It is an exciting time to be in International Finance. Finance is at the heart of every business activity. It is also the impetus behind widespread technological development that is interconnecting markets worldwide, changing the business world, and changing Finance along with it. There are new business models, new financial products and services to support them, new ways to deliver them, and new financial models to understand and direct all of these. And yet as technology and Finance continue to develop and evolve in novel ways, the core principles remain the same. It is easy to forget the basics in the midst of the new developments, but then we end up in crises. Examples would include the dot-com bubble around 2000 when we thought companies no longer needed cash flows or profitability; the 2008 global crisis where we thought house prices will always go up; the recent geopolitical tensions and the pandemic, external factors which have affected the economy severely enough that temporary solutions proposed now include negative or zero interest rate policies, and even a modern monetary theory with potentially unlimited money.

So what is finance? The simple view is that finance is about making money. And everyone wants more money. A little thought will show that it is about making money by creating value. If money were unlimited, we would all be rich and also poor because no one would need to create anything useful to earn money.

We can make money by creating some product or service and selling it. We could establish a company for this. Of course we would need money to operate the company, and money is limited and costly. How much money the company needs, where to obtain it, and how to allocate it to different activities such as marketing to promote our product, research to improve it, and new manufacturing facilities to produce it more efficiently,  all these decisions come under Corporate Finance.

On the other hand if you already have some money, you could invest it in companies and then get a return on your investment. How much money to invest in which companies or assets, and whether to lend it or to obtain equity, such questions are under Investments and Portfolio Management.

The two sides meet in financial markets where buyers and sellers of funding come together in a competitive environment and determine the optimal distribution given supply and demand for financial resources, helping reduce the costs of funds for companies while reducing the risk for investors. As conditions change and new information is revealed to the markets, so does the optimal balance point. Billions of dollars change hands every day as investors buy and sell in response to such news and market movements 24/7, in global markets.

So it is exciting to be a part of finance when technology has created new industries, new business models, and innovative financial products that help us reduce risk and increase our returns while being able to access global markets. Today the competition for obtaining, or providing funds is on a global scale. We should be able to research and add African corporate bonds, and options for companies listed in New York, to our portfolio as easily as buying a stock on the Istanbul stock exchange. We can borrow in dollars at lower rates, but then as companies learnt recently if our earnings are in TL we can get in trouble if the exchange rate fluctuates. A trade dispute between the US and China can both disrupt our markets, and provide new opportunities for our companies. In today's world it is impossible to fully understand technological, economic, and geopolitical trends and developments, be they local or global, without an appreciation of the financial motivations of actors in global markets.

Turkish financial managers are used to dealing with rapid changes, and many international companies have found this expertise useful when faced with fast-changing conditions and crises in the recent past. Our program is designed to equip you to fulfill the needs of a variety of local and global financial institutions in areas such as banking, insurance, auditing, investments and civil-service; as well as for corporate management in all sectors.

Finance may evoke many images but in the end it is about people, our society, and what we make of the world we live in. We also hope you will use what you learn and experience here to be an active part of change on the global stage, to help us create a better system where we not only generate more wealth but do so in a way that preserves our planet and perhaps distributes the benefits more equitably.