The Securities Institute is to offer a Master of Applied Finance and Investment course from July onwards for what it terms Australia’s “finance elite”.
Only 30 places in Sydney and Melbourne will be made available in each of the course’s subjects this year.
However, managing director Roslyn Allan says: “The expertise developed in these classes will help shape decision making in our top board rooms for many years to come.”
The Institute is the first industry-specific provider to receive government approval to provide such a course without direct university association.
According to the Institute’s national educational manager Tim Sheehy, the course is also unique in that it has direct practitioner involvement in its design and development.
An independent committee has been established with a wide ranging brief to ensure the Masters achieves its maximum potential.
Among its members are Bob Officer, deputy director and AMP professor of finance at the Melbourne Business School, Chris Caton, chief economist and executive vice president of Bankers Trust Australia, Macquarie Investment Managements’ Phillip Dolan and GMO executive director Jack Gray.
Sheehy says the course was developed after independent research confirmed the Institute as the tertiary educator of choice in the finance and investment sector.
He expects the course to be of interest to people in the wholesale part of the financial services industry, especially those in funds management, treasury or corporate finance.
While applicants from other “pathways” will be accepted, the course is designed for people who have completed a relevant degree, as well as well as the Institute’s graduate diploma in Applied Finance, and who have three or four years of relevant experience in the finance industry.
