HSE — Perm’s Students Attended Final of Case Championship “PRMIA Risk Management Challenge”

A team of students from Economics educational programme attended the final of the case championship “PRMIA Risk Management Challenge” in Moscow. The team consisted of Boris Komarov and Grigory Pleshkov (2^nd year students), Aleksandr Popov and Victor Zhemchuzhnikov (4^th year students).

Boris Komarov, a member of the team, told us about the participation in the championship.

— Why did you choose a championship in risk management? Why is this area attractive for you?

— Risk management attracts me with junction of mathematics and economics; the same is true for other members of our team, I think. This case championship was advised to us by our lecturers from HSE – Evgeniy Ozhegov and Agata Lozinskaia.

— Were there other teams from HSE — Perm?

— Unfortunately, we were the only team from HSE — Perm, nobody else wanted to participate.

— How did you create your team? Are you all friends?

— The team was created by the lecturers, so we, the 2^nd and 4^th year students, were not familiar to each other.

— Which tasks did you solve at qualifying stage? Were they difficult?

— At the qualifying stage we were solving a case based on a real situation with Metro de Porto – a Portuguese state railroad company. It was rather difficult, especially for us, 2^nd year students. We had to learn many things on the fly.

— How did you prepare yourself to the final?

— We repeated derivative financial instruments and learnt the text of our final speech.

— Can you share your impressions from the final? What was the most difficult?

— In the final we continued to analyze the situation with Metro de Porto. Competition was the most difficult thing: Moscow State University, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, HSE — Moscow, besides, all students except us were masters.

— What qualities does a student need in order to reach high results at such events?

— Unequivocally I can say that profound knowledge of derivative financial instruments and programing skills are necessary for success at such events. One can also add the understanding how the world financial system works.

— In what else competitions do you plan to take part?

— Next year we will try ourselves at this case championship again, this time we will thoroughly prepare and take our previous mistakes into account.

— Where do you plan to work after you graduate from HSE?

— When I graduate from HSE I would like to move towards risk management.