Master of Business Administration with Concentration in Adaptive Leadership

at Golden Gate University USA

In the MSADA and certificate programs, students can gain essential skills that in-demand accounting professionals need in today's data-rich environment. The MSADA offers concentrations in CPA applied accounting, advanced analytics for accountants, essentials of leadership, or taxation. The Advanced Analytics for Accountants Concentration is a STEM-designated degree program.

Plus, graduate certificates are available in Accounting Data & Analytics, Accounting Foundations, Advanced Analytics for Accountants, and CPA Applied Accounting.

This MSADA program satisfies the 150-hour education requirement to become a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and the CPA Applied Accounting Concentration offers live instruction to guide students through the CPA exam.

Estate Planning Concentration

A structured graduate concentration program designed to prepare CFP-certificated students for a career in Estate planning and gift taxation. The concentration in Estate Planning gives CFP® students an intimate knowledge of estate law, such as lifetime gifting, marital deduction planning, and alternate forms of wealth transfer. In addition to estate planning, graduates with this concentration learn about dealing with the financial aspects of individual retirement plans and the laws surrounding taxation of trusts and estates as well as the interpersonal skills needed when dealing with such sensitive issues as estate planning and personal finance.

The Master of Science in Finance is a specialized, technical program providing in-depth exposure to the principles and practices of corporate finance and investment management. The main objective of the program is to provide the specialized knowledge needed to add immediate value to your organization as a financial manager or investment adviser.

Located in the heart of San Francisco's Financial District, Golden Gate University provides networking and internship opportunities through its 68,000-strong alumni network and relationships with the local financial community.

The MS in Finance program has been certified by the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute as a University Affiliation Program. This membership signals to employers that the MSF curriculum is closely tied to the practice of financial management, and helps to prepare students for the CFA exams.

The MS in Finance does not attempt to provide the broad overview of business that is typical of an MBA. Instead, it focuses on the specific areas of compelling interest to financial managers, security analysts, corporate bankers, and portfolio managers. This degree is intended for students who have made a professional commitment to this key business discipline, and who are interested in equipping themselves with a comprehensive array of analytical tools and techniques.

You can choose to earn this degree entirely online or through a combination of online and in-class courses that are taught by the same professors and present the same material as the traditional format.

Learning Outcomes

Graduates of the MS in Finance program will have the knowledge and skills to:

• Evaluate and explain financial decisions regarding the firm’s investment and long- and short-term financing strategies by applying financial theory, quantitative decision-making tools, and analytical methods.
• Apply economic analysis to the firm’s decision-making, taking into account the impact of markets, institutions, and international trends on these decisions. Understand whether or to what extent a financial market satisfies the conditions of an efficient market.
• Define and measure business and financial risk. Describe the relationship between risk and return, and distinguish between expected and required returns. Explain how risk affects the valuation of real and financial assets, and describe techniques for managing risk.
• Evaluate the corporate governance structures of firms and examine the interactions, from a governance perspective, among firm management, financial markets, and stakeholders.
• Describe and evaluate the ethical implications of financial decision-making and financial practices, assess alternative recommendations for solutions to ethical financial problems, and offer appropriate resolutions to those problems.

The Golden Gate University (GGU) MBA program will advance your leadership skills and business knowledge using an activity-based learning approach. Faculty members are seasoned professionals in their respective fields and will prepare you to lead in today's complex business environment.

GGU's MBA program builds your business acumen, leadership skills, and contextual knowledge throughout the practical degree design. It provides an integrated perspective of management, and allows you to tailor the program with one of several concentrations to meet your professional interests and goals. Concentrations include business analytics, entrepreneurship, project management and even the option to design your own.

Since launching the MBA program more than half a century ago, GGU has pioneered evening and online programs for working professionals to achieve their career objectives. You can proceed at your own pace in deciding how many courses to take in a given trimester and study fully in-person, completely online or a combination of both.

Students in the program come from the San Francisco Bay Area, the United States and more than 50 countries around the world. With our location in the heart of San Francisco's thriving business community, strong connections to Bay Area business leaders, and a distinguished community of more than 70,000 alumni, the educational experience and the networks available to you are unparalleled.

The Master of Science in Project Management delivers focused graduate study that prepares students for careers in the growing discipline of project management. It is anticipated that by 2020, as many as 11 million project-management jobs will be added by the United States and its 10 major trading partners.

Students will graduate with project management skills emphasizing an integrated relationship with an organization's functional areas. Our degrees and certificates in project management provide formal training that prepares graduates to manage local, outsourced and global projects. Students' improved communication skills will enable them to succeed in multiple diverse communities within an organization.

Faculty with extensive practical experience and who have earned the PMP® designation teach all of our courses. Students are eligible to receive 35 Professional Development Units (PDU) or contact units when each of the following courses is completed: PM 340, PM 342, PM 343, PM 344, PM 346, PM 348.

Learning Outcomes

Graduates of the Master of Science in Project Management program will be able to demonstrate:

• Managerial and leadership skills, e.g., leadership, planning, problem solving, communication, staffing and budgeting.
• The ability to use technology to manage relationships across projects and with business function units, as well as analyze data.
• Project-management skills, including planning, scope management, stakeholder analysis, quality assessment, risk management, team building and scheduling.
• Program and portfolio management skills, including understanding issues in project selection, vendor relationships, outsourcing, finance, purchasing and contract negotiations, as well as regulatory and compliance issues.
• The ability to integrate and apply the above understanding and knowledge into the development of a major applied capstone or internship project.

In the MSADA and certificate programs, students can gain essential skills that in-demand accounting professionals need in today's data-rich environment. The MSADA offers concentrations in CPA applied accounting, advanced analytics for accountants, essentials of leadership, or taxation. The Advanced Analytics for Accountants Concentration is a STEM-designated degree program.

Plus, graduate certificates are available in Accounting Data & Analytics, Accounting Foundations, Advanced Analytics for Accountants, and CPA Applied Accounting.

This MSADA program satisfies the 150-hour education requirement to become a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and the CPA Applied Accounting Concentration offers live instruction to guide students through the CPA exam.

Financial Life Planning Concentration

Financial planning has the power to transform lives for the better and much of that power is found in the personal, internal realm. Research in psychology and behavioral finance has given us insights into what it takes to facilitate positive change in clients' lives. This is the new frontier for financial planners and our innovative, research-based program is designed to equip you with the tools necessary to become an effective change agent in your clients' lives. You will survey the landscape and meet the innovators who have been developing the tools and perspectives of financial life planning over the past 20 years. From financial therapy, to coaching skills, positive psychology, therapeutic interviewing, and behavioral finance, you'll expand your knowledge and gain the ability to apply these powerful insights to your work with clients.

The Golden Gate University (GGU) MBA program will advance your leadership skills and business knowledge using an activity-based learning approach. Faculty members are seasoned professionals in their respective fields and will prepare you to lead in today's complex business environment.

GGU's MBA program builds your business acumen, leadership skills, and contextual knowledge throughout the practical degree design. It provides an integrated perspective of management, and allows you to tailor the program with one of several concentrations to meet your professional interests and goals. Concentrations include business analytics, entrepreneurship, project management and even the option to design your own.

Since launching the MBA program more than half a century ago, GGU has pioneered evening and online programs for working professionals to achieve their career objectives. You can proceed at your own pace in deciding how many courses to take in a given trimester and study fully in-person, completely online or a combination of both.

Students in the program come from the San Francisco Bay Area, the United States and more than 50 countries around the world. With our location in the heart of San Francisco's thriving business community, strong connections to Bay Area business leaders, and a distinguished community of more than 70,000 alumni, the educational experience and the networks available to you are unparalleled.

The Golden Gate University (GGU) MBA program will advance your leadership skills and business knowledge using an activity-based learning approach. Faculty members are seasoned professionals in their respective fields and will prepare you to lead in today's complex business environment.

GGU's MBA program builds your business acumen, leadership skills, and contextual knowledge throughout the practical degree design. It provides an integrated perspective of management, and allows you to tailor the program with one of several concentrations to meet your professional interests and goals. Concentrations include business analytics, entrepreneurship, project management and even the option to design your own.

Since launching the MBA program more than half a century ago, GGU has pioneered evening and online programs for working professionals to achieve their career objectives. You can proceed at your own pace in deciding how many courses to take in a given trimester and study fully in-person, completely online or a combination of both.

Students in the program come from the San Francisco Bay Area, the United States and more than 50 countries around the world. With our location in the heart of San Francisco's thriving business community, strong connections to Bay Area business leaders, and a distinguished community of more than 70,000 alumni, the educational experience and the networks available to you are unparalleled.

The Master of Science in Business Analytics presents students with an understanding of the many possibilities for applying data analytics to business problems. Data analytics, and the implications of this strategic discipline, give practitioners new opportunities for discovering insights that can support the strategic goals and decision making of the organization. The discipline has grown so fast that it is impossible to address all of its elements, so this degree should be viewed as a "toolkit" of statistical and analytic theory, processes, tools, and techniques, which can be integrated into the business depending on the discipline and needed outcomes.

The MSBA is relevant to multiple audiences, including: the business manager charged with using data analytics to derive value from data and/or leveraging analytics teams to get that value; the subject matter expert (SME) in a business discipline charged with using analytics on the job; the budding business analytics data scientist requiring understanding of a myriad of data analytics tools from which to draw, and the IT professional responsible for supporting the analytics infrastructure and addressing issues of data security, privacy and ethics. Students completing the MSBA will have earned 39 units including three units of graduate statistics.

The Master of Science in Business Analytics presents students with an understanding of the many possibilities for applying data analytics to business problems. Data analytics, and the implications of this strategic discipline, give practitioners new opportunities for discovering insights that can support the strategic goals and decision making of the organization. The discipline has grown so fast that it is impossible to address all of its elements, so this degree should be viewed as a "toolkit" of statistical and analytic theory, processes, tools, and techniques, which can be integrated into the business depending on the discipline and needed outcomes.

The MSBA is relevant to multiple audiences, including: the business manager charged with using data analytics to derive value from data and/or leveraging analytics teams to get that value; the subject matter expert (SME) in a business discipline charged with using analytics on the job; the budding business analytics data scientist requiring understanding of a myriad of data analytics tools from which to draw, and the IT professional responsible for supporting the analytics infrastructure and addressing issues of data security, privacy and ethics. Students completing the MSBA will have earned 39 units including three units of graduate statistics.

Marketing Concentration

The Marketing concentration is designed for aspiring and current marketing professionals who are charged with using data analytics to derive value from data and for leveraging analytics to achieve that value

Gain Cutting-Edge Leadership Skills

Golden Gate University’s breakthrough leadership programs are based on extensive input from corporate partners, industry groups, leading scholars, and leverage the university’s decades-long successes in developing high achieving leaders in the innovative crucible of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Learn From Instructors Who Teach What They Do

Courses are taught by instructors who also work in some of the Bay Area’s largest and most successful organizations. They bring cutting-edge knowledge from the field to the classroom, teaching skills that are immediately applicable to the real world.

Future-Proof Your Career

The pace of change across industries is quickening. New technologies are disrupting established businesses at an accelerated rate. We are operating in an ever interconnected global world. Jobs once performed by professionals will soon be automated or outsourced. What was certain today well may be uncertain tomorrow. Are you prepared for how management and leadership will evolve as a result?

Finance Concentration

This concentration is designed to prepare students for a finance specialty. Whatever goal students have in the world of business, from corporate management to consulting and entrepreneurship, the study of finance gives them the grounding in decision-making techniques that will help ensure the financial health of their enterprise in the competitive global market. Students learn capital budgeting, capital structure, investment management, and short-term capital management. Our unique method combines a theoretical knowledge of finance with extensive hands-on learning that uses real-life case studies and our state-of-the art computer labs to give students the abilities to be an effective and competent manager in any organization.

Golden Gate University is located at the nexus of finance and technology in San Francisco's business district. As the finance industry rapidly invents new paradigms in the face of economic change, GGU prepares students to be leaders in the global business world. The Masters of Science in Financial Analytics degree will equip you with the business analytics skills you need to address the challenges of today’s technology-intensive finance industry.

The MS in Financial Analytics is a specialized, technical program that provides in-depth exposure to principles and practices of corporate finance and business analytics. You’ll learn programming, data analysis, business valuation and financial modeling. You’ll leave the program with a highly developed and practiced ability to make strategic decisions using the latest tools in technology, data analysis, business and finance.

Our hands-on faculty are leading practitioners in the fields of business, finance, and technology from the Bay Area and beyond. Our current roster of adjunct faculty hold day jobs at Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan, Facebook, BridgeBio, RGB Spectrum, and B. Riley FBR, Inc.

Learning Outcomes

Graduates of the MS in the Financial Analytics degree program will have the knowledge and skills to:

• Evaluate and explain financial decisions regarding the firm’s investment and long- and short-term financing strategies by applying financial theory, quantitative decision-making tools, and analytical methods.
• Apply economic analysis to the firm’s decision-making, considering the impact of markets, institutions, and international trends on these decisions.
• Define and measure business and financial risk. Describe the relationship between risk and return, and distinguish between expected and required returns. Explain how risk affects the valuation of real and financial assets, and describe techniques for managing risk.
• Interpret and analyze individual business problems using data, selecting the best analytic approach and appropriate tools for extracting value from the data available. Use visual outcomes of analytics to communicate effective messages and recommendations for management teams.