Private Equity and Venture Capital

As the global economy sputters, credit is frozen, and institutional investors seek to reduce their total equity exposure, private equity firms must be as attuned to controlling new risks as they are in pursuing new opportunities. This program helps you master the innovative approaches required to adapt best practices to meet today's unprecedented investment challenges, successfully manage through the current downturn, and emerge better equipped to thrive in the global economy over the long term.

What You Can Expect
Designed to help improve your effectiveness at all stages of a deal, the program examines the critical aspects of investing, such as negotiation strategy, organizational structure, and portfolio management. You will learn how to refine your deal-making approach, enhance your investment expertise, and seize fleeting opportunities.

Your Course of Study
Immersed in compelling lectures and discussions, you and your peers will explore real-world challenges faced by investors, as well as the art of building a successful investment strategy. Through a hands-on team exercise in managing an investment portfolio, you will hone essential analytical and decision-making skills.

Who Is Right for the Program
Suited for executives with considerable investment industry experience, the program brings together a stimulating mix of executives, including general partners and principals of private equity and venture capital firms, limited partners, as well as professionals providing services to the industry.

Dates and Fees

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What You Can Expect

Today's global recession, turbulent equity markets, and a credit crisis felt around the world challenge even recently successful investment strategies. To maintain sound judgment and discipline that will sustain your portfolio, you must be able to adapt and apply innovative investment approaches in a rapidly changing market.

Private Equity and Venture Capital helps you become a more successful investor by raising your level of investment expertise. Addressing the full range of industry models—from venture capital to growth equity to buyouts—the program explores critical issues related to industry infrastructure, portfolio strategies, and decision-making processes. This HBS Executive Education program is designed to help you:

• Evaluate the impact of market cycles so you can persevere through the current downturn and take advantage of opportunities with the most potential
• Apply best practices for making investments—within your borders and in other countries
• Assess opportunities in distressed and/or emerging industries
• Make better investment decisions by examining how current earnings, risk and organizational change influence deal source, valuation, and portfolio mix
• Move quickly to select the best deals and negotiate the best terms with confidence
• Monitor the progress of portfolio companies and choose appropriate exit strategies
• Successfully scale your firm by managing deals and integrating operations across multiple locations
• Expand your network by building strong relationships with other experienced industry leaders

The program's structure fosters close interaction among participants, providing opportunities to build valuable personal relationships that may have enduring value throughout their careers.

How Will My Organization Benefit?

Executive Education programs at Harvard Business School are a significant investment for both you and your organization. Going far beyond the basic transmission of skills and theories, each leadership development program provides applicable lessons in the classroom that can be implemented successfully within your organization. You will acquire a fresh perspective on global business from our groundbreaking curriculum, world-renowned faculty, and an accomplished group of elite peers from around the world.

"This was a great opportunity to explore every aspect of private equity. Again and again, the HBS faculty used their phenomenal knowledge to take the discussion to a deeper level and quickly bring us up a steep learning curve. The program boosted my confidence, expanded my influence, and introduced me to people who have been helpful to multiple projects in my business—I now feel connected to business leaders around the world."
Lubna Pathan [Senior Principal], Abu Dhabi Investment House, United Arab Emirates

Your Course of Study

Through lectures, group discussions, case studies, and a hands-on exercise, you will develop a new perspective on the multifaceted issues that investors face amidst current economic uncertainty and through more stable market cycles. Engaging in robust debates and practical exercises will strengthen your problem-solving and decision-making skills. As a result, you will return to your company better prepared to formulate an effective investment strategy, raise needed capital, and facilitate productive deal-making.

Program elements include:

Private Equity Game Simulation

Crafted by veteran venture capitalist Professor G. Felda Hardymon and colleagues, this multiyear simulation enables you and your team to sharpen diverse skill sets as you compete with peers:

• Discover the best deals in a selected industry sector
• Evaluate potential investments and negotiate terms
• Compete with other teams to finance the best opportunities
• Explore the risks and rewards of using debt to enhance returns
• Establish the ideal investing scenario for each company
• Build the reputation of your team's "firm" and the value of its fund over time

Private Equity Globalization

Today, capital flows freely across both national and regional boundaries. While exploring the dynamics of global capital and global companies, you will improve your ability to:

• Manage a multinational fund versus one run from a single office
• Adjust your investment strategies for the varying demand-and-supply dynamics of different countries and regions
• Assess the impact of traditional management practices and the localization of investments
• Anticipate exit difficulties and other risks

Emerging Markets

New high-growth markets bring a wealth of opportunities, but often require a different investment style. As you delve into the complexities of emerging market investments, you will learn how to:

• Identify new funding opportunities
• Embrace earlier-stage investments
• Understand the vast differences between fundraising and investing efforts
• Make decisions that recognize the distinct financial and cultural aspects of a country or region

The Implications of Both Firm and Fund Size

Are your investment strategies aligned with the size of your firm and your fund? Addressing the unique challenges faced by firms at different stages of growth, the program helps you to:

• Understand how the size of your firm or fund affects the perceptions of investors, target-company managers and owners, as well as the broader investment community
• Explore how firm and fund size can influence deal sourcing and selection, enterprise valuation, portfolio mix, and the management of portfolio companies

"Private Equity and Venture Capital broadened my thinking on issues such as portfolio management, while stimulating my thought processes on the organizational options within a venture management firm."
Aidan Langan [Chief Executive Officer], Enterprise Equity, Ltd., Ireland

Who Is Right for the Program

Private Equity and Venture Capital is designed for individuals with considerable investment industry experience. To facilitate discussion from all sides of an issue, HBS selects a diverse mix of accomplished professionals. Typical participants include, but are not limited to:

• General partners and junior partners of private equity and venture capital firms
• Principals from the limited partner community who invest in private equity and venture capital firms
• Chief investment officers, investment principals, and investment managers or directors
• Asset managers
• Entrepreneurs in the process of receiving and/or structuring capital funds

The class will accept a few professional intermediaries providing banking, accounting, legal, and other advisory services to the industry.

Visit the admissions section for details about our application process.

Past Participant Nationalities Represented:

2%		Africa	8%		Latin America
9%		Asia	4%		Middle East
4%		Australia/NZ	33%		North America
36%		Europe	4%		Other

Participating Companies Have Included:

ABN AMRO Bank Black Horse Investments Blue Spring Partners LLC Cisco Systems Citadel Capital Credit Suisse Securities Limited Dubai Capital Group Fidelity Ventures Globis Capital Partners HSBC IDFC Private Equity Limited

Kegonsa Capital Partners, LLC Mandarin Capital Partners Mediobanca MTI Partners Ltd. National Industries Group Holding New World China Enterprises Projects Ltd. Pfizer, Inc. Scottish Equity Partners Vantage Point Venture Partners

Meet the Program Faculty

Private Equity and Venture Capital is developed and taught by a core faculty of Harvard Business School professors, who are widely recognized as authorities in their fields, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors.

Through publishing, consulting, and teaching, HBS faculty leverage their industry expertise and field-based research to create new knowledge and enduring concepts that shape the practices of finance and investing-and are often taught at other leading business schools worldwide. The result is a teaching team that exposes participants to multiple perspectives on private equity and venture capital, challenging their thinking and encouraging new practices that result in superior business leadership. For more detailed biographies, click on each faculty name.