Canadian university students from Queen’s University Smith School of Business took home the first place award at the inaugural Canadian Ethics Challenge held in Toronto earlier this month.

The Canadian Ethics Challenge, hosted by CFA Societies Canada, brought together three finalist student teams on June 1 to evaluate the ethical dilemmas presented in a case study indicative of issues that investment management practitioners face.

The competition was designed to raise awareness around industry ethics and improve leadership among the next generation of investment professionals, according to a news release from the CFA Societies.

“The Canadian Ethics Challenge is a great way to showcase the importance of ethics in the investment profession to the next generation of investment and finance professionals,” says Clayton Gall, chairman of CFA Societies Canada, in a statement.

“All three teams gave excellent presentations that exemplified their understanding of the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice in a real-world scenario that included identifying issues with investment suitability, which is very topical today,” he adds.

To qualify for the finals, students competed in local competitions across Canada from January to March. The three advancing schools were the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business and Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business.

The winning student team included Lekan Akindele, Adam Prokop, Carter Smith and Weixuan Xue.

Photo copyright: elenathewise/123RF