Rutgers Business School offers busy finance professionals an intense summer session that will leave them turbo-charged, using Excel more efficiently and adopting other proven time-saving techniques to perform their jobs smarter

NEWARK, N.J., July 26, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Rutgers Center for Management Development is offering a program designed to provide financial service professionals with new tools and a splash of enrichment especially tailored to help them perform their jobs more efficiently.

The program focuses heavily on maximizing the value of Excel by teaching participants how to use Solver, an add-in that helps to answer optimization problems, such as selecting a portfolio that maximizes risk-adjusted returns. It will also help participants to master key stroke techniques, or "hot keys'' to perform Excel tasks more quickly.

"It will make the typical person more efficient – and smarter," said John Longo, a clinical associate professor of finance and economics at Rutgers Business School.  The program, which will be taught by Longo and other Rutgers faculty, is aptly named Turbo-Charged Financial Analyst.

Designed for anyone who works with financial statements, uses Excel or follows the financial markets, the program offers sophisticated and practical time-saving techniques.

Longo will also teach techniques and tips adapted from best-selling business books such as Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and modified specifically for financial professionals.

"Most people don't say I have a lot of time. They say I'm so busy," Longo said. "If you're busy, this is something you can do to work faster and smarter."

The Center for Management Development, which has scheduled the Turbo-Charged Financial Analyst program for next month, provides niche training and enrichment to working professionals and executives. The center's current offerings range from intense, week-long Mini-MBA programs in finance, biopharma entrepreneurship and digital marketing to workshops in leadership development and employment law.

Rutgers Business School and the School of Management and Labor Relations are putting renewed support behind the Center for Management Development, including helping to match the expertise of more of their faculty with programs that center administrators identify as being in demand.

"It's important for us to offer something that's unique," the center's new Executive Director William Castellano said in a recent interview. "Building our brand by partnering with our faculty and leveraging our research," he said, "is the way to do that."

The Turbo-charged Financial Analyst Program will be offered at Rutgers Business School's Newark Campus over two consecutive Saturdays, Aug. 10 and Aug. 17. Both programs will run from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

"There's a lot of information packed into these two days," Longo said. "It is very focused on giving someone new skills and techniques they can take into their offices the next day."

"It's a great use of someone's time," he said.

Longo, who is chief investment officer of a $1.5 billion asset management firm and a director on several corporate boards in addition to his role as professor, said the program evolved out of his own desire to be more productive.

The program is approved by the state Department of Labor for workforce training grants, so funding may be available for individuals receiving unemployment benefits.

SOURCE Rutgers Business School