u/tigertan

I’m weighing up the London Business School Finance for Non-Finance Executives programme and keen to hear from people with firsthand experience.

The current fee is £9,300 (~€11,000 / ~$11,800 USD), which is a significant personal investment for a 5.5-day programme. The curriculum covers interpreting financial accounts, management accounting, project appraisals, and shareholder value analysis, which all align with where I’m trying to grow.

For context: I’m 35, Senior Technical Program Manager with an engineering background in robotics, no formal finance training, and focused on closing that gap as I move toward more senior leadership. If you’ve done it: was it worth the money? Did it genuinely shift how you engage with financial conversations at a senior level? Any honest reflections appreciated, including what it didn’t cover well.

Every time I see this topic come up on Reddit the answer is the same: don’t do an EMBA or executive courses unless your company pays. But honestly, has anyone in Europe actually had that happen? Because I’ve never seen it or heard of it from anyone I know.

I’m a senior TPM in tech and robotics, been at it about a decade, and I’m trying to make a real push toward executive leadership. I’d eventually love to do an EMBA but taking out a loan for it is a tough sell to myself. So I’ve been looking at shorter courses, and even those are wild. I just got accepted onto an executive finance course I’m genuinely excited about, and it’s around ten thousand euros for six days. Six days. I nearly choked when I saw it.

So how did people here actually climb? Did you pay out of pocket, did a company actually sponsor you, or did you find a different route entirely? And if you did one of these short courses, was it actually worth it?

I’m a senior TPM with about a decade across manufacturing, FAANG, and robotics in Europe, making a deliberate push toward executive leadership. Trying to figure out if an EMBA or executive short courses are worth it, or whether they matter less than people think.

The honest answer is I want the whole package: finance, leading without authority, strategic thinking, the things an EMBA covers. But I’m not sure if the full programme is the only way to get there, or whether targeted short courses at places like INSEAD or LBS can add up to the same thing at a fraction of the cost.

Has anyone made this call? Did the qualification open doors, or did it matter less than you expected?

Trying to figure out whether an EMBA or targeted executive short courses make more sense for someone aiming at C-suite or senior leadership roles. Would love to hear from people who’ve actually made that call.

Background: I’m a senior technical program manager with around a decade across manufacturing and FAANG in Europe, on the robotics side. I’ve hit a point where the next level of growth means moving beyond program delivery into genuine executive leadership, so I’m making a deliberate move to get there.

I’ve been looking at short executive courses (INSEAD, LBS, IMD) and the costs are higher than I expected, which has me questioning whether the ROI logic actually flips in favour of an EMBA at a certain price point. The short courses feel more targeted and faster, but I’m not sure they carry the same weight with boards or investors. The EMBA feels like a bigger bet but also a more complete signal.

One thing I keep coming back to is finance specifically. I know it’s a gap for someone targeting executive roles and I’m genuinely curious about it, but the short course pricing is hard to justify when some options run thousands of euros for six days. I don’t want a full specialised degree in finance either. Is there a middle ground that actually builds real capability without the full EMBA commitment or a standalone masters?