Member of winning ethics challenge team says finance is a noble profession and must be treated as such by practitioners
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Advisors and financial planners of the future must help restore trust in the profession, according to a winner of the CFA Societies Canada Ethics Challenge.
Aamena Chatoo, along with Telfer School of Management team members James Beaudoin, Christian Cotroneo and Natalie Dokmajian, beat out a total of 26 rival teams to claim the prize.
The Ottawa undergraduate team’s final presentation, which they had to prepare in just three hours, involved them confronting the grey zone of insider trading as well as using mosaic theory, cross-benefit analysis and a real options chart.
Chatoo, who is currently interning in the anti-money laundering field, said the pressured nature of the challenge will prepare her well for when she enters the industry. However, she acknowledged that her generation has work to do to restore the finance service’s reputation.
She said: “It scares me that we have lost the trust of certain groups of consumers all together. We can’t recreate our past but we can share our vision of a hopeful future. I genuinely think we can do this by building a rapport with our clients and wanting what’s best for them; by providing an honest opinion, supporting them through their ups and downs. Financial ups and downs are a part of life.”
Chatoo said that students working to gain a foothold in the industry are only too aware of the stereotypes associated with finance professionals but insists it is a “noble profession” and believes advisors should, just like doctors, take an oath of commitment to best practice.
She said: “The CFA commits to the code of ethics to form the basis of trust and govern these gray zones; compromising someone’s health and wealth drastically impacts their quality of life.”
The finals of the competition, featuring the last four schools, took place in Vancouver earlier this month, with the Telfer team providing the best analysis of a new case study to a judging panel of CFA charterholders and then performing well in a question-and-answer session.
Chatoo said the victory was the result of eight months of hard work and preparation.
She said: “We were completely overjoyed. My team and I just hugged each other – it was a great moment because we had been practising and practising cracking cases together.”
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