Top two finish for Beedie team in PRMIA Risk Management Challenge

The Beedie School of Business PRMIA Risk Management Challenge team. From left to right: Wing-Kan Chung, Viacheslav Trefilin, David Gontovnick and Peter Mak.

A team of undergraduate and graduate Beedie School of Business students captured the silver medal in the recent Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA) Risk Management Challenge.

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, consisting of MSc Finance students David Gontovnick and Peter Mak, along with BBA students Viacheslav Trefilin and Wing-Kan Chung, advanced to the finals from a pool of 91 teams. In the final competition they presented in front of a panel of industry judges from globally recognized organizations, earning second place overall for their case focusing on the Royal Bank of Scotland’s failure in 2008.

“We are very proud of our students who have achieved this tremendous result in the face of some stiff competition,” said Jeff Nehajowich, Manager, Graduate Programs at the Beedie School of Business. “The continued success being realized at prestigious competitions such as this further proves that both our students and faculty at Beedie are world-class.”

Coached by Jan Simon, Academic Chair of the MSc Finance program at the Beedie School of Business, the team’s strategy identified two key issues at the bank: inadequate common equity capital, and an over-reliance on unsecured wholesale funding. They recommended the bank bolster their common equity capital ratio and adhere to comprehensive liquidity guidelines.

“In training for the competition, Jan Simon covered the collapse of Bear Stearns, which was similar to the RBS failure, as well as other significant risk management debacles,” said Gontovnick. “The support provided by the coaches, in addition to the administrative support from Beedie Professor Mark Wexler, was instrumental in the team’s success.”

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