PRMIA Risk Management Challenge yields gold for BBA students

The Beedie PRMIA Risk Management Challenge team. From left to right: Steven Li, Alexander Golikov, and Alvin Li.

Beedie School of Business undergraduate students Alvin Li, Steven Li, and Alexander Golikov fought off strong competition from a field consisting largely of Masters- and PhD-level students to net first place at the prestigious PRMIA Risk Management Challenge.

The team, going by the name “Burrard & Company”, beat competition from institutions such as Imperial College London, McGill University, and the University of Chicago to take home the gold medal. They earned a prize of USD $10,000 at the competition, held this year in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on March 6.

The PRMIA Risk Management Challenge is an annual case competition that provides undergraduate and graduate students from multiple disciplines in the UK, US, Ireland, and Canada with the opportunity to solve real-world risk management-focused business problems.

The Beedie team was one of six to qualify for the finals from a pool of more than 100 teams – making them the only team from Western Canada to qualify – before presenting in front of a panel of industry judges from globally recognized organizations at the finals.

“Competing at the PRMIA Risk Management Challenge was a phenomenal experience,” says Golikov. “Being asked to focus on one subject matter so intensely and compete against graduate level students required a lot of dedication. In the week prior to the competition we treated it like a full-time job, working every day on it. Fortunately, our preparation paid off.”

The team dedicated more than 70 hours in the space of three weeks before the competition to learning the fundamentals of risk management. Coached by Beedie instructor Tara Immell, they attended impromptu lectures, examined real world cases, contacted industry professionals, and prepared their case for presentation.

“It was a challenge to compete in a risk management competition against graduate-level students who specialize in risk management instruments and sciences, so we were very fortunate to have Tara Immell as our coach, who has previous experience working with risk in investment banks,” says Alvin Li. “She dedicated more than twenty hours to tutoring us in risk management, and overall case preparation, and we are extremely grateful for her guidance.”

For more information on the PRMIA Risk Management Challenge, visit www.prmia.org/prmia-risk-management-challenge