What's new and notable in your life? Share your breaking news — wedding, promotion, award, new job, and the like — with classmates and other members of the Bentley community. Go to the form at bentley.edu/classnotes.

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1979
Bernard “Buzz” TraversIII, P ’12, Longmeadow, Mass., has become managing director of Aaron Smith PC.
 

1980
Stella Citrano, Falmouth, Mass., is pleased to announce the relocation of Affordable Tax Service’s Cape office to 13 Falmouth Heights Road in her hometown.
 

1981
35th Reunion:June 3 to 5, 2016
Michael Krenesky, P ’00,’01, Beacon Falls, Conn., won his campaign for town selectman there, after completing two terms as town treasurer of Beacon Falls; this will be his third term as a selectman.
 

1982
Thomas Vitro, Westfield, Mass., has been appointed vice president, chief financial officer and chief accounting officer for STR Holdings Inc.
 

Jeffrey Wheeler, Bow, N.H., was named director of audit for Baker Newman Noyes.
 

1983
Baker Newman Noys has tapped Carl Chatto, Portland, Maine, to serve as managing principal.
 

James Fuller, MST, Atlanta, Ga., has joined the Municipal Electric Power Authority of Georgia as president and CEO.
 

1986
30th Reunion:June 3 to 5, 2016
Deborah Ricci, Vienna, Va., has been named chief financial officer of Centerra Group.
 

1987
An exhibit at the Wenham (Mass.) Museum featured photos of the Cog Railway by Donna Atkins, Intervale, N.H.

Steward Health Care System has appointed DeborahBitsoli, Framingham, Mass., as the new president of Morton Hospital in Taunton.

1988
Robert Driscoll Jr., MST successfully ran for town council president of his hometown, Winthrop, Mass.

A top home-industry awards program gave International Retailer of the Year honors to Aaron Stewart Home, co-founded by FernandoRodriguez ’88, San Juan, P.R.

1989
William Checkosky, Manchester, Conn., has signed on with Chelsea Groton Bank as vice president, commercial lending, and Greater Hartford market manager.
 

Cherry Bekaert LLP has welcomed Brian Dill, MSA, Atlanta, Ga., as a tax principal and the leader of the firm’s international tax practice.
 

Antoinette (Leonardi)Follett, Fayetteville, N.Y., is the new director of marketing and communications for Liberty Resources.

Thomaston Savings Bank has appointed Robert Nocera, Middlebury, Conn., as a corporator.
 

1990
Stephanie L. Burke, MST,P ’10 has been elected mayor in her hometown of Medford, Mass.
 

1991
25th Reunion:June 3 to 5, 2016
Clarus Ventures LLC named Robert DeBenedetto,MST, P ’10, Pleasanton,Calif., a venture partner.
 

Reynolds & Rowella has hired Linda Malarkey, MST, New Milford, Conn., as a senior associate.
 

Ellen A. Moloney, MBA, Beverly, Mass., has been named interim president of Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
1992
 

Alison Perrella, MST, Bedford, N.H., has been named a managing partner at Howe, Riley & Howe in Manchester.
 

1993
Kristen Galfetti, MBA, Belmont, Mass., has joined Cynapsus Therapeutics Inc. as vice president for investor relations and corporate communications.
 

Astrid (Simon) Zajdband,MSF, Frankfurt, Germany, is now an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
 

1994
Heather (Sturtevant)Clark, Gorham, Maine, received her Certified Financial Marketing Professional certificate from the American Bankers Association.
 

1995
The IRS named Brenda(Johnson) Bianculli, MST, Charlton, Mass., to its Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council.
 

1996
20th Reunion:June 3 to 5, 2016
The Araca Group has tapped Michael Barra, New York, N.Y., to lead the new branch of the entertainment media company.
 

Simon Yu, Andover, Mass., has opened Nine Bar Espresso in Somerville.
 

1997
Mark T. Batiste, Somers, Conn., has joined Access To Media in new business development.
 

1998
Kearny Financial Corp. has appointed Raymond E.Chandonnet, MSF, Summit, N.J., to director of the company and the bank.
 

1999
Fabio Di Giammarco, MBA, Key Biscayne, Fla., was named global vice president for Bacardi rum.
 

2000
Jennifer (Bunce)Hogencamp, Mansfield, Mass., has been made partner at BlumShapiro in Providence, R.I.
 

Walmart has picked up Casa Mia bedding collection, created by Orguyo Inc., a company founded by Santiago Lopez, MBA, Wellesley, Mass.
 

Nancy McKenna, West Newton, Mass., has joined the Siegfried Group LLP as an associate director.
 

2001
15th Reunion:June 3 to 5, 2016
Jeffrey Hudson, MBA ’10; Kristy (Petron) ’03, MBA ’10; and son, Jack, of Sterling, Mass., welcomed Cadence Adrienne on March 2, 2015.
 

2002
William Crooker, Framingham, Mass., has been promoted to chief financial officer, executive vice president and treasurer of STAG Industrial Inc.
 

BDO Puerto Rico announces the appointment of DenisseFlores, MST, Gauynabo, P.R., as a shareholder of the tax division.

2003
Kristy (Petron) Hudson,MBA ’10; Jeffrey ’01, MBA ’10; and son, Jack, of Sterling, Mass., welcomed Cadence Adrienne on March 2, 2015.
 

2004
Maureen Fedorchuk married Jason Cuddy on June 27, 2015, at Highfield Hall in Falmouth, Mass. The couple lives in Foxboro.
 

Matthew Gorham, South Easton, Mass., and wife Deann welcomed their second child, Trent Sebastian, on July 23, 2015. He joins sister Vida Mirabelle.
 

Howard Jean-Denis, MBA’08, Stratford, Conn., writes of “experiencing great success as the first black male studying business strategy in my PhD program at UConn in strategy/entrepreneurship!” He hopes to encourage other aspiring professors and has traveled to Chile and Israel to speak about his research. “I am proud to have begun my education at Bentley. All the best.”
 

2005
Kristyn (Marasca) and Daniel Cohen, Wilmington, Mass., welcomed Alexis Elaine on December 11, 2015.
 

Latonia (Burke)Francois ’05, Brockton, Mass., has launched Let’s Write Life, a venture that encourages people to cope with feelings through journaling.

Erika Goldstein and Allan Smith were married at Pinehills Golf Club in Plymouth, Mass., on September 12, 2015. AmyCrotty, Erin Jordan, JennKelly and Danielle Parsons,MST ’06 were in the bridal party. Other Falcons attending: Brett Bell,Holly (Auclair) Fagan,Brett Fagan and Mollie(O’Keefe) Newton.
 

2006
10th Reunion:June 3 to 5, 2016
Christian Haitian Entrepreneurial Society, a nonprofit founded by Rebecca Roseme Obounou, Chelsea, Mass., hosted a three-day workshop in Haiti for local entrepreneurs. The alumna is program manager at MIT Sloan Executive Education.

Chandra Pixley and Ted Kanluen were married on October 3, 2015, at the Mid-America Club in Chicago, Ill.
 

Alissa Rogers moved to London in July 2015 to manage hiring for YouTube across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In December, her role expanded to include hiring for Asia Pacific.
 

2007
Manuel Carneiro, MST ’08, Abilene, Texas, and wife Barbara are in the process of adopting two sets of twin boys, whom they have fostered since November 2014. The family also includes big sister Maeleigh Cate.
 

David Castine, MSA ’09 married Raquela Susman on October 24, 2015, in Baltimore, Md. Falcons and friends joining the occasion were Jason Danheiser, Graham Gottlieb ’08, Richard Heller, and Mark ’85 and Vicki (Vassalotti) ’86 Semanie.
 

Adam Evans, MBA ’09 and Samantha Robbins ’08, both of Somerville, Mass., were married on November 7, 2015, at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham. Chris Leonard ’06 was the officiant, Jason Evans ’05 stood as the best man, and Meaghan (Munroe) Gravina ’08 was a bridesmaid.
 

Blake Reynolds, Marlborough, Mass., has been promoted to real estate and facilities manager for The Brattle Group in Cambridge.
 

2008
Brian Ballute, MSA ’09, Saco, Maine, was promoted to vice president of Saco & Biddeford Savings Institution.
 

Katie Casey, MSA ’09 and Sal Falzone, MSA ’09 were married on June 6, 2015, in Groton, Mass.
 

Samantha Robbins and Adam Evans ’07, MBA ’09, both of Somerville, Mass., were married on November 7, 2015, at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham. Chris Leonard ’06 was the officiant, Jason Evans ’05 stood as the best man, and Meaghan(Munroe) Gravina was a bridesmaid.
 

Tomer Sharon, MSHFID, Cresskill, N.J., head of user experience at WeWork in New York City, was named by Usability Tools blog as a “UX Director That Will Make You A Better Designer.”
 

Ryan Teekasingh, Ozone Park, N.Y., of the nonprofit Working in Support of Education (W!SE), has volunteered to offer an eight-week seminar titled “Careers in Business and the Finance Field.”
 

2009
Robert O. Eggleston, MSF, Pelham, N.H., and wife Heather are proud to announce the adoption of a daughter, Vivienne Alison Byeol Eggleston; she arrived from South Korea in October 2015.
 

Andrea Haskell and Christopher Liptrot were married on December 27, 2014, in Newport, R.I.
 

2010
Courtney Charest, MST ’13 and Zach Ripps tied the knot on August 15, 2015, in Amherst, N.H., surrounded by Bentley friends.
 

Bill Connolly, Brooklyn, N.Y., has published his second book: The Success Disconnect:Why the Smartest PeopleChoose Meaning Over Money.
 

Shahzad Malik, MBA ’11, Lahore, Pakistan, was interviewed by Pakistan Today about the challenges of being one of the youngest CEOs in the country; Malik heads Master Group of Industries.
 

Tyler McNamara and Analida Cuevas ’11 were married on September 12, 2015, in Panama. Analida writes, “More than 50 alumni celebrated with us, including international students and Bentley football alumni!”
 

Frank Reiman, MBA ’11, Boston, Mass., has joined the Siegfried Group’s Boston Market as an associate manager.
 

2011
5th Reunion:June 3 to 5, 2016
Analida Cuevas and Tyler McNamara ’10 were married on September 12, 2015, in Panama. She writes, “More than 50 alumni celebrated with us, including international students and Bentley football alumni!”
 

Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center has named George Lewis IV,MBA ’12, Chestnut Hill, Mass., to its Board of Trustees. Lewis’s family has been involved with the island since the 1880s.
 

Kevin G. McConnell, MST, Leominster, Mass., has been named tax manager of Robert C. Alario CPA PC.
 

2013
Paul Sleiman, Jacksonville, Fla., is co-owner of two acres at Butler Boulevard and Interstate 95 in Florida. The site will be home to his first retail center, the Galleria Marketplace, expected to open by early fall.
 

2014
Now living in San Francisco, Calif., Erica Normandeau has joined ride-sharing company Lyft as a recruiting coordinator.
 

2015
Cresa Boston has welcomed Raymond Hayes, Waltham, Mass., to the post of assistant project manager

After years of research, but well before law enforcement had a clue, Neil Chelo’93, MSF ’00 made an assessment of into Bernie Madoff and the notorious investor’s team: “I am convinced more than ever that these guys are a fraud.”

“I did an interview with one of the Madoff guys and summarized the phone call that way,” says Chelo, a finance professional who spoke with numerous Madoff colleagues and investors while collecting evidence of the fraud.

An Early Lead

He and Harry Markopolos discovered the scam when they were colleagues at Boston-based Rampart Investment Management. When their own analysis showed that no one could honestly deliver the financial returns that Madoff was producing, the two began a tenacious effort to prove the case with federal officials.

The initial response to their evidence provided a title for the book that he and Markopolos would later write: No One Would Listen.

“It was amazing,” observes Chelo. “The SEC just blew us off.”
 

Vindication for Whistleblowers

Amid shock, frustration and disbelief, the pair persevered in bringing the truth to light. Their vindication came with Madoff’s arrest, in December 2008, for running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

“I feel very proud of what we did,” says Chelo, now director of research at Benchmark Plus Management in Tacoma, Wash. “We not only highlighted a bad person who eventually got caught, but there were real changes in the law that are beneficial for everybody.”

He points specifically to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower program. Created in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, it establishes a formal process for people to report tips and submit evidence of wrongdoing; moreover, the SEC can provide financial reward to those who step forward.

As the need for this legislation suggests, the whistleblower role can be fraught with danger. Bringing individuals to justice may come at a huge personal and professional cost. Not so for the 44-year-old Chelo.

“For me, [the role] was really good, reputation wise,” he says. “People remember that I said Madoff was a fraud long before his arrest. When the scandal broke, I got a bunch of phone calls and emails saying, ‘I remember you telling me this story over dinner years ago.’”
 

Building a Career

Chelo never sought the “whistleblower” mantel, nor does he tout the role in his LinkedIn profile or online corporate bio. His reflections on the experience suggest that identifying fraud comes with the territory of a career in finance — an ambition he developed as a teenager.

Chelo grew up in Barrington, R.I., where his father and three uncles owned restaurants. The family business heightened his interest in investments and financial markets, which he followed to Bentley in 1989. 

Heading into his senior year, the Finance major pursued an internship at Rampart Investment Management. His supervisor, Markopolos, assigned lots of reading as Chelo helped prepare statements, confirm trades and handle other back-office tasks.

The intense learning experience “solidified my wanting to be in this business,” reports the alumnus, who joined the Boston Company as a trust supervisor upon earning his degree.

He returned to Rampart Investment Management in 1995 as a portfolio manager and found himself again working with Markopolos. The pair co-managed billions in equity derivatives and quantitative equity strategies.

That impressive figure notwithstanding, Chelo and Markopolos felt pressure to deliver more. In 1999, Frank Casey, Rampart’s senior vice president of marketing, approached the pair asking about Madoff. Chelo remembers Casey citing Madoff’s consistently impressive returns, ending with a question: Why can’t you guys do this?

Chelo and Markopolos ran all sorts of models, but could not replicate the results that Madoff produced. Initially, Chelo thought that Madoff was genuinely making money, just not in the way he claimed. Markopolos, on the other hand, quickly suspected fraud.

"He was quicker to the punch than I was,” says Chelo, who came to the same conclusion before long. “I really have to tip my hat to Harry. He was the one who said, ‘I’m going to take this to the SEC and do something about it.’”

Chelo returned to Bentley to earn a Master of Finance degree in 2000. He credits the research he did during that time, on market microstructure and payment for order flow, as helping expose the flaws in Madoff’s reported returns.
 

Following Madoff

With Markopolos leading the charge, Chelo chased evidence that detailed Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme. So did Casey and, later, industry reporter Michael Ocrant. For the next six years, they talked with industry colleagues and investors. Even after heading west to join Benchmark in 2003, Chelo continued to follow leads and gather facts, relaying the information back to Markopolos.

Looking back, Chelo acknowledges the threats that existed as they tried to bring the truth to light.

“I was very naïve to the potential danger. Harry was the polar opposite of me, maybe because he was an Army guy,” he says, noting that Markopolos talked openly about carrying a gun to protect himself and his family. “Now that I’m older and wiser, if this occurred again, I would probably be cautious like Harry.”

Why did their mounting evidence fail to spur SEC action?

Chelo speculates that investors’ awe of Madoff — the man’s one-time sterling reputation on Wall Street — undermined the kind of due diligence that would have turned up problems in Madoff’s operation. Or maybe his investors, seeing good returns on their statements, didn’t want to rock the boat by questioning too much.

Concerning the government, Chelo is not so generous. As he once charged: “Someone at the SEC was likely paid to look the other way.”

A Small Price to Pay

March 2009 saw Madoff in court, pleading guilty to nearly a dozen federal charges. Markopolos gave blistering testimony against the SEC before a House Financial Services subcommittee and wrote the book No One WouldListen, published in 2010. The documentary Chasing Madoff, based on the book, appeared the same year. This past February, television took up the story with a miniseries on ABC.

Although Chelo kept a lower profile as Markopolos led the investigation, he garnered a fair share of attention after Madoff’s arrest and the uproar about the SEC’s failure to act sooner. Chelo appears on camera, as himself, in the documentary. The movie credit earned him an entry in the online entertainment database IMDb.

Today, he continues his work in money management. According to Bloomberg, Benchmark’s flagship equity fund has beaten the S&P in 17 of the past 18 years. His sharp eye is mostly trained on money managers with whom to invest — and his reputation for thorough vetting inspires some trepidation.

“Some people may see my background and say, ‘This is going to be a nosebleed in the due-diligence process to deal with this guy,’” he says with a smile, calling such expectation “a small price to pay.”

“I’ll still take action when I see the opportunity to put bad guys behind bars,” he adds. “At the end of the day, my parents raised me right. It was just about right and wrong.”

Duly Diligent

Help scam-proof your investments with this advice from Neil Chelo.

 For Any Investor

• Go with the known.
  Stick with well-recognized, brand-name investment management companies. The average investor generally doesn’t have the clout, experience or expertise to access and review the information needed for a thorough vetting.
   
• Look at losses.
  Review the investment’s history to see when it lost value and how the loss correlates to the general market. It’s a red flag if the product is out of step with overall market trends.
   
• Heed history.
  Embrace the adage “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Madoff promised steady 12 to 16 percent returns — nothing crazy, but still unrealistically positive.

 For Investment Professionals

• Verify.
  Ask if the adviser is registered with the SEC — and verify the answer with the SEC itself. The SEC can alert you to any formal issues against the individual and provide the adviser’s Form ADV for your review.
   
• Read.
  Request SEC deficiency letters. These can reveal small, routine issues (a common occurrence) or identify major problems.
   
• Investigate.
  Review audits for limited partnerships. Ask to see an adviser’s tax returns, which can help corroborate the money manager’s claims. Use LinkedIn to find colleagues who can give unbiased references about your prospective money manager.

By Ellen Foord

School lunch. The words evoke a certain sense of nostalgia. Maybe you think of navigating cafeteria social cliques. Perhaps you remember the mid-day reprieve from the pressures of the classroom. You might even think of the foods you dreaded (or loved) in the lunch line. Tater tots!

But for millions of American school children, school lunch means one thing above all else: the only guaranteed meal they’ll get in a 24-hour period.

Over 30 million low-income school children receive free or reduced-price meals through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National School Lunch Program. In order to receive those critically needed meals, each child’s family has to fill out a complicated paper form. There are often errors in reporting or processing the information, which cause issues with the eligibility decisions for applicants.

So, how did a group of students in Bentley’s Human Factors in Information Design (HFID) graduate program have a hand in applying user experience design (UX) to create a drastically easier process for millions of school children to access those nutritionally balanced meals?

The Challenge

Enter the USDA’s E.A.T. (Electronic Application Transformation) School Lunch UX Challenge, calling on teams to re-design the lunch program application.

When Alexander Tran MSHFID '16, saw that the USDA had partnered with DevPost (a platform for hackers and developers) to host the design hackathon, he was immediately intrigued.

“I wanted to do the challenge because, as a young student, I received free and reduced-price lunch benefits. I was excited because here was a great opportunity to use my UX skills where it really matters,” recalls Tran. “Through the Bentley network, I knew I could recruit other Bentley UX folks to help.”

The Team

And reach out he did, connecting with other graduate students and alumni through Bentley’s alumni Facebook group.

When Cara Abel MSHFID '16 saw Tran’s post, she thought the project was appealing for several reasons: “The challenge allowed me to practice all that I'm learning about human-centered design for a social good outcome. About eight years ago, I taught in a low-income school in Costa Rica. I saw firsthand the difference that good nutrition made in my students' lives,” says Abel. “Having the opportunity to help families in need through this challenge was a natural move, given my interest in design, social good, food and education.”

For Miriam Gerver Donath, a 2013 graduate of the HFID program, the appeal of the project lay in the relationship of the mission to her previous studies and work experience. “This particular challenge appealed to me because my first master’s degree is in survey methodology, so online forms are interesting,” she remarks. “And having worked for the U.S. Census Bureau, I know how burdensome government forms can get.”

“This project is a true reflection of our students,” shares Bill Gribbons, professor of Information Design and Corporate Communication and director of the HFID program. “We attract people who have this sense of consciousness about making the world a better place. Lots of time people are drawn to something because it’s cool, sexy or will help them get a better job -- that wasn’t the motivation for these students. And this is what the tech community is looking for: employees with passion.”

The group -- called Team Lunchbox -- took shape as Tran, Abel and Donath were joined by fellow alumnus Andy Hollenhorst MBA '14 MSHFID '15, Eric Famiglietti (a front-end developer) and Giselle Sperber (a visual designer). As the team gelled, a concept emerged for the E.A.T. School Lunch challenge.

The Concept

Check out the design that Team Lunchbox created:

The Logistics

But the project design wasn’t all smooth sailing. The team had to overcome an immediate challenge: logistics.

Tran lives in California and Donath is in New York City, while the other HFID students are local to Bentley.

“I had taken a class with Alexander, so I was familiar with his name, but he attends online from California and I attend on Bentley's campus, so I've never met him in person,” says Abel.

When asked how the team managed to develop an innovative user-centered design without physically meeting, Tran, Abel and Donath all agreed that working as a virtual team was surprisingly easy.

“Frankly, I didn't feel like we encountered any challenges in being a virtual team,” says Abel. “In the HFID program, there are a lot of group projects and often the groups are a mix of students who attend on campus and remotely.”

They primarily used Google Hangouts for their meetings, but wove in other collaborative tools (such as Google Drive, InVision and Mural) for sharing material.

The group also infused what they’ve learned at Bentley into the Team Lunchbox project. “Our education directly informed our research process and how we brought a strategic lens to how we built the application,” explains Tran. “We pushed the constraints of the challenge to include utility for mobile users, and also gave recommendations like universal ID that went beyond the direct design challenge.”

Abel agrees with Tran on how her experience at Bentley’s Graduate School shaped the experience. “The project was definitely influenced by all that I am learning in the HFID program. It was a great opportunity to put into practice the concepts that had been discussed in my classes.”

"Team Lunchbox essentially got me the job I have now," shares Hollenhorst, now a UX designer for Sallie Mae. "I was interviewing for jobs as we were working on the project, and I would always show artifacts and discuss how they fit into the overall design. I really think the challenge helped make the case that I was working on relevant and important projects."

“In our program we promote the idea of learning outside the classroom -- of creating a community of learners,” says Gribbons. “And it doesn’t end with graduation -- our students stay engaged with this community -- coming together around projects like this, presenting at conferences, participating virtually in campus events, etc.”

The Results

As for the results of the USDA’s E.A.T. School Lunch Challenge…Team Lunchbox won the Popular Choice award, which came with a $1,000 prize and was awarded on the basis of the public’s favorite application (determined by the number of votes the project received) among the 44 submissions from individuals, teams and large companies.

“It is a great honor,” said Tran of the prize. “I know there was a lot we could have improved in our prototype and I learned a great deal from examining all the other submissions that won awards. The biggest reward was all the learning gained from the process and working with my great collaborators. I will look forward to improving the design even further in the future.”

Ellen Foord is a freelance writer living in New Hampshire. A regular contributor for DIY Network, she has been featured on Apartment Therapy, HGTV Magazine, Yahoo, Verily and more.
 

By Kristen Walsh

Reviewing SEC filing and earnings releases. Pitching stocks. Allocating equities.

The work of the Bentley Investment Group (BIG) sounds more like a day in the life of a Wall Street investor — and it is.
 

What Is BIG?

The student-run organization evaluates a portion of the Bentley University endowment, with impressive results. An original $250,000 allocation in 1997 has grown to more than $800,000 under the group’s financial investment decisions.

“We’ve beat the S&P 500 for year-to-date,” says Charles Tilden’16, a Finance major and BIG’s former vice president.

The group engages in stock selection, analysis of investments, presentations of stock proposals and discussions. Students deal in real money and report to the university’s Board of Trustees.

A mix of majors (beyond finance) and skill levels (undergraduate and graduate students) produces diverse teams, each assigned to one of six industry sectors. Nikita Kononchuk, a student in the Master of Science in Finance program, joined last fall and serves as an analyst on the health-care sector. He was initially attracted to the team because of its energy, and the challenge of learning an industry that was new to him.

“Meetings are fast paced,” says Kononchuk. “Everyone gets involved right away.”

It didn’t take Kononchuk long to learn the ropes and bring his own skills to the table — from graduate courses and serving as a graduate assistant in the Management Department— to dig deep into a company and its products by tracking a year’s worth of media coverage, for example.
 

Buying, Selling and Learning

Funds are allocated to several equities across six industries, voted on by upward of 200 students who attend weekly meetings to listen to BIG teams who pitch their companies.

Because of correlation among certain industry groups, BIG combined technology with telecom and materials with industrials, and added real estate into the conglomeration. The intuitive diversification plays an important risk reduction measure.

For BIG members, however, investing in education is just as important as investing in the right stocks.

“There’s a performance metric and then an education metric,” Tilden says. “A lot of what we do is focused on students teaching each other how to research finance — even before it’s taught in classes.”

He recalls the first BIG meeting he attended in 2012. “Students on the executive board were talking about the kinds of full-time jobs they had already secured in industries like investment banking. They were going somewhere — and I knew I wanted to be one of those kinds of students.”

BIG allocates assets by using the experience and analytical expertise of all members. By utilizing a predominantly top-down investing approach, the group is able to allocate into various sectors that the group sees as the most efficient diversification of the fund.

And leaving egos at the door is a must in order to gain the most out of the experience. Graduate students work hand-in-hand with undergrads — without issue. “Many undergraduates are my age or older and have already held multiple internships,” says Kononchuk, now 21. “You know you’re working with not just students, but professionals. Having that kind of expertise helps me see the big picture.”

Mayur Gilani MSF ’16, who also serves as vice president of finance for the Graduate Economic Organization, agrees. “If you don’t understand something like a valuation method, you just need to ask any senior analyst or team leader and they’ll answer your question right away. Being a part of this organization pushes you to keep yourself updated with relevant industry news and what’s going on in the market.”

Tilden values the different strategies that graduate students have brought to the table in regard to aspects such as using quantitative models to better optimize the portfolio. “They’ve been instrumental in the group by utilizing their experience from school and work,” he says. “They have contributed to educating younger members, which is a huge plus for the group overall.”

Finance Careers Beyond Bentley

Much of the work is done in the Trading Room, where groups often meet twice a week for at least an hour. But for students, making the investment in BIG is worth it — especially when it comes to boosting careers. In addition to building a strong network with investment-minded students who go on to land jobs in the industry, BIG experience provides a competitive advantage in the job market.

“If a potential employer asks about a favorite stock, a BIG member can present very detailed, focused analysis,” says BIG faculty adviser David Simon. “There’s a demand for those kinds of skills and actively participating in BIG is an excellent opportunity for graduate students to augment what they learn in the classroom.”

During an interview for an internship, Gilani was asked to make a short stock pitch presentation. “I was able to pull out my laptop and put on an impressive slideshow on Apple’s stock. I never would have had this kind of practical investment practice if I hadn’t been a part of BIG.”

Bentley University’s Master of Finance Program is now an academic partner with the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) for their Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designation, joining more than 40 other top graduate business schools from around the world.

Academic partnerships play a crucial role in educating the next generation of qualified risk managers. By working with colleges and universities to combine rigorous academic instruction with practitioner-driven insight and certification, students can be better prepared to succeed in the challenging field of risk management.

“We are very pleased to welcome Bentley University to the GARP Partnership for Risk Education,” said Chris Donohue, PhD, GARP’s managing director and head of Research & Educational Programs. “The Master’s in Finance offered by the Graduate School of Business is a rigorous, interdisciplinary program provided by knowledgeable faculty with strong connections to the financial community. Upon completing this program, its students will be well positioned to pursue the FRM designation and for the global risk management profession in general.”

GARP is a not-for-profit organization and the only globally recognized association for risk managers. The association aims to advance the risk profession through education and the promotion of best practices. It offers certification for financial risk management leading to a Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designation, which is the most respected and widely recognized certification for financial risk management.

“Bentley is happy to receive this recognition,” said Bentley MSF Program Director Claude Cicchetti. “Our Master of Finance program is developed in close collaboration with financial institutions and major corporations, and this partnership will help ensure that our students gain a better understanding of the rapidly changing landscape of quantitative risk analysis.”

Bentley’s Master of Finance program was also recently recognized by the CFA Institute under the University Recognition Program, signifying the abundance of real-world material preparing students to be successful in their CFA examinations.

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