Swiss Finance Academy · Course Overview
Investment banking, trading, M&A and corporate finance training.
Swiss Finance Academy teaches the skills that drive careers in high finance: deal structuring, financial modelling, valuation, capital markets and risk discipline. Practitioner-developed, delivered online from Switzerland, and graded to professional standards.
The programs today
Four core programs. Pick the one built for your next step.
Every program is developed by practitioners and ends with a Swiss Finance Academy certificate of completion. Pricing is published on each program page, in US dollars. The flagship programs are by application; the Deal Modules are bought online.
01 · Flagship · from $4,900
Investment Banking Course
Online, six or nine months, graded casework. The same practitioner-developed program at two paces: the six-month track at $4,900, the nine-month track at $5,900 with additional case iterations, suited to candidates balancing study or full-time work.
- DCF, LBO and merger modelling
- Strategic deck and pitch book construction
- Three core modules: capital markets, trading and hedge funds; corporate finance, M&A and deal structuring; financial modelling
- Graded case assessments with practitioner feedback on every deliverable
02 · Flagship · $20,000
Institutional Investors Course
Online, twelve months, applied workshops. Built for careers in asset management, hedge funds, pension funds and sovereign wealth: how the people running large pools of capital think, decide and act.
- Portfolio construction and evaluation frameworks
- Risk analysis across asset classes
- Macro strategy and scenario workshops, drawdown playbooks
- Applied allocation casework, graded throughout
03 · Flagship · from $20,000
Mentorship Program
One-to-one, online, with a senior finance professional matched to your track and goals. Typically eight to twelve sessions over six to twelve months, alongside or independent of a course. Extended tiers are scoped with admissions.
- Dedicated private sessions with feedback on your work between them
- Career strategy guidance, with a mentor matched to your track, performance and long-term goals
- Career services: introductions, coaching and employer events
04 · Self-paced · from $3,900
Investment Banking Deal Modules
Self-paced deal simulations. Each module drops you into a fictional live transaction with the models, the deadline and the judgment call, worked end to end. One-time purchase, lifetime access. All scenarios, names and figures are fictional.
- Glacier Point, a $450M IPO simulation ($3,900)
- Arctic Light, a $17.8B merger simulation ($4,900)
- Project Savanna (LBO), Project Pixelwave (venture capital) and Langford & Cavendish (hedge fund), listed as coming soon
- The complete suite adds a Live Deal week in London
Also available: focused online courses from $3,000, including investment banking foundations, discounted cash flow modelling, comparables-based valuation, M&A and IPOs, private equity, hedge funds, starting your own hedge fund, advanced topics in risk, AI quant and algorithmic trading, and the six-month Advanced Investment Banking Certificate (SFAIBC); and the companion book Private Equity and Advanced Investment Banking: The Sell Side.
What you learn
The subject matter has not changed. The delivery has.
The Academy has always taught the same ground: how capital markets work, how companies are valued and sold, how deals are financed and how risk is managed. Today that curriculum is delivered online, through case work and deal simulations rather than lecture halls.
Capital markets, trading and investing
How international capital markets work by country and asset class; economics, geopolitics and macro cycles; security selection, capital allocation, position building and risk limits; hedge fund strategies from global macro and risk arbitrage to fixed income arbitrage, managed futures and equity hedge.
Corporate finance and M&A
Corporate valuation from invested capital and multiples to sum-of-the-parts; comparables, precedent transactions and discounted cash flow; IPO mechanics, synergy valuation and how banks price and win mandates.
Private equity, venture and leveraged finance
Leveraged buyout structures, debt schedules and credit committees; venture term sheets, cap tables and liquidation waterfalls; debt capital markets and bond issuance, worked end to end in the Deal Modules.
Professional practice
Pitchbook deliverables, model building under time pressure, presenting conclusions, and the interview preparation that turns technical skill into an offer.
Who the programs are for
Ready to walk into interviews with confidence, and with evidence of real technical work.
In banking, private equity or asset management, looking to formalise their skills.
From law, tech or consulting, building a credible finance foundation from the ground up.
Seeking rigorous, practitioner-developed preparation for careers in global finance.
Read the full curriculum → A day in the life → The certificate →
Vision and history
Founded by practitioners who wanted to teach.
Swiss Finance Academy was founded in Verbier, Switzerland by seasoned finance executives who were passionate about teaching, mentoring and coaching, on a straightforward observation: the skills that actually drive careers in high finance were being taught only inside a handful of elite institutions.
For years the Academy ran intensive in-person programs across Switzerland, in Verbier, Crans-Montana and Lugano, and in financial and academic centres including London and Boston. Participants came from universities on every continent; many wrote about the experience on the Academy's alumni blog at the time.
The four photographs above are from this page as it stood in 2008.
The Academy is headquartered and administered in Zürich, Switzerland, and now delivers its programs online to participants around the world. The standard is the same: practitioner-led, deal-level training, graded the way the work is graded inside the firms.
Alumni
In their own words
Ninety-one testimonials written by participants between 2008 and 2015, with their names, photographs and the dates they wrote, are republished on the Academy's alumni site. Three that speak to the teaching:
Read the full testimonial →“I learned investment banking skills in true detail, so that I absorbed deep understanding of processes, not just surface level memorization of how to run a formula.”
Read the full testimonial →“The program was intensive in every aspect, the technical skills taught were advanced and certainly lived up to the training that is received at the Bulge Bracket Investment Banks.”
Read the full testimonial →“Rather than stopping with time value of money and cash flow, the curriculum taught me how investment banks would value a company, and the practical challenges of arriving at a fair purchase price during and M&A deal.”
Next step
Apply, or ask admissions.
Applications are reviewed individually and most programs have limited seats. If you are not sure which program fits, write to admissions with your background and goals.