The University of Memphis Takes 2nd Place at the 2022 Southeastern Hedge Fund Competition
The Southeastern Hedge Fund Competition is open to teams of students at all colleges and universities in the world. The Competition offers participants the opportunity to apply theory to practical strategies. Student teams submit hedge fund strategy proposals that are evaluated by a panel of investment professionals who assess talent and investment strategies via numerous rounds of interviews. The top five teams are invited to Atlanta for the final competition in April. Each team is composed of one to five undergraduate and/or graduate students and a faculty advisor from the students’ college or university.
The University of Memphis won the silver medal, 2nd place, and $5,000 in this prestigious and highly competitive competition. In 2017, The University took home 1st place, and UofM graduate student, Priyanka Singh was determined to bring home another win this year. Singh’s team, the IQ Titans, consisted of herself alongside John Herin, Naitik Kaythwal, and Nathan Miskell. They competed against 80 top universities and colleges from around the world. In the spring of 2021, they started studying how digital marketing strategies impact Digital IQ and data breaches. It was a topic that required a lot of research hours, many updates, and testing of their findings and theories. Singh and her team kept pushing because they knew they had a viable idea.
Singh believed that 2 key factors attributed to their success. First, a strong team, and secondly was a great mentor. Having a compatible team whose members have diverse strengths made a huge impact. Together they built, assessed, and tested the idea. In her opinion, a great mentor is the glue. She says that having Dr. PK Jain as their mentor was absolutely necessary. She states “Dr. J. saw my potential and encouraged me to go after it. He provided vision and motivation, and for that, I am so very grateful. We could not have done this without him. He was dedicated to our success.” When asked what inspired him to partner with the IQ Titians, Dr. Jain said, “Students are my highest priority. There is nothing more satisfying than student success. I am internally driven by it. I have dedicated my life to keeping students motivated to dream, pay their dues, and stay inspired.”
In addition to success, Singh stated that this experience helped her cultivate leadership skills and taught her how to stay consistent. and make “everyday” progress when working on a huge project. Singh believes that the skills and experience that she learned while preparing for this competition will be beneficial as she furthers her career. One of her desires is for the UofM to have continued success in this competition. Her advice for the teams that follow is: Be persistent in your efforts, don’t give up even when roadblocks happen and remember that failings are the steppingstones to success.