College of Business News

Last year, four Montana State University (MSU) students in finance and economics started pursuing their Char­tered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification. Three of four graduates had passed the first level and the College of Business (CoB) is pleased to announce that two of the three graduates who passed Level I have passed Level II of the CFA exam. Cairn Clark and Austin Owens, both CoB finance option graduates, were noti­fied of their success at the end of July. They have only one more level to pass before attaining their CFA certification.

According to the CFA Institute’s website, the pass rate for the June Level I exam was 42%, while the pass rate for Level II was 39%. The CoB students passing the exam are testaments to the high qual­ity education they’ve received in the CoB, at MSU, and the hands-on nature of the faculty.

Clark said it best when he was preparing for the first of the grueling three-level exam: “While other schools boast name recognition, we had access to something different. We had five finance professors that were willing to develop personal rela­tionships with their students outside of the classroom and simultaneously create an excitement and passion for finance. There is no better motivator than knowing you have a great set of mentors behind you every step of the way, especially when you are devoting a large chunk of your life to studying for exams that many people consider ‘life ruining.’ I’m hoping that the obsession with finance that I picked up on the fourth floor of Reid will take me a lot farther in my career than having an Ivy League stamp on my resume.”

The CFA Program, a graduate-level self-study program, combines a broad-based curriculum of investment principles with professional conduct requirements. It is designed to prepare CFA students for a wide range of investment specialties that apply in every market all over the world.

Investment industry employers around the world recognize the CFA designation as the gold standard for professional excellence. Completing the CFA Program places our graduates in elite company, confirming their mastery of the program’s rigorous curriculum and their commitment to the formidable challenge of passing all three examination levels.

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Montana State University’s College of Business instructors have always gone above and beyond their duties as mentors, educators and researchers. All are encouraged to actively participate in business research and practices. One such instructor is Gary Bishop, who has been asked to be a regular contributing correspondent for each issue of Effective Business Today as the U.S. Correspondent.

Bishop’s article, “The Economic Recovery in America, and Montana,” was published in the second edition of the magazine. In the article he touched upon the Alderson Entrepreneur program, the small business management and entrepreneurship minor and the Management 463 course, Entrepreneurial Experience. He described how the class uniquely pairs up small 2-3 person student teams with local and state-wide businesses and non-profits. Through these consulting classes, students are directly contributing towards local and state-wide economic development.

The syllabus accurately describes the course as “designed to provide students with hands-on experience in working with actual entrepreneurial enterprises, functioning in teams, and managing real projects for respective client companies. The course is intended to expose students to essential elements of entrepreneurial endeavors and provide the opportunity to make a real-world contribution to their client companies.”

In the article, Bishop described the thriving Bozeman area entrepreneurial environment and how matching up students with businesses provides a win-win situation for everyone. The businesses receive pro bono consulting and research, while the students gain invaluable hands-on experience. These students have worked with more than 250 local businesses ranging from Yellowstone Bees, a natural body-care products company, to Kitchen TLC, a boutique artisan chocolate and tea company. Bishop says that a large percentage of these businesses have endured beyond the start-up phase, and are continuing to grow and prosper, even during the economic downturn.

The third edition of the publication featured Bishop’s article on the “Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico” as the cover story. He investigated the impact of the disaster on businesses in the locality and how that impacted the relationship between the U.S. and Great Britain.

Keep an eye out for the fourth issue, available the first week of October. Bishop’s article will focus on customer service in the U.S. and how that differentiates between the winners and the losers.

Effective Business Today is a new bi-monthly online publication based out of the United Kingdom. It is published by Effective Business Group (EBGi), who seek to provide business owners with a source of information and inspiration for the challenges they are facing today. According to their website, http://www.effectivebusinesstoday.com/about, EBGi is the fastest growing network of businesses in the U.K. and already has more than 100,000 members comprised of managing directors of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

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