Media Releases

Rotman School of Management puts ethics first at second annual ethics challenge

February 4, 2015

TORONTO, ON — CFA Soci­ety Toron­to and CFA Insti­tute con­grat­u­late stu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment Mas­ter of Finance pro­gram for their sec­ond con­sec­u­tive win at the CFA Soci­ety Toron­to Mas­ter of Finance Ethics Chal­lenge. The cham­pi­on team, Roger Brown, Mahtab Faruqui, Sheng Fei and Michael Szau­ra had a unique per­spec­tive that fea­tured an in-depth inves­ti­ga­tion of eth­i­cal issues along­side com­men­tary on eth­i­cal optics. The integri­ty of the finan­cial indus­try depends on lead­ing by exam­ple.

“At CFA Insti­tute, we define Ethics as: Effec­tive Think­ing about Hon­esty Integri­ty Char­ac­ter Suit­abil­i­ty. So, ethics begins with ‘think­ing about it’.” Said Michael McMil­lian, Direc­tor, Ethics and Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards at CFA Insti­tute.

Mas­ter of Finance stu­dents rolled up their sleeves and focused on a com­pre­hen­sive case study at the sec­ond annu­al Mas­ter of Finance Ethics Chal­lenge and recep­tion held in Toron­to on Jan­u­ary 13, 2015. Teams from Queen’s Uni­ver­si­ty, Rot­man School of Man­age­ment, and Schulich School of Busi­ness were giv­en a month to ana­lyze a spe­cif­ic sce­nario, and pre­pare a 10-minute pre­sen­ta­tion on the appro­pri­ate course of action, and present their find­ings for a pan­el of esteemed invest­ment indus­try prac­ti­tion­ers.

“We feel very hon­oured to have par­tic­i­pat­ed and won the chal­lenge for the sec­ond year in a row. Learn­ing to solve real life eth­i­cal dilem­mas using sound judg­ment and eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples has been a very reward­ing expe­ri­ence for us. We are very grate­ful to CFA Insti­tute and CFA Soci­ety Toron­to for host­ing this event and for their com­mit­ment in pro­mot­ing the high­est stan­dards of ethics, edu­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al excel­lence,” said Team Mem­ber Sheng Fei of the Rot­man School.

The goal of this com­pe­ti­tion is to allow finance stu­dents to exam­ine real indus­try cir­cum­stances that new CFA char­ter­hold­ers may face and pro­vide them with the ana­lyt­i­cal and eth­i­cal ammu­ni­tion required to face real-life conun­drums through­out their careers. By show­ing the impor­tance of eth­i­cal deci­sion mak­ing from the start of one’s career, finan­cial pro­fes­sion­als can improve the func­tion­ing of cap­i­tal mar­kets and build the per­cep­tion of trust­wor­thi­ness that prac­ti­tion­ers enjoy with­in the invest­ment com­mu­ni­ty and in gen­er­al. They can help build trust in the future of finance by work­ing with the next gen­er­a­tion of finan­cial pro­fes­sion­als.

About CFA Soci­ety Toron­to

CFA Soci­ety Toron­to sup­ports the pro­fes­sion­al and busi­ness devel­op­ment of more than 8,300 CFA char­ter­hold­ers in Toron­to, mak­ing it the sec­ond largest CFA Soci­ety in the world. It pro­vides mem­bers with a local per­spec­tive on a glob­al des­ig­na­tion, includ­ing: edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams, spon­sored events, job post­ings, quar­ter­ly newslet­ters, a com­pre­hen­sive affin­i­ty pro­gram and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. A not-for-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion, CFA Soci­ety Toron­to is affil­i­at­ed with CFA Insti­tute, the glob­al body that admin­is­ters the Char­tered Finan­cial Ana­lyst cur­ricu­lum and sets vol­un­tary, ethics-based per­for­mance-report­ing stan­dards for the invest­ment indus­try. CFA Soci­ety Toronto’s mem­bers are lead­ers in ethics in the finan­cial com­mu­ni­ty. For more infor­ma­tion, please refer to www.cfatoronto.ca.

About CFA Insti­tute

CFA Insti­tute is the glob­al asso­ci­a­tion of invest­ment pro­fes­sion­als that sets the stan­dard for pro­fes­sion­al excel­lence and cre­den­tials. The orga­ni­za­tion is a cham­pi­on for eth­i­cal behav­ior in invest­ment mar­kets and a respect­ed source of knowl­edge in the glob­al finan­cial com­mu­ni­ty. The end goal: to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment where investors’ inter­ests come first, mar­kets func­tion at their best, and economies grow. CFA Insti­tute has more than 127,000 mem­bers in 147 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries, includ­ing 120,000 CFA char­ter­hold­ers, and 144 mem­ber soci­eties. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.cfainstitute.org.

 

About The Mas­ter of Finance pro­gram at the Rot­man School of Man­age­ment

The Mas­ter of Finance pro­gram at the Rot­man School of Man­age­ment, Canada’s top finance school, is posi­tioned to accel­er­ate the careers of work­ing pro­fes­sion­als in finance.  Class­es in the pro­gram take place every Wednes­day evening and every oth­er Sat­ur­day over 20-months. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca/MFin.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is locat­ed in the heart of Canada’s com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al cap­i­tal and is part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, one of the world’s top 20 research uni­ver­si­ties. The Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables our grad­u­ates to tack­le today’s glob­al busi­ness chal­lenges.  For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Voice 416.946.3818
E‑mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
Watch Rot­man on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool