Skip to main content
A team of five students from John Carroll University's Boler School of Business won the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Institute Research Challenge held recently at the City Club of Cleveland. Seniors Joshua Babb, Lindsey Beran, Tyler Lendzion, Alex Manos, and Adam Tome competed against teams from Ashland University, Heidelberg College, Hiram College, Walsh University, and Kent State University. With the win, the JCU team advances to the regional competition in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 17. The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Students work in teams to research and analyze a publicly traded company — sometimes even meeting face-to-face with company management. Each team writes a research report on its assigned company with a buy, sell, or hold recommendation and may be asked to present and defend its analysis to a panel of industry professionals. “I can't overstate the degree of complexity in this year’s Research Challenge or how our high performing team rose to the occasion,” said Anthony Aveni, CFA, executive-in-residence in the Department of Economics and Finance in the Boler School of Business.  “Dr. Feng Zhan and I could not be more proud of their work product, poise, and determination.”  Zhan, an assistant professor of finance, served as faculty advisor, and Aveni served as industry mentor to this team. The first CFA Institute Research Challenge competition was held in 2002 and involved just five teams from the New York area. Since then, the competition has grown to involve tens of thousands of students from over 800 universities in more than 55 countries.