Real Financial Skills Through Hands-On Mentorship
Learning financial forecasting isn't about memorizing formulas. It's about understanding how businesses actually make decisions — and that takes real guidance from people who've done the work.
Our teaching approach centres on active mentorship and practical application. You'll work directly with financial professionals who've built forecasting models for Australian SMEs, mining operations, and tech startups. They'll show you what works, what doesn't, and why.
Classes start in August 2025 for our next intake. We keep groups small because good teaching needs actual conversation.
How We Actually Teach Forecasting
We don't lecture at you for three hours then send you off with a textbook. Our instructors sit with you while you build models from scratch.
Each session follows a pattern: short explanation, then you work on real data while instructors move around the room. When you hit a wall — and you will — someone's there to talk through it. Not to do it for you, but to ask the questions that help you figure it out.
"I learned more in two weeks of building models with feedback than I did in a year of watching tutorials online. Having someone point out why my assumptions were off made everything click." — Elspeth Ridgewell, completed February 2024
This approach works because forecasting is as much about judgment as calculation. You learn judgment by making mistakes with someone there to explain what went wrong.
Who's Teaching You
Our instructors aren't just teachers — they're working financial professionals who've spent years building forecasts that companies actually used to make million-dollar decisions.
Industry Background
Each instructor has at least eight years working in financial planning, treasury operations, or business intelligence. They've seen forecasts succeed and fail in real conditions.
Practical Focus
They teach the shortcuts and workarounds that actually matter. The stuff you only learn by doing the work under pressure — managing incomplete data, dealing with stakeholders who change requirements, building flexibility into models.
Direct Communication
Our instructors treat you like a colleague they're training, not a student in a lecture hall. They'll challenge your assumptions and expect you to defend your decisions — because that's how you learn to think critically.
Australian Context
They understand local business conditions, regulatory requirements, and the specific forecasting challenges Australian companies face. Your examples come from businesses operating here.
Technical Depth
These aren't surface-level practitioners. They can explain the mathematical foundations when you need them, but they focus on teaching you what to build and why, not just how to use software.
Ongoing Mentorship
Instructors remain available after classes end for questions about your work. Many former students still reach out months later when they hit tricky problems.
Learning Alongside Other Professionals
You won't be working in isolation. Our cohorts mix people from different industries — retail, agriculture, professional services, manufacturing — because comparing approaches across sectors teaches you more than any single perspective could.
Small Group Dynamics
We cap classes at 14 people. This isn't arbitrary — it's the largest group where everyone can contribute meaningfully to discussions. When someone shares how they forecast seasonal demand in retail, you'll actually remember it because you talked through their approach together.
Peer Review Sessions
Every second week, you'll review another student's work and they'll review yours. This isn't about grading — it's about learning to spot issues in forecasting logic. You'll see mistakes in others' models that you'd miss in your own, then recognize those same patterns when you make them.
Real Problem Solving
Group projects use anonymized data from actual businesses facing forecasting challenges. Your cohort will debate approaches, test different methodologies, and present findings. These discussions often run past scheduled time because people get genuinely invested in solving the problem.
Professional Network
The people you learn with often become long-term professional contacts. Alumni regularly mention that having someone to call when facing a forecasting challenge — someone who learned the same framework — has been as valuable as the technical skills themselves.
Join Our Next Cohort
We're accepting applications now for programs starting August 2025. Classes run Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 6:30-9:00pm, over twelve weeks. Most students report spending an additional 4-6 hours weekly on practice exercises.
Our approach isn't for everyone. If you prefer self-paced online learning or large lecture formats, you might find this structure frustrating. But if you learn best through active practice with expert guidance, this is probably the most efficient way to build real forecasting capability.
Applications close June 15, 2025. We review submissions on a rolling basis.