HPS Center for Financial Excellence

HPS Center for Financial Excellence (HPS-CFE)

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The purpose of the HPS Center for Financial Excellence is to provide innovative student programming that produces high-caliber graduates for careers in finance, especially in the areas of investment and wealth management, commercial and investment banking, and private equity. The Center offers a forum for academicians and industry professionals to work on matters that impact the financial services community through an advanced curriculum, learning tools, experiential learning, workshops, presentations, and webinars. The goal is to benefit Business School students, faculty, industry stakeholders, and other constituents in the financial services sector.

HPS-CFE Center

  • Goals Establish and sustain mutually beneficial partnerships with leading financial services firms that will allow us to maintain important relationships with the financial services sector.

  • Build innovative and impactful programming to prepare and position our students for successful careers in financial services.

  • Organize seminars, workshops, webinars, and training to provide students and faculty with relevant current knowledge from practitioners.    

  • Establish Howard University as a global presence, synonymous with a best-in-class finance education.

Program Offerings

The HPS Center for Financial Excellence will offer innovative programs to propel student engagement, mentorship, and career preparation; broaden industry partnerships; and provide a deepening impact on financial services. The following programs will be created or expanded to meet our goals.

  • An HPS Scholars Program will be developed to rigorously prepare students academically and professionally for highly competitive careers in financial services.

  • Students will follow an application process to be admitted into the HPS Scholars program. Students selected as sophomores will go through an enhanced academic curriculum and co-curricular activities featuring significant experiential learning. This program will be purposefully constructed to build a talent pipeline of finance majors who are high-achieving, diverse, and prepared for challenging and rewarding finance careers, especially in the fields of investment/wealth management, investment banking, and private equity. Students accepted into the program will have access to experiential learning events, faculty advising, industry mentors, programs and workshops (at no additional cost to them), select internships, immersion training at corporate partner locations, and scholarships.

  • In the second year of this program, the goal is to develop tracks that will focus on four key financial areas: investment management, wealth management, investment banking, and private equity.  Each track will be designed to provide a custom experience for the students to be immersed in real-world applications to develop the competencies for those areas. We plan to offer courses designed to give students practical insights into the real world of finance. Examples of finance elective courses that the HPS Scholars will be able to choose from for the four tracks are Financial Markets & Institutions, Investment Analysis & Portfolio Management, Wealth Management, Series 7 Prep, Advanced Financial Analysis (CFA Level 1 Exam), Valuation, Investment Banking, and Private Equity. Some of these courses will be new courses developed for this program.

  • HPS Scholars will be provided assistance to obtain internships in the specialized areas they choose, by leveraging industry relationships established through the Center. Each student will be provided with a team of advisors and mentors, including faculty, alumni, and corporate partner mentors.

  • Students who complete all components of the program will receive the prestigious designation of HPS Scholar and a certificate attesting to the track they completed. Upper-level students in the program are expected to be ambassadors at their internship opportunities to grow awareness of the program initiatives, and mentor/coach other students in the program.

Internal Practical | Experiential Learning Programs 

The HPS Center for Financial Excellence will organize and oversee several experiential learning programs and HPS Scholars will be required to participate in the programs that are relevant for their chosen tracks.

  • Wall Street on Campus: this is an interactive experience with professionals from leading financial firms. This annual financial strategy education seminar will expose students at Howard University and nearby HBCUs to practical knowledge and insights on financial strategies from professional experts and provide them with information about careers in financial services. Presenting firms include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley. The seminars cover a wide range of applied finance topics, such as Economic and Market Outlook, Asset and Wealth Management, Investment Banking, Alternative Investments, and Careers in Financial Services.

  • Trading Challenges: will be conducted for 10 to 11 weeks each semester for School of Business students. Participants manage a $500,000 portfolio in this online simulation where they can trade stocks/ETFs, bonds, mutual funds, options, and spot currencies and commodities at real-time prices. Eligible students with the top five portfolio returns are awarded scholarships totaling $2,500 each semester, based on their geometric Sharpe ratio ranks. The goal is to motivate students to develop practical knowledge of financial markets and securities.

  • Pitch Competitions: these are a great way for a team of students to research and pitch stocks. We propose to add these competitions for students which will be judged by investment professionals at firms that partner with the Center. Cash prizes will be awarded to the pitch winners.  A program will be built around the competition where the teams will attend presentations by investment professionals who will discuss stock research and pitching while also networking with these professionals and recruiters.

  • The Student Investment Fund: is underwritten by an endowment whereby student members pitch stocks to a Finance Faculty Committee to buy/sell assets based on valuations and projected returns. Future plans are to expand this program to add a more comprehensive education component supplemented by investment professionals as consultants.

  • The Wall Street Trip: will take students on a 4-day visit to several leading financial firms in New York to learn first-hand from finance professionals and network with them.

Experimental Learning Programs 

The Center will work with external stakeholders to help organize learning opportunities and motivate mentors, and support students to take advantage of these opportunities.

  • Market Madness: HBCU Possibilities Program: is a new initiative by Goldman Sachs for eight partners HBCUs. Selected freshman and sophomore students will participate in a semester-long virtual crash course in key financial concepts which includes a stipend and culminates in a case study competition and the opportunity to win prize funding for their institutions.

  • Private Equity Bootcamps: are being organized for our students by McKinsey with several private equity firms. They will offer three two-hour sessions spread over several months. Students who participate in all three sessions will get completion certificates.

  • Bloomberg Trading Challenge:  provides student portfolio teams the opportunity to compete against other U.S. teams and experience real-world investing. Finalist teams are invited to the Bloomberg headquarters in New York to present their investment strategies.

  • CFA Institute Research Challenge: this is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis and professional ethics. Students are tested on their analytical, valuation, report writing, and presentation skills, and they gain real-world experience as research analysts. 

  • CFA Institute Ethics Challenge: is a competition between university-sponsored teams that analyze a case with various ethical dilemmas. Student teams present their analysis to a panel of judges.

Advanced Resources 

  • The Simulation Learning and Research (SLR) Lab has a simulated trading floor with 25 terminals that provide access to investment information and analysis (Morningstar Direct and Value Line Professional), technical analysis (Metastock Professional), risk analysis (Crystal Ball Professional), and a web-based trading simulation with real-time securities data (StockTrak). The Lab resources are used by faculty for classes, and by students for assignments, in several courses.

  • The Bloomberg Lab, has ten Bloomberg terminals, including the Instructor’s terminal, and two additional terminals are available in the School of Business Library. All finance majors are required to complete Bloomberg Market Concepts certification, using the terminals, when they take their first finance course. Several upper-level finance courses use the Bloomberg Lab for classes and student assignments and the Investment Club uses it to research investments for the Student Investment Fund. Students also use the lab for Trading Competitions, Case Studies, Projects, Careers Information, Interview Preparations, and Networking. 

Meet the Team 

  • Director & Adjunct Professor | Dr. Curtis Kidd Telemaque (CKidd@howard.edu) 

  • Program Coordinator | Dr. Cheryl Evans (Cheryl.Evans@howard.edu) 

  • The Student Engagement Advisory Group | Alumni, Graduate Students, and Undergraduate Students

Faculty 

  • Department Chair & Associate Professor | Dr. Byeongyong Choi (BChoi@howard.edu) 

  • Professor | Dr. Sandip Mukherji (SMukherji@howard.edu)

Contact Us...

For more information, please contact us at HPS-CFE@howard.edu.

Howard University School of Business

2600 6th St NW. Room 568

Washington, D.C. 20059