Neil Withers, President of CFA Russia, welcomed students and addressed them with a short motivational speech. Then it was Vladimir Tutkevich, CFA Russia’s Executive Director, who took the floor and briefly explained the rules of the Research Challenge. He also highlighted the benefits of the competition for students willing to have a successful career in the world of finance.

CFA Russia presented a new winners’ cup with the names of all former champions engraved on the trophy. The teams of Moscow State University and Higher School of Economics, the two last year winners, raised the cup. From now on, the names of all future winners of Russia’s local Research Challenge will be inscribed on the trophy.

The evening followed with the presentation made by Anastasia Noyman of Thomson-Reuters, one of this year’s Research Challenge sponsors. The world’s leading news agency will provide personalized business terminals for each university competing in the Research Challenge.

After that came the most important part of the evening – the presentation made by Sergei Klinkov of the Moscow Exchange, this year’s subject company. Sergei dove deep into the details about his company, its performance and analytics, and other information Research Challenge participants would need to know to successfully write a report on the subject company. The presentation ended with a Q&A session during which the students had a chance to clarify some of the issues they were particularly keen on learning.

At the end of the night, students received academic books for financial professionals provided by the publishing company Wiley, another Research Challenge sponsor.

CFA Association Russia would like to thank all of its sponsors, Wiley and Thomson-Reuters, the two companies that helped to put together the 2016-2017 Investment Research Challenge.

CFA Russia thanks everyone for showing up to the Kick-Off meeting, including people who tuned in to watch the event online, and wishes everyone the best of luck.