A recap from this year's Research Challenge
Our Society, with the lead of our Board member Markku Leppälä, CFA, organized the local CFA Research Challenge competition for Finnish universities. Seven teams competed this year and eventually team University of Turku was victorious and advanced to sub-regional finals. Again, a large number of volunteers were involved in the project from start to the end. A massive thank you to all involved! More about the finals with the winning team interview - find it here
CFA Society Finland was delighted to be able to hold the local Research Challenge final in-person this year. We gathered at Nasdaq’s local office in Helsinki on the 16th of February with three of the finalist teams.
Our CFA Society Finland competition hosts, board members Markku Leppälä, CFA, Onni Hautala, CFA, Tuomas Hillukkala, CFA and Joonas Huttunen, CFA welcomed everyone to the event and thanked again the subject company Valmet, sponsors Refinitiv and Fidelity International as well as Nasdaq Helsinki for being part of the Challenge this year. Special thanks also belong to all faculty advisors, mentors, graders and judges; without volunteer help this competition would not be possible!
The three teams chosen to the local final based on the written reports were: Aalto University, University of Eastern Finland and University of Turku. We give all the students from seven different teams extra applauds for participating in Research Challenge this year, since the unstable circumstances have definitely made studying a challenge.
This year, first presentation was from Aalto University, following team University of Turku and finally team University of Eastern Finland. The quality of the presentations was outstanding, and the judges are stunned every year by the talent of the students participating.
Judges in the final were Jutta Rahikainen, Head of Research SEB, Kari Vatanen, CFA, CIO at Veritas, Niina Arkko, CFA, Senior Responsible Investment Specialist at Ilmarinen and Ashish Bhardwaj, Portfolio Manager at Fidelity International. Both Jutta and Kari are experienced judges in the competition. All judges posed interesting and relevant questions regarding the presentations.
Every year the judges have the difficult task of choosing a winner team amongst an enthusiastic and talented crowd of students and this year was no different. Both the presentation and Q&A section are evaluated. This year judges were not unanimous and the differences in the overall results were small. After debate, team University of Turku was awarded as the local winner with team members Lassi Honkanen, Markus Salminen, Otto Pajala, Paavo Koljonen and Veeti Härkönen. Their path will lead next to the Northern Europe sub-regional competition in April. This will be held in virtual format.