Team headed to risk management competition finals

Undergraduate | Jan 27, 2015 | Gabelli School of Business

The Bronx Bankers are back.

The four Fordham University Gabelli School of Business finance majors who won last year’s international finals of the Professional Risk Managers International Association Risk Management Challenge will be headed back to defend their title.

The four – Chris McCloskey, Blake Rodriguez, Neal Suhkia and Stephen Hearn, who call themselves the Bronx Bankers – again have won the regional final in New York and will be going to compete in the international finals this year in Minneapolis. The New York event was held at Credit Suisse on Jan. 24.

The competition presents teams of students with real-life risk management issues, for which they make recommendations.

In the regional competition, the teams took on a Harvard Business School case study about “China Risk Finance,” in which the students had to analyze a number of issues about China’s economy, including savings market structure and macroeconomic risks, and develop a credit rating methodology, among other tasks.

There were 18 teams that competed, with each team making a 20-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute question-and-answer session. The teams were broken into two nine-team brackets, and the top team from each bracket then made presentations in front of all competitors and judges. Teams from New York University, Columbia University and Lehigh were among the competitors.The international competition is open to students in the United States, Canada and the European Union.

In the finals, two case studies will be presented to the teams by the PRMIA and the Kellogg School of Management. The winning team is eligible for a prize of up to $10,000.

The competition is designed to promote the financial industry and analytical decision-making. Talented individuals may also get job and internship leads from the event, according to the PRMIA.