Emily Tsiolas '20, a finance major and sustainability studies minor, talks about her experience with the Wall Street Fellows program. Wall Street Fellows is currently accepting applications for coursework beginning in spring 2019. Each of the other 11 fellows programs will open applications in early December for coursework beginning in fall 2019.

Leadership starts with understanding people, keynote speaker Dana Ritzcovan ’93 told graduates on May 19, 2018, at the undergraduate commencement celebration for the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “We hire employees at organizations, yet human beings show up instead,” said Ritzcovan, group managing director and head of human resources for Global Wealth Management at UBS, a global financial services company.

Since 2006, finance professor David Kass has led students from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business on an annual trek to Omaha, Nebraska, to partake in the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting. This year he and Smith School finance professor Elinda Kiss tried something different. They hosted more than 100 students, faculty and staff for a “Watch & Learn” event on May 5, 2018, at Van Munching Hall.

The Center for Global Business (CGB) at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and the U.S. Department of Commerce welcomed the Chief Fintech Officer of Singapore’s Monetary Authority, Sopnendu Mohanty on April 23, 2018 to discuss trending issues in fintech and blockchain technologies while focusing on the U.S. approach to fintech opportunities in the Indo-Pacific region.

On the morning of May 4, 2018, Lemma Senbet Fund fellows presented their final reports to Alex Triantis, dean of the Smith School, and the Smith Foundation Board. Seniors David Niezelski and Jacob Biedronoski led the presentation, highlighting overall gains and successful decisions made over the past year. While the equity market for the past 12 months gave the team reasonable hurdles in finding value-driven theses, the cohort persevered and ultimately achieved higher returns than previous years.

Facing real-world corporate challenges, working on a team to find solutions and presenting the findings within a few days to knowledgeable and invested professionals is a tough way to earn a grade – and some money. But that is exactly what more than two dozen undergraduate finance majors did on April 6, 2018, when they participated in the Emerging CFOs Case Competition. Similar annual events are a big part of what provides the one-year Emerging CFOs Fellows Program with an experiential edge and connects students to experts in the field.

“What course of action would YOU recommend when confronted with a challenging and complicated business issue without clear-cut solutions?”

To make it as a woman in the male-dominated finance industry, you have to be assertive. And key to that is having – or faking – confidence, says Marguerita M. Cheng, CEO of investment advisory firm Blue Ocean Wealth. "I learned to assert myself through the skills that I have," says Cheng, a 1993 graduate of the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. Cheng began her career on Wall Street as an analyst, but wanted to work more closely with clients. She became a Certified Financial Planner and transitioned into wealth management.

All faculty, program directors, deans, department chairs, alumni, and students of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business are invited to nominate deserving Smith School faculty members (i.e., tenured, tenure-track, clinical, Professor of the Practice, lecturer, adjunct, or PhD student) for one of several teaching awards. Nominations are due by March 16, 2018, and awards will be presented in May.

“You never know what you don't know because I never knew such an industry existed,” said Byron Cordon, a finance and mathematics double major after attending a presentation last week focusing on the equipment leasing and finance industry. The event was held on Feb. 13, 2018, and is one of many co-curricular offerings hosted by the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business Finance Fellows program, which is designed to expand learning outside of the classroom.