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Rotman @ Slingshot
Business Essentials
Branksome Hall’s Slingshot Innovation Academy, in partnership with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, is pleased to offer for the first time this dynamic introduction to business. Through real-world projects, company visits and Rotman’s signature case-based learning, participants gain the skills, confidence and academic readiness to excel in future business studies and beyond.
Business Essentials fosters academic readiness by introducing participants to the learning methods, expectations and terminology commonly used in business education. Through exposure to the teaching style of leading business schools, such as case analysis, analytical frameworks and collaborative problem-solving, participants develop the skills and mindset essential for success in future university-level business studies.
key information
Ready to lead the way? Let's make it happen!
18-Week Program
(co-ed for students in Grades 9–11)
Bring Your Own Device. For more information, please see our FAQs below.
Program Dates
Tuesday, November 3, 2026–Tuesday, April 27, 2027
Schedule & Timing
Sessions run weekly on Tuesdays from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m.
Please note: Regular weekly scheduling will include planned adjustments/breaks for holidays (including the winter holiday break and March Break).
Location
12 weeks at Branksome Hall Campus, including sessions in our new iCAST building
5 weeks at Rotman School of Management (U of T)
1 week off-site for experiential learning
Program Fee / Price
$4,100
Key Focus Areas
- Core economic principles: supply and demand, opportunity cost, market equilibrium
- Key macroeconomic indicators: GDP, inflation, unemployment
- Connecting economic concepts to everyday life and current events
- Key financial statements and their components
- Basic accounting concepts applied to simple business scenarios
- The role of accounting in decision-making
- Financial concepts and the role of finance in business
- Fundamentals of investment and risk
- Tools to assess investment scenarios
- Leveraging financial simulations to manage risks and identify opportunities
- How businesses use analytics and AI to make decisions
- Real-world examples of analytics and AI applications
- Hands-on activities using basic analytics tools
- Purpose and function of marketing
- Marketing concepts in business campaign activities
- How brands connect with target audiences
- Key traits and mindsets of successful entrepreneurs
- The entrepreneurial journey: from idea generation to execution
- Applying design thinking as a structured approach to innovation
- Role of strategic thinking in business success
- Key leadership traits and styles
- Application of strategy and leadership to real-world scenarios
- Techniques for building genuine professional connections and expanding a network
- Preparing for and navigating interviews with confidence and clarity
- Crafting a personal pitch and professional online presence
- Practicing communication skills through mock interviews and networking exercises
Program Features
Company Visit & Experiential Learning
Students are immersed in real-world business environments, fostering critical observation and practical insight.
Connect theoretical concepts with real-world applications, develop professional communication and inquiry skills, and understand basic business functions and operations in practice.
Capstone Project
Collaborate in teams to integrate and apply everything you've learned across the program.
Address real-world business challenges, present findings through professional reports and presentations, and reflect on team dynamics and individual development.
Program Outcomes
What you'll walk away with. Plus a certificate credential for your LinkedIn profile—and the readiness for future university-level business studies.
01
Understand and apply fundamental concepts across key business disciplines.
02
Analyze external and internal factors influencing business decisions.
03
Interpret and use data to support strategic and operational choices.
04
Communicate ideas effectively in professional and team settings.
05
Connect theory to practice through real-world exposure and project work.
06
Develop strategic thinking and leadership skills for real-world challenges.
Where You'll LEARN
iCAST (12 weeks)
Branksome Hall's innovation hub for hands-on collaborative sessions.
Rotman School of Management (5 weeks)
Case-based classes on the University of Toronto campus.
Bay Street Offsite Visit (1 week)
Experiential learning in Toronto's financial district.
Instructors
Rajeev Chib
Dr. Chib is a 30-Year Global Capital Markets Leader. As CIBC's Capital Markets Technology COO/Senior Business Manager, Dr. Chib orchestrates resource strategies to optimize team utilization and drive successful business initiatives. Previously, he was Citi Asia's CAO for Financial Institutions Sales and Solutions in Hong Kong, and leveraged deep expertise to lead teams and innovate for global clients.
Dr. Chib's specializes in operational excellence and his team deploys cutting-edge tools to enhance productivity. Recognized for strategic vision and collaborative leadership, his 30-year track-record has driven success at premier institutions worldwide.
Rajeev Chib
Walid Hejazi
Walid Hejazi is a Professor of Economic Analysis and Policy at the Rotman School of Management, Fellow of the Michael Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Citizenship, and member of the Board of Directors of the David & Sharon Johnston Centre for Corporate Governance Innovation. His research focuses on the development of strategies which enhance the ability of companies to compete in domestic and global marketplaces. He has worked closely with many companies to develop and implement innovative strategies, with a particular focus on the role of leaders in preparing those companies to lead strategic change. He has also worked extensively with Canadian and foreign governments on the development of policies around foreign investment and international trade and has testified extensively before parliamentary and senate committees. He teaches in Rotman’s MBA, EMBA and custom executive programs, and has delivered lectures in over 30 countries, and is a frequent commentator in the media.
Walid Hejazi
Scott Liao
Scott Liao is a Professor of Accounting and Vice-Dean, Undergraduate and Specialized Programs at Rotman. His research interests include agency problems in debt markets, banking regulation, and economic consequences of financial reporting and disclosure.
He has published papers in leading journals such as Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research and Management Science. His teaching is focused on financial accounting and data analytics. He is an editor at Contemporary Accounting Research.
Scott Liao
Tom McCurdy
Tom McCurdy holds the Bonham Chair in International Finance and is a Professor of Finance at Rotman. He founded the Financial Research and Trading Lab in 1999, funded by a research grant from the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund (ORDCF). In 2013, thanks to the financial support of BMO, the Lab was expanded and renamed the BMO Financial Group Finance Research and Trading Lab. Tom has received best research paper and teaching awards, has been an invited and keynote speaker at international conferences, an Associate Fellow at the CIRANO Research Institute (Montreal), and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Financial Econometrics. Recent research publications include: textual analyses for linking jumps in stock returns to firm-specific news; probabilistic modeling of regime changes during the COVID-19 crisis; nonlinear pricing kernels for jump and crash risk; forecasting correlations; real-time identification of structural breaks; and the pedagogy of simulation-based learning. As the co-founder of the RIT Market Simulator package, his instructional development work includes co-authoring more than fifty simulation-based-learning cases designed to practice financial decision making. These cases are being used by many universities and companies around the globe and for our extra-curricular events and competitions, including the annual international (RITC), European (RETC) and Korean (RUTC) competitions. Tom currently teaches in the MBA, Master of Finance, Master of Financial Risk Management and Commerce Programs.
Tom McCurdy
John Oesch
John Oesch is an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream. He is currently teaching in MBA and Executive MBA programs, as well as several Rotman Executive Programs. His teaching interests are in the areas of decision making, negotiation, and change leadership. He has research interests in the areas of decision making, managerial negotiations and organizational justice. His publication record includes the Journal of Business Venturing, Social Justice Research, Games and Economic Behavior, and Organization Science.
John Oesch
Wendy Rotenberg
Wendy Rotenberg is a Professor of Finance and Accounting at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management. She has taught several Finance related courses in the MMPA program since its inception, including Integration & Professional Decision Making Initiatives, Financial Management and Introduction to Corporate Finance.
Wendy earned her PhD in Management with a major in Finance, MBA with a focus on Finance, and B.A. with a major in Economics, all from the University of Toronto. She became a Full Professor in 2004 at the University of Toronto, where she has taught several Finance and Accounting courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Wendy has been a Board Member of the Multinational Finance Society since 2009, and Associate Editor for the Multinational Finance Journal since 2013.
Wendy has 40 peer reviewed publications, reports, presentations, and other papers. She has served as an ad-hoc referee for submissions to multiple conferences and academic journals.
Wendy Rotenberg
Avni Shah
Professor Avni Shah is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the Department of Management at the University of Toronto Scarborough, with a cross-appointment to the Marketing area at the Rotman School of Management. She is also the Academic Director, Creative Destruction Lab - Toronto.
Using field and laboratory data, Avni investigates how payment influences consumer decision-making and consumer well-being, particularly in financial and health contexts. Her research has covered a broad range of topics such as looking at how paying with different forms of payment influence purchase behaviour and how paying a surcharge on unhealthy food items influences unhealthy food consumption.
Avni's work has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, and Psychological Science.
Avni Shah
Gerhard Trippen
Gerhard Trippen is an Associate Professor, Operations Management and Statistics, and the Academic Director of Master of Management Analytics at the Rotman School of Management, with a cross-appointment to the University of Toronto Mississauga.
Gerhard teaches Machine Learning Analytics in the MMA program, and electives in the MBA program: Data and Information Management for Business Analytics and Modelling and Optimization for Decision Making. Gerhard earned his PhD in Computer Science from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Gerhard Trippen
Freeda Bukhari Khan
Freeda Bukhari Khan, PhD, is an educator, researcher and practitioner specializing in global leadership, cultural intelligence, intercultural competence and diversity, equity and inclusion. She earned her PhD from the University of Toronto, where her research investigated cultural intelligence development in business students and its implications as a leadership competency. She is a qualified administrator of the Cultural Intelligence (CQ) Assessment and the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).
Freeda has more than twenty years of experience in higher education, working with undergraduate and graduate students in international education and career development. She has developed international partnerships, managed global education initiatives and led experiential learning programs in over 30 countries. She is also an expert in career management, having worked with students on networking, brand building and connecting with Canada’s top employers.
She currently teaches at the University of Toronto and has taught courses in global leadership, cross-cultural management, diversity, equity and inclusion to build leadership and managerial capabilities. She is also the Country Director for STAR Scholars Network, a global community of scholars shaping a humane world through connections and research.
Freeda Bukhari Khan
The Cohort
2025-26 Business Essentials participants with Rotman faculty and program staff.
About Rotman
The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is one of the world’s top business schools, recognized for its innovative curriculum, globally renowned faculty, and distinctive approach to problem-solving and leadership.
FAQs
Innovative and curious minds in Grades 9–11 in the 2026-27 academic year who have an interest in business, entrepreneurship and/or leadership will benefit from this program. The curriculum emphasizes essential business concepts, critical thinking, collaboration and effective communication, integrating classroom learning with experiential components such as company visits and project work.
Classes will be held weekly, most on Tuesday evenings. Please see the full schedule here. It is recommended that students attend all classes for maximum benefit from the program. If you must miss a class, students are responsible for catching up on the materials missed. If you will need to miss more than one class, please reach out to us by email so we can discuss whether this can be accommodated.
Yes, this program requires students to bring their own laptop. We recommend the following, however other devices can be used:
- Operating system: Windows 10 or 11 or macOS 11.7+
- Memory (RAM): 4 GB minimum, 16 GB recommended
- Processor (CPU): Intel Core i5 processor or higher, AMD Ryzen 5 or higher, or Apple M1 or higher
- Storage (SSD): 256 GB or higher
- Device should be able to connect to Wi-fi, run a browser, email, MS Word & PowerPoint (or equivalent programs) smoothly
If you have any questions about bringing your own device, please email slingshotia@branksome.on.ca.
All cancellations must be made in writing by email to the Slingshot Innovation Academy at slingshotia@branksome.on.ca.
Cancellations before September 30: A full refund will be issued for cancellations before or on September 30, 2025.
Cancellations before October 14: A full refund, minus a $500 administrative fee, will be issued for cancellations before or on October 14, 2025.
Cancellations on or after October 15 are not eligible for a refund, unless the cancellation is related to medical reasons for the participant and accompanied by a doctor’s note, at which point a partial refund of up to 50% may be granted, at the discretion of Slingshot Innovation Academy. Please reach out to us about the information required in a doctor’s note supporting a refund request. These partial medical refunds are only available for students who must miss three or more consecutive classes of the course. No refund is available for full or partial class absences due to inclement weather or any course activities/field trips not fully utilized.
Please note that should you cancel a session and you are eligible for a refund, the 2.4% processing fee for credit card payments is not refundable at any time for any reason. Branksome Hall and the Slingshot Innovation Academy reserve the right to cancel/change any program at any time, in which case a full refund will be issued for any payment previously made in relation to that program. You will be notified by email of any changes or cancellations.
Please reach out to us by email to discuss any accommodations needed to fully participate in the program. We will do our best to support participants in achieving the maximum benefit from the program.