Month 1 – Intro to statements & cash flow April 22

Led by  Lloyd Bell, Director Corporate Finance Group from Meaden & Moore

Goals:

• Understand income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement and how they connect.​

• See why profit ≠ cash and identify cash‑flow red flags.​

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Month 2 – Budgets & budget management May 20

Led by experts from Huntington Bank

Goals:

• Build a simple annual budget linked to key drivers (sales, capacity, headcount).​

• Learn to track actual vs budget and respond to variances.​

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Month 3 – Risk management June 24

Led by experts from Lockton

Goals:

• Identify key financial and operational risks and prioritize them.​

• Connect risks to mitigation tools (cash reserves, insurance, contracts, diversification).​

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Month 4 – Talking to the bank & financing basics August 26

Led by  Erin Ressa, Business Banking Relationship Manager from KeyBank

Goals:

• Understand what lenders and investors look for in financials and behavior.​

• Practice telling a clear, credible financial story when asking for money.​​

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Month 5 – Tax planning September 23

Led by experts from Clark Schaefer Hackett

Goals:

• Understand the difference between tax preparation and year‑round tax planning.​

• Identify a few practical planning opportunities with advisors (timing of purchases, entity choice discussion, recordkeeping).​​

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Month 6 – Strategic analysis or business valuation October 21

Led by Darren Cherry from FocusCFO

Option A – Strategic financial analysis

Goals:

• Turn financial statements into a small set of actionable performance insights.​

• Link strategy (pricing, product mix, capacity, cost structure) to financial outcomes.​

Option B – Business valuation

Goals:

• Understand basic valuation ideas: earnings, risk, and multiples.​

• Get a rough sense of what drives their own business value up or down.​