How Finance Works

“If you’re intimidated by all things finance and accounting, How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart About the Numbers will give you the confidence you’ve been lacking.” — Small Business Trends (smallbiztrends.com)

Advance Praise for How Finance Works:

Helen Riley, Chief Financial Officer, Google X–“Mihir’s book provides the perfect combination of intuitive explanations, contemporary examples, and rigor so that both finance pros and novices can truly enhance their capabilities.”

Marne Levine, Chief Operating Officer, Instagram–“Informative and engaging, this book … is a must-read for business students and aspiring business leaders–or anyone looking to deepen their understanding of finance.”

Sarah Kauss, founder and CEO, S’well–“Professor Mihir Desai’s advice–both practical and witty–was an inspiration when I was a student at Harvard Business School… I’m thrilled that he’s written this book so that even more people can benefit from his wisdom!”

Aswath Damodaran, Professor of Finance, NYU Stern School of Business; author, The Little Book of Valuation–“Mihir Desai’s book on how finance works is masterful at laying bare the simple truths and the commonsense principles that underlie much of finance… readers, no matter what their background or interests, will come out more informed and enlightened by the journey.”

David Wolfson, Executive Director, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy–“For anyone who wants to be able to utilize financial information… How Finance Works provides clarity and guidance to what can be, for many, an intimidating arena.”

Michael Jaff, MD, President, Newton-Wellesley Hospital–“Finally, someone has provided a mechanism for gaining intuition about finance for those of us who deliberately avoided any financial studies in school.”

Cyrus Taraporevala, President and CEO, State Street Global Advisors–“Professor Desai has accomplished a rare feat: transforming the typically complex and often dry subject of finance into a lively and accessible tour de force, without trivializing its importance.”

Jennifer Morgan, President, Americas and Asia Pacific Japan, SAP–“Mihir manages to make finance fun and accessible–and, by the end of it, you’ll have the confidence, intuition, and understanding you need to succeed as a leader or executive in any organization.”

Mihir Desai is the Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School and a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. An award-winning teacher and a leading scholar of corporate finance and tax policy, Professor Desai has been educating varied student populations for nearly twenty years, including senior executives from around the world, MBA students, undergraduates, and lawyers. Professor Desai has published more than 25 case studies and a casebook, and he has testified before the US Congress on policy issues. He is the author of Wisdom of Finance (2017), which was long-listed for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.