Certificate Alt-Invest Project Analysis Specialist (AI PAS)

Why do specialists need this certification?

• Advanced training in projects evaluation, and precisely development of practical skills.
• Proof of specialist compliance with market requirements — it’s the only certificate confirming skills in projects evaluation.
• Benefits in employment. Alt-Invest in Russia — is a de facto standard of investment projects evaluation.
• Opportunity for a specialist to test himself and determine the direction for further learning.
• Image improvement, specialist’s purposefulness confirmation.

Why do companies need this certification?

• Unified time-tested standard of specialists training.
• The techniques adopted in the majority of Russian banks and corporations.
• Ability to control the quality of training.
• Ready to use tool for qualifying specialists.
• The element of integrated solutions, including techniques, rules, software products. Ensuring that the company will not face the fact that the selected approaches are not universal or not tested.

1. Project Analysis Specialist

AI PAS certificate is intended to confirm qualification and experience of specialists in the following fields:

- strategic financial planning

- business-planning, justification of investment expenses, feasibility studies

- business plan evaluation

- investment portfolio management

The target audience is mostly managers of financial and planning and economic departments in companies, credit departments of banks, consultants and auditors, and a number of other specializations. In order to fulfill their duties successfully, all them are required to have strong skills in finance analysis, accounting, tax registration, production scheduling, have experience in business-planning and be familiar to the practice of investment process. Speaking about traditional certificates, like CFA, ACCA it is necessary to mention that they are useful, but also include too many non-core disciplines for project analyst while missing a number of vital parameters.

To check the level of knowledge of a specialist in the area of investment project analysis Alt-Invest has come up with a special qualification test called Alt-Invest Project Analysis Specialist.

2. What does the certificate confirm

The examination program is based around testing procedures that have been employed for many years by consulting companies, industrial enterprises and banks when hiring specialists in the relevant areas. These tests aim to establish the level of skills in the following areas:

- understanding theoretical concepts employed in strategic financial planning

- ability to make practical use of key methods of analysis

- ability to work with real financial performance data to make conclusions about key parameters of the business in question based on financial indicators and plan necessary changes

- understanding organizational aspects of investment activity and credit finance

AI PAS Exam consists of 2 levels: A and B.

«B» Level is made for the specialists without work-experience. Certification on B level means that specialist has sufficient knowledge for successful investment project analysis and business planning.

«A» Level — confirms not only basic knowledge, but also practical experience and ability to employ theory in real life. Certification of A level requires from a successful candidate to have higher education degree (not necessarily in finance) and at least one year work experience in economical planning, financing, corporate lending and consulting service. It confirms that specialist has all necessary skills and experience for individual investment project analysis and business planning, knows and understands main principles of project evaluation, strategic budgeting and can act as a project manager.

3. Examination process

Written examinations are held in the authorized certification centres. At the moments there are centres in Moscow, St-Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.

Applications for certification are submitted constantly. You can register on the website or by sending a request via email. The request must include participant’s full name, position, company name, contact phone, fax, city, date of certification, the preferred form of payment, source of information on certification. To get registration confirmation you need to provide passport information. Examinations are held in accordance with the schedule of certification

All exams are written. Level «A» exam is held in a computer class and with use of MS Excel.

At the exam, a candidate receives an answer sheet with a unique identification number from authorized Alt-Invest representative. Each candidate is assigned with a unique code for anonymity when checking the test results.

Level «A» exam lasts 4 hours, level «B» — 1,5 hours. After the exam, filled answer sheets are collected by authorized specialist only, who then makes a special mark in the list of candidates, seals all the documents and sends it for review.

The successful test results for PAS B are at least 32 correct answers out of 40 possible, for PAS A — 5 solutions out of 7 possible.

Centralized appraisal of results of certification is held by Alt-Invest. That helps to keep the appraisal objective (as scrutinizers never knows the author of the report) and qualified (as some of the answers for A level should be evaluated by an expert).

We set a high value on Ai PAS certification and Alt-Invest make all necessary arrangements to provide fairness and accuracy of examinations.

Lists of specialists, who successfully proved their skill levels by a certification are published on a company site in 2 weeks after the examination.

4. About Alt-Invest

Alt Invest operates on Russian consulting market since 1993. For the moment it is a top-ranked leader in the field of methodological support for capital investment projects evaluating and strategic financial planning. Among company’s clients are: Russian Railways, RAO Unified Energy System of Russia, Gazprom, Lukoil, Sberbank, VTB and so on. There are more than 4000 companies that use Alt-Invest software and send their employees to the company’s seminars.

Alt-Invest solution is unique because the company has merged its consulting and software development with the academic work on the methodology, working its application. In particular, Alt-Invest participated in the methodological developments in the committees of the Russian Federation Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and also prepared a number of internal corporate procedures for companies with intensive investment activity.

To increase the chances to pass the certification exam specialist can be trained under the guidance of Alt-Invest consultants. Training can be in the form of five-day seminar or a distance course. Five-day seminar takes place immediately prior to the certification exam and requires a personal presence. If a specialist does not have an opportunity to attend the seminar he can buy a 5-week distance course.