This monologue podcast is a lecture on financial modeling, delivered by Tim Benson, a reformed investment banker and instructor. The lecture introduces the course syllabus, which includes participation, a Financial Modeling Institute (FMI) Foundations course (worth 5% of the grade), and a final exam. Benson emphasizes the importance of building models that work both electronically (efficient, easy to understand) and on paper (printable, presentable to senior executives). He highlights key modeling attributes (dynamic, flexible, intuitive, printable, transparent, transferable) and provides practical tips, such as avoiding hard-coding and using keyboard shortcuts. The lecture concludes with an assignment focusing on building the first few pages of a financial model for a case study company, Medallion Moldings, using specific Excel skills like custom number formatting and the concatenate function.
