Cancel Preloader

What You'll Learn

Present a proposal to executives in the terms they already think in,Read a business model and say where your work sits inside its economics,Build and defend a budget
and prove the return on a decision with numbers,Choose the metrics a chief executive
an investor and a board each actually want,Structure an argument so the ask lands before the audience stops listening,Use listening
empathy and admitting error as instruments of credibility rather than as manners,Design communication aimed at behaviour
and measure whether conduct changed,Facilitate a senior group to a decision with named owners
not to a discussion,Learn alongside Mikes 1.6 million students from 185 countries,Get the authors experience from Preply
Wargaming
iDeals and Alfa-Bank

Requirements

Regular contact with people more senior than you
in any function,No finance background required. The finance block starts from the business model,Willingness to rebuild an argument you believed was already convincing,English at intermediate level or above
since all lessons are in English,A real proposal you need approved
ideally one that has already been declined once

Description

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

The proposal was correct. The analysis held up. It was declined anyway, or deferred, which amounts to the same thing by the end of the quarter.

Senior people rarely reject a good idea. They reject an idea presented in a currency they do not use.

Why competent people stall at this level

You describe the work; they are listening for the economics. You present a benefit; they need a number they can compare against three other requests. You bring a problem and an analysis and no financial framing, so the whole thing reads as a preference rather than a case.

Then a colleague with a weaker argument gets approved, because they opened with what it costs, what it returns, and by when.

Language, then arithmetic

Thirty-nine lessons. Seven on the shift from speaking for a function to speaking for the business: what the world-class version of that role looks like, building strategy embedded in business priorities, presenting data at board level, which metrics a chief executive and an investor each want, leading transformation, and the trusted advisor relationship where you become the person a chief executive thinks aloud with.

Then twelve on business finance. The operating model, business modelling, how models evolve from start-up to corporation, process inefficiency, goal-setting people believe, the strategy pyramid, budgeting that supports decisions, indicators across four dimensions, Lean Six Sigma, scaling and what follows efficiency. That is a third of the course, and it is deliberate: you cannot argue in a language you do not speak.

Credibility, communication and the room

Then eight on the person making the argument, because at this level the message and the messenger are not separable. Active listening as technique, empathy, navigation, influence, courage, integrity, networking before you need it, advising people who did not ask, and admitting an error out loud — which costs far less than defending one and buys more than any slide.

Then six treating communication as a designed process: audit, goals aimed at decisions, segmenting an audience by what each person is measured on, channel choice, delivering unwelcome news, and measuring whether behaviour changed.

And six on facilitation, which is the difference between a senior meeting that discusses and one that decides: choosing who is in the room, opening properly, holding focus, prioritising, assigning owners, handling the participant who challenges everything, and closing with something agreed.

Who is teaching this

Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy. More than 1.6 million course enrolments, over 150,000 professionals trained, PHRi and SHRM-CP certified, HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. I built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals, presenting to boards that had no obligation to be interested.

What is included

Lifetime access to all course materials
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
Udemy Certificate of Completion
Practical assignments and real business cases
A section with additional courses, tools and resources

A test for your next proposal

Take the last thing you proposed and write the single sentence a chief financial officer would use to describe it. If you cannot, that is why it stalled — and it is a language problem rather than a merit problem, which makes it fixable. Enrol now and start the first lesson today.

Who this course is for:

Function heads who present to a board and can feel the room drift,Specialists whose proposals are correct and keep being deferred,Managers moving into a role where the audience is permanently senior to them,Consultants and internal advisors whose diagnosis is right and whose mandate is thin,Heads of support functions who must justify spend in commercial terms,Anyone who is fluent in their own discipline and vague in the language of money,People preparing for an executive role
where communication becomes most of the job