This semester, the GW Investment Institute, in collaboration with the Office of Undergraduate Programs at the GW School of Business (GWSB), proudly supported a team of four undergraduate students in representing GWSB at the prestigious McGill International Portfolio Challenge (MIPC). We are deeply grateful to the Office of the Dean at GWSB for their generous support in making this opportunity possible.
The following is a guest blog by Esha Peer, BS ’25 one of the students who competed at MIPC, reflecting on the experience.
The McGill International Portfolio Competition (MIPC) is a student-run buy-side case competition with three rounds: the first is a write-up with the skeleton of a recommendation. The second and third rounds occur on the same day, and there is an in-person presentation in Montreal on campus at McGill. This year’s challenge was integrating liquidity into a retirement savings plan for the workforce in Florida, especially those in the gig economy.
This summer, I worked on the buy-side as an investment analyst with PGIM Private Capital, but only on one asset class. I had no idea how a pension fund worked. My teammates – Judy Abdo, Grady McGean, and Mateo Moya – and I spent our first few meetings trying to figure out what retirement funds do. I won’t go too much into the jargon, but let’s just say the Wealth Whisperers (our fun team name) probably know more about defined contributions than the average Gen Z-er.
After understanding the background, we spent significant time conceptualizing our problem, the gaps in current solutions, and how to create a new solution. Spending hours on a whiteboard writing out different frameworks and trying to innovate with the background and excitement we all had were some of my favorite late nights of the semester. We determined our solution needed to be flexible, provide liquidity, and sustain wealth. Flexibility, liquidity, and wealth sustainability became FLOWS. After these few weeks of labor and with guidance from the GW Investment Institute (GWII), we finally submitted our first round.
Our team received an email Sunday night: we made it to the semifinals. I was speechless when I received the news. We were going to Montreal to compete in the next round! After another few weeks of meetings, planning, and revising between midterms, our team submitted a presentation and got our bags ready for Canada.
An hour after landing and checking in, the team headed to McGill’s campus across from our hotel. The minute we walked outside, the Montreal sky began to pour. But with our suits on and giant hotel umbrellas, we made it to our first panel, Women in the Buy Side. Between this and the night’s final event, Bojana Jankovic – our team chaperone – allowed us to practice our mock presentations. This one hour of practice was nerve-wracking, but it was exactly what we needed.
At 9 AM, it was time to head out. The hours before our presentation were a blur. But the moment our presentation began, the team was ready. We flowed through the slides and received tough questions from our judges. Instead of getting stressed, though, our team continued to answer questions. For our 10 minutes of questions, my heart never stopped pounding. However, the team’s rehearsal and research depth helped us through the high pressure.
At lunch, we discovered we hadn’t made it past the semifinals. It was sad to see the end of our hard work before the finals, but I was still glad to be part of the first in-person GW team since 2019. Watching the finalists helped us realize how much more there was to learn about the buy-side and actuarial modeling. I’m happy to report that I, along with four other students, received the best speaker award.
As a senior in the business school, I figured the core moments of my GW experience had concluded a while back. But MIPC gave me something special. Preparing for the case competition allowed me to learn about a new area of finance. It also helped me grow my network within the business school and abroad. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to represent the GWSB internationally, and I hope students are inspired by this experience to take advantage of how much GWII has to offer.