Stuart School Students Take Regional and Local Contest Wins

Two teams of Stuart School of Business students claimed top spots in both the 2018 PRMIA Risk Management Challenge and the 2018 CFA Institute Research Challenge.

Assistant Professor Yiwei Fang advised the PRMIA team of You Lu (M.S. FIN ’14, FIN Ph.D. Student), Srivatsa Garg (FIN M.S. Student), Dhruv Manish Patel (FIN M.S. Student), and Jianrong Wang (M.S. FIN ’14, FIN Ph.D. Student), which won the regional round of the challenge. Fang says that she met with the students every other day from January through mid-February to finesse the team’s executive summary and PowerPoint presentation of assigned cases. She says that it proved to be win-win for the students as well as for her as their advisor in more than the obvious way.

“The students have gained so much practical knowledge in risk management, and this is great for their job search. The accomplishment of winning the regional round definitely gives them a lot of confidence in the future,” says Fang. “Another exciting and rewarding thing is that Stuart School of Business will send them to compete in New York City with other regional champions from around the world.”

The student team of Hani Elgamal, Sai Harini Narayanan, Shruti Khetan, Juan Diego Palacios Godoy, and Raina Shah, who are all pursuing their master of science in finance degrees, placed first for the second consecutive year in the local CFA Institute Research Challenge competition. The team was one of five to move on to the Americas Regional event, held March 19 and 20 in Boston, but did not win that leg of the competition.

College students from around the world test their financial-analysis skills and ability to evaluate stocks at the annual CFA Institute Research Challenge. In the PRMIA Risk Management Challenge, students rely on their critical- and creative-thinking strengths to solve realistic business problems that focus on risk management.