26 January 2017 – On 19 January 2017, CFA Society Toronto was pleased to congratulate the students from Queen’s University Smith School of Business at the 2017 Canadian Ethics Challenge: Local Competition. This year’s local champions, Lekan Akindele, Adam Prokop, Carter Smith and Weixuan Xue, demonstrated their ability to expertly negotiate ethical dilemmas in a real-life investment scenario and presented their case to a panel of seasoned investment professionals.   

“We’d like to say that it is an amazing feeling to represent Smith School of Business and to bring home our first local win. It has been quite the journey from our first meeting in October 2016, but it was well worth it and we all look forward to representing Smith School of Business at the national level. We’d like to thank everyone who has supported us throughout our preparation, especially Dr. Sean Cleary, CFA who has gone above and beyond to help us perform our best.” said team member, Carter Smith. 

The Ethics Challenge is designed to increase students’ awareness of the ethical dilemmas they may encounter as future investment management practitioners. Student teams are given an ethics case to study and evaluate. Each team then presents its analysis and recommendations, to a panel of judges, selected by the host CFA Society. Following a question and answer period with each team, the judges then select a winner. Their decision is based on the quality of the team’s understanding of the ethical issues involved, quality of their analysis, presentation, and responses to the judges questions.

Kevin Veenstra, CFA, Assistant Professor of Accounting at McMaster University commented, “As a researcher, educator and former practitioner, it is clear to me that ethical practice equals stronger long-term return on investment. If we look at cases of investment industry fraud over the past 20 years, there are two recurring predictors of problems. The first is poor tone from the senior management level and second is lower level employees who succumbed to the pressure of questionable organizational norms. While ethics training and competitions like these are not a panacea for eradicating all unethical behaviour in the investment industry, it is an important preventative step in educating future investment professionals about how to recognize and deal with ethical issues before they become a problem. I am very pleased by this and other CFA Society Toronto initiatives designed to educate local university students about the importance of ethics.”

This year’s competing teams include students from Queen’s University Smith School of Business, University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, and York University’s Schulich School of Business.  

“CFA Society Toronto held the first Ethics Challenge on 9 January 2014, where three teams from local CFA Institute Program Partner Universities participated. With the overwhelming success of this initaitive, we are proud to see its evolution into a nationwide competition in 2017; with local Ethics Challenges occurring across Canada and a local winning team advancing to the 2017 Canadian Ethics Challenge held here in Toronto on 1 June 2017.” Sue Lemon, CFA, CEO, CFA Society Toronto. 

For more information, please contact:

Jonathan Mai
CFA Society Toronto
Phone: (416) 366-5755 X 235
E-mail: media@cfatoronto.ca
Twitter: @cfatoronto 

About CFA Society Toronto

CFA Society Toronto supports the professional and business development of over 9,000 CFA® charterholders in Toronto, making it the largest society of CFA charterholders, globally. We provide 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

Chartered Financial Analyst® and CFA® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute.

About Queen’s University Smith School of Business 

Smith School of Business is one of the world’s premier business schools – renowned for exceptional programs, outstanding faculty and research, and the quality of its graduates. Canadian executives regard Smith as Canada’s most innovative business school, offering students’ academic excellence and a superior overall experience. Smith School of Business — where Canada’s first Commerce program was launched in 1919 — is located at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. The School also delivers programs at locations across Canada, as well in the U.S., the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and China.