.
A new finance manager is reviewing everything personallyParticipants redesign delegation, control points and development so quality is maintained without creating a bottleneck.

Application principle: participants should leave each major topic able to explain what they would do differently in a real role, which stakeholders they would involve, what evidence they would use and how they would know whether the action worked.

For HR, L&D and Program Sponsors

Finance Leadership Development for Women in Finance can be delivered as a standalone private cohort or embedded inside a broader capability pathway. The sponsor can define the target population, role level, business context, expected behaviours, priority scenarios and work products before delivery.

A stronger deployment does more than count attendance. Participants can apply one tool to live work, discuss the result with their manager and bring the learning into an existing talent, performance, project or functional review. This connects development to execution without making unsupported ROI promises.

  • Before the cohort: define the capability gap and participant profile.
  • During delivery: use role-relevant scenarios, practice and work products.
  • After delivery: reinforce application through manager conversations, peer review or sponsor follow-up.
  • At pathway level: combine this program with adjacent courses where participants need broader capability.

Pricing

The public-course fee below follows the current Women at Work offering structure for Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Program length and structure can vary by cohort and delivery context. Public fees exclude VAT or other applicable taxes.

$4,500
Per delegate
Individual booking
$3,825
Per delegate
3 delegates (15% off)
$3,750
Per delegate
6 delegates (pay for 5)
For in-house or customized delivery, request a proposal.

How This Fits Into a Wider Development Pathway

For corporate cohorts, the tools and action plans from this program can feed into development plans, talent reviews, project reviews, functional academies or sponsor debriefs. The course can also be paired with adjacent programs so the learning journey reflects the capability the organization is actually trying to build.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we use our own organizational scenarios?

Yes. Private cohorts can be calibrated around your operating context, role levels and common workplace situations while protecting sensitive information.

How should managers support participants after the course?

Agree one or two work applications, then review what the participant tried, what changed and what further support is needed.

Can this be combined with other Women at Work courses?

Yes. It can sit inside a multi-course pathway for managers, high-potential women, functional leaders or another defined population.

Part of the Women at Work pathway. Explore the full Women at Work professional development pathway.
Can this be delivered only for our organization?

Yes. Private delivery can be calibrated to the participant population, business context, capability priorities and internal terminology.

Is the duration fixed?

No. Delivery depth and schedule are adapted to the cohort and organizational objective.

How Participants Work During the Program

Finance Leadership Development for Women in Finance is designed as an applied learning experience rather than a sequence of lectures. Participants move repeatedly between concept, diagnosis, practice and workplace application. The exact balance can be adjusted for the cohort, but the learning design should keep participants working with decisions and situations that resemble the responsibilities they actually hold.

1. Diagnose

Participants begin by defining the real problem, decision or capability gap rather than accepting the first description at face value.

2. Practise

They test language, analysis, tools or decision approaches in a low-risk setting and receive challenge from the facilitator and peers.

3. Build

Participants create a work product linked to their role rather than leaving with notes alone. Relevant outputs can include Business-partner stakeholder map, Scenario planning template, Commercial challenge checklist, Executive finance brief, Finance leadership action plan.

4. Challenge

Assumptions, blind spots and trade-offs are surfaced through peer review, facilitator questions and comparison with alternative approaches.

5. Apply

Each participant identifies where the learning will be used, who needs to be involved, what action happens first and what evidence will show progress.

The core pathway covers The Shift to Finance Leadership, Finance Business Partnering, Planning, Forecasting and Scenarios, Commercial Challenge, Executive Finance Communication, Finance Leadership Plan. For private cohorts, examples and practice can be weighted toward the modules most relevant to the sponsor’s capability priorities without reducing the integrity of the wider program.

Manager Reinforcement and Evidence of Application

A course becomes more valuable when participants have a clear opportunity to use the learning after delivery. For employer-sponsored cohorts, TheSkillGrid can design the program so managers and sponsors know what participants are expected to practise without turning development into unnecessary administration.

  • Before delivery: the participant and manager can identify one current situation where the course is likely to be useful. This gives the learning an immediate workplace anchor.
  • Immediately after delivery: the participant selects one or two tools or behaviours to use first, rather than trying to apply every concept simultaneously.
  • During the following work cycle: the manager can ask what was tried, what response it produced, what became clearer and what still needs adjustment.
  • At sponsor level: patterns across the cohort can inform future learning priorities, manager support or pathway design without claiming that attendance alone caused a business result.

What Good Application Can Look Like

Evidence of application should be appropriate to the topic and role. Useful signs include clearer decisions, better-prepared stakeholder conversations, stronger use of a practical tool, improved escalation, more explicit trade-offs, better role clarity, or a work product that is being used in a real process. These are observable behaviours and outputs, not guaranteed performance claims.


Related Programs

Related programs in TheSkillGrid’s wider capability architecture include:

Build the Right Development Pathway

TheSkillGrid can combine this course with adjacent programs into a coherent private cohort or development pathway.

Discuss a Cohort

Upcoming Dates & Venues

Explore proposed 2027 dates and venues for this course. The city, trainer, venue, duration and fee are subject to confirmation. Use the proposed-date link to request availability, not a confirmed booking.

No sessions currently scheduled.
Request course availability with your preferred date, location and group size. We will confirm available public-session and private-team options before any booking or payment.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Register your interest for a public session or request private in-house delivery for your team.