University of Waterloo students take the top spot in global finance competition

“Share SAF student team beats 1,100 universities to claim the CFA Institute Research Challenge global title for the third time, making Waterloo Canada's only ever global champion For the third time in a decade, students from the University of Waterloo’s School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) have claimed the global title at the CFA Institute Research Challenge — the world's most prestigious student finance competition. The student team arrived in Hong Kong having spent months preparing — hundreds of hours of research, dozens of practice sessions with alumni and mentors and six gruelling rounds of competition against the best student finance teams in the world. On May 12, it all paid off. Competing against more than 7,000 students from 1,100 universities across 100 countries, the SAF team beat finalists from California State University Fullerton, Peking University, Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Ljubljana to take home the grand prize of $10,000 USD. With wins in 2016, 2024 and now 2026, the University of Waterloo stands alone as Canada's only global champion ever to win and ties the University of Sydney for the most global final appearances of any school in the competition's 20-year history. The team includes Jei Raman Gnaneswaran, Alicia Wen and Michael Huang, students in the Accounting and Financial Management program, and Quynh-Anh Le, a student in the Biotech/CPA program and Ethan Fraser, a Sustainability and Financial Management student. The pitch Ontario schools competing within CFA Society Toronto and CFA Society Ottawa were assigned Lightspeed Commerce (TSX: LSPD), a Montreal-based technology company whose software powers the payment terminals and back-end systems used by restaurants and retailers around the world. After months of deep analysis, including primary research conversations with customers, competitors and industry professionals, the team issued a sell recommendation, citing concerns about the company's historical management and the competitive challenges facing its forward strategy. The team competed across six rounds, from a local final in Toronto through to the Americas regional final and ultimately the global stage in Hong Kong. At every stage they were supported by faculty advisor Steve Balaban, CFA, and industry mentor Jeannine LiChong, CFA (MAcc '92), both longstanding pillars of the University of Waterloo's Research Challenge program. Thinking on their feet Each of the six global finalists presented as near technically perfect, but the SAF team knew their edge would have to come elsewhere — and it did. "The number one thing that set us apart was our quality of Q and A," Gnaneswaran says. "We did a lot of practice with alumni, our industry mentors Jeannine and Steve, simulating the kinds of questions we'd face on the global stage and learning how to tie in our primary research to support our answers." Judges from different continents brought questions from different perspectives which the team hadn't fully anticipated, but a clear strategy meant no question went unanswered. Each member had designated topics; when something unexpected came up, one person would take the first pass while others listened and layered in additional detail. "Our teamwork in those moments was something the judges specifically called out afterwards,” Gnaneswaran explains. They didn't do it alone The SAF team engaged between 20 and 30 University of Waterloo alumni throughout the competition, including recent graduates and more seasoned professionals, who brought fresh eyes to a pitch the team had been living with for months. "The alumni, since they have a third-party perspective and they're seeing it for the first time, were really able to ground us and tell us: what you have is amazing, this is global finals quality. That's something we're incredibly grateful for," Gnaneswaran says. "We couldn't be more proud of these students," Balaban says. "The depth of work they put in, the primary research, the preparation, the hundreds of appendix slides — it showed in every round. When it came to the global final, they were ready for anything. That's the Waterloo difference." More than a competition For Gnaneswaran, the value of the competition went well beyond the trophy. He completed much of it while on co-op and noticed the difference it made at work. "Throughout this competition I noticed myself being able to articulate my thoughts better, tell a story better and communicate more strongly and that translated directly into the workplace," he says. "Opportunities like these that the University of Waterloo has are just exceptional in terms of learning that we wouldn't be able to replicate anywhere else.” Gnaneswaran says. "Being able to come to these finals and compete against schools that may have a larger global brand than the University of Waterloo — we feel very proud to represent Canada and our university the way we did." The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition now in its 20th year, open to undergraduate and graduate students. Teams research a publicly traded company, produce an equity research report with a buy, sell or hold recommendation and present and defend their findings before a panel of industry professionals. Arts Talent Share

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