In February, after months of preparation, seniors Ainhoa Ceballos Hübner, Camila García, Emma Barakat, and Janka Szabo won the local CFA Research Institute Challenge. The competition required researching a publicly traded company, writing a report, and presenting their work and findings to a panel of judges at the final local competition which took place in Dubai amongst different university teams.

The team submitted their proposal to a committee from the Economics department to qualify, which selected a representative from other NYU Abu Dhabi applicants. Being selected as the team to represent NYUAD, our students quickly got to work, putting in weeks of practice. They recalled a Zoom call on Christmas day, with team members dialing in from different countries, as the pivotal moment they decided to go all-in on the competition.

The collaboration was evident, as they reminisced on their complementing strengths. From gathering quantitative data, creating the presentation, and preparing for the Q&A panel from the judges, it was clear from the conversation that each team member brought a unique skillset to the table and that they all learned from each other as much as they did from the competition itself. “It wasn’t dreadful, meeting to work for 9 hours a day,” Ainhoa commented as her teammates laughed. “It reinforced for me that I really do love working in teams.”

“As a team, we could work together very well,” Janka said, as the team members all agreed. The lessons they learned from this competition were clearly extensive. Prioritizing feedback implementation, applying academic lessons to real scenarios, and even their final report are all valuable experiences they gained. “When we finished the report, I would look at it all the time,” Emma joked. The team agreed that the ability to research a specific company, source and select data, and create a presentation was a unique opportunity to apply the skills they have been building throughout their academic and professional journeys.

On the day of the competition, they recalled going through the presentation for the entire journey to Dubai. Upon arriving, they realized they were competing with 8 other university teams, including some MBA students. Nonetheless, they were selected as the local winners and were awarded a PwC Academy scholarship for CFA Exam prep, in addition to their trophies for all their hard work.

The team highly recommends this experience, cautioning that while time-intensive, it was incredibly rewarding and a wonderful learning experience. “I realized I could work really long hours,” Camila commented as the team remembered the 12-hour days of practice they would have in the Bloomberg Terminal.

Going forward, the team will be presenting at the 2025 Regional Societies Regional Research Challenge Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May 30, 2025.