Local Research Challenge 2024 winner: University of Turku
CFA Society Finland was honoured to organize the final event of local Research Challenge 2024 on 15th February at Nasdaq Helsinki. As hosts for the event acted our board members Markku Leppälä, CFA, Roope Relander, CFA, Onni Hautala, CFA and Tuomas Hillukkala, CFA.
This year four teams were invited to the final to present their research on Neste Oyj since the tight margins regarding the written report points. The reports were graded each by three separate graders, who all have extensive experience in equity research. Teams from Aalto University, Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences. University of Turku and University of Vaasa gave terrific presentations based on their month of research on the subject company. It is every year amazing to see the talent in these future finance professionals, a fact stated also by the competition judges.
The esteemed panel of judges this year were Kati Eriksson, CFA, Executive Vice President, Asset Management, Aktia, Marie Karlsson, CIO, Head Of Nordic, Finnish and Swedish Equities at Nordea Asset Management, and Janne Lähdesmäki, Portfolio Manager at Schroders. Judges bring their valuable expertise to the competition final, and feedback to students is very important during and after the presentations.
After an exciting results calculation the winner this year was announced: University of Turku with team members Janne Juvén, Oliver Sohlberg, Juho Suni, Valtteri Suutari and Jere Viheriäkoski. Warm congratulations to the Turku team, a superb job, as from all the teams!
Our volunteers make this competition possible. Huge thanks to all faculty advisors, mentors, graders and judges, your work in the competition is pivotal.
Nasdaq Helsinki was generous again this year for courteously offering us the venue. Everything was fantastically arranged and the closing bell crowned the event! Maria Simon, Director, Product Development, gave the Research Challenge participants an interesting presentation on the Nasdaq business areas, concentrating on the ESG issues and how effective ESG data is an important focus area right now at Nasdaq.
We wish all the best of luck to the Turku team for the next step, the Northern Europe sub-regional competition!
Photos and video by Pekka Lähteenmäki.