Media Releases

Inaugural Cohort of New Program in Finance and Risk Management Starts Classes at UofT’s Rotman School Management

September 9, 2016

Toron­to, ON – Forty-five stu­dents in the inau­gur­al cohort of the Mas­ter of Finan­cial Risk Man­age­ment (MFRM) pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment start­ed their stud­ies today.

An inten­sive eight-month pro­gram for recent grad­u­ates with sol­id quan­ti­ta­tive skills from under­grad­u­ate uni­ver­si­ty pro­grams, the MFRM is designed to pre­pare stu­dents for careers in risk man­age­ment and trad­ing. The unique cur­ricu­lum com­bines course­work, an applied project with a com­pa­ny in the field, work­shops on lead­er­ship and com­mu­ni­ca­tions skills as well as a speak­er series fea­tur­ing prac­ti­tion­ers.

The cohort has attract­ed equal num­bers of women and men and is com­posed of stu­dents from a wide range of aca­d­e­m­ic back­grounds with under­grad­u­ate degrees in busi­ness, eco­nom­ics, engi­neer­ing, actu­ar­i­al sci­ence and math­e­mat­ics. Anoth­er 36% of the cohort has passed the CFA Lev­el I exam and 44% has one to three years of work expe­ri­ence.

The pro­gram is taught by lead­ing researchers in risk man­age­ment and finance includ­ing Prof. John Hull, Maple Finan­cial Group Chair in Deriv­a­tives and Risk Man­age­ment; and Prof. Peter Christof­fersen, TSX Chair in Cap­i­tal Mar­kets; who are co-direc­tors of the pro­gram. Addi­tion­al indus­try vet­er­ans includ­ing Adjunct Pro­fes­sor Richard Nes­bitt, CEO of the Glob­al Risk Insti­tute in Finan­cial Ser­vices (GRI), and for­mer COO of CIBC; Dean Tiff Mack­lem, for­mer Senior Deputy Gov­er­nor of the Bank of Cana­da; and Antho­ny Pec­cia, Exec­u­tive-in-Res­i­dence, will also be involved in the pro­gram. Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Teach­ing Stream, Alexan­dra MacK­ay is the aca­d­e­m­ic direc­tor of the pro­gram.

The Glob­al Risk Insti­tute in Finan­cial Ser­vices (GRI) has agreed to sup­port stu­dent schol­ar­ships and co-cur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties that enhance student’s abil­i­ty to con­nect with prac­ti­tion­ers and indus­try experts.  Found­ed in 2011 by the Gov­ern­ments of Cana­da and Ontario and now includ­ing 30 pri­vate sec­tor mem­bers, GRI’s mis­sion is to enhance risk edu­ca­tion, train­ing and knowl­edge at all lev­els across the finan­cial ser­vices sec­tor.

“Giv­en the cur­rent state of the glob­al finan­cial sec­tor, I real­ized that there is a high demand for pro­fes­sion­als who under­stand finan­cial risk man­age­ment; and, con­sid­er­ing that the MFRM is one of the only pro­grams of its kind in Cana­da, I felt that com­plet­ing this pro­gram would give me an advan­tage in the job mar­ket,” says Jabir Sand­hu, MFRM’17, who received a GRI schol­ar­ship.

“I think the domes­tic and glob­al rep­u­ta­tion of the Rot­man School speaks for itself. In addi­tion, Rot­man has a wide net­work of finance pro­fes­sion­als, stu­dents and alum­ni, which will become invalu­able in my career,” adds Car­men Quiroz, MFRM’17, who is also a GRI schol­ar­ship recip­i­ent.

Com­plete pro­gram infor­ma­tion on the Mas­ter of Finan­cial Risk Man­age­ment, includ­ing how to apply, is online. An infor­ma­tion ses­sion for prospec­tive can­di­dates for the pro­gram will be held in Toron­to on Sep­tem­ber 21.

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 and soci­etal 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
Tel: 416.946.3818
E‑mail: mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca

Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
Watch Rot­man on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool