Conference draws professionals, students from 7 other universities
A conference organized by students at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business on Friday, Oct. 1, will bring together investment professionals and students from seven other universities in Virginia and West Virginia.
The conference will allow students to learn how different professionals as well as other student investment teams approach valuation and investment decisions, said finance senior Jason Bates. "It will also provide a networking opportunity for students who will be entering the investments field."
Bates heads SEED, the Student-managed Endowment for Educational Development, a team of 24 students who manage about $3 million of the university’s endowment through stock-market investments. SEED is the nation’s largest student-run portfolio that is not managed as part of a course and the third largest in amount managed.
The professionals who will give talks at the conference are: John T. Bruce, portfolio manager and founder, Flippin, Bruce, and Porter; William Braun Jones III, president and co-founder, The McLean Group; Matthew A. Jones, associate asset manager, Harbor Group International; John L. Snow III, Priority Capital Management, Chris Woronka, securities analyst, Swiss American Securities (a member of Credit Suisse Group); Peter Zippelius, securities analyst, Citigroup; and Vahan Janjigian, vice president and executive director of Forbes Investors Advisory Institute, a subsidiary of Forbes Inc.
The speakers also are all Virginia Tech alumni who received finance, accounting, MBA, or Ph.D. degrees. "Our alumni are always asking us what they can do to help," said finance professor Art Keown, who is one of two faculty advisers to SEED. The conference, he said, "not only gives us a way to tap into the experience of alumni who manage money for a living, but also enables us to build closer ties with our alumni."
The other participants include students from the College of William and Mary, James Madison University, Radford University, Roanoke College, the University of Richmond, Virginia Military Institute, and West Virginia University.
Virginia Tech's nationally ranked Pamplin College of Business offers undergraduate and graduate programs in accounting and information systems, business information technology, economics, finance, hospitality and tourism management, management, and marketing. The college emphasizes the development of leadership skills and ethical values and the integration of technology in the academic curriculum, and prepares students for global business challenges through faculty-led study abroad programs. The college has research centers that focus on business leadership, electronic commerce, energy modeling, and wireless telecommunications. The college is committed to serving business and society through the expertise of its faculty, alumni, and students.
Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become among the largest universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.
