Message from the Director

We have been celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the program throughout the year, with articles published on a monthly basis and shared with on our social media pages and our website.

We give tribute to our benefactor, Ken Woods, who had the vision to start the program and faith in students to be fiduciaries of the foundation.

From inception, our benefactor Kenneth Woods had a clear vision for the program that bears his name. The KWPMP had set a standard for providing opportunities to bright and motivated undergraduate students.

The 168 alumni along with the five new upcoming graduates who will join them as Calvin C. Potter Fellows can attest to the positive impact the program has made in their lives. After twenty-five years, the program still attracts the brightest students of John Molson, with recruiting becoming more competitive each year.

We had a nice turnout for the fall celebration that took place in November, with Bruno Roy as the keynote speaker. Bruno Roy is President and Chief Executive Officer of the CN Investment Division which manages one of the largest corporate pension funds in Canada.

Bruno was gracious with his openness in answering a range of questions, from investment management and the challenges it faces in the current investment environment to his own journey in the business.

The classes of 2024 and 2025 achieved a major accomplishment this past fall by winning the top prize in the inaugural CIBC Mellon Canada Student Run Fund Conference that took place in Toronto.

After submitting their written analysis of a company, they were one of three finalists to make a presentation in front of a large audience at the conference. They competed against forty student funds across Canada represented by 333 attendees plus 100 online.

Being recognized as the best student managed fund team in Canada was a proud moment for the KWPMP and Concordia University.

While attending the conference in Toronto, the group had the privilege of visiting the trading floors of BMO Capital Markets and RBC Capital Markets at their respective head offices.

In addition, Mary Ann Lew, Managing Director of BMO Capital Markets created a seminar for the KWPMP students with guest speakers, giving the students exposure to the reality of sell-side analysts – their duties and the challenges they face on a daily basis as well as receiving career advice from a buy-side portfolio manager.

We had a very competitive group of applicants vying for a spot in the class of 2026. The recruitment cycle kicked off with the information session on September 10 followed by a month-long, three-stage process to choose the new cohort.

It was an extremely hectic and exhausting month – for both the candidates and myself – and I was pleased to announce the cohort on October 14. The seven new students started their two- year experience as part of the KWPMP by attending seminars and getting their first taste of a client committee meeting in November.

We had another successful internship placement for all the students. As soon as the students were chosen to be part of the class of 2026, we worked on securing their summer internship and we were able to complete it in record time – with all seven new students placed into summer internships only three weeks after being admitted to the program.

The class of 2025, who became fund managers starting in January, had secured their summer internships during the summer of 2024. With the pressure of securing a summer internship behind them, they were all able to focus their time and energy to managing the fund. You'll see the internships they secured by visiting the research associates and fund managers profile pages.

The winter term has been incredibly busy and full of exciting news and wonderful events. We had the honour of hosting 21 seminar speakers this term. They shared detailed presentations about various aspects of capital markets and gave students a chance to interact with established professionals. I would also like to express my deep gratitude for the vital support of all our seminar speakers.

The class of 2024 presented their last client committee meeting in mid-February, receiving high praise from the committee on their hard work, accomplishments and dedication to the program.

They were complimented on their performance, given their third percentile ranking and being ranked second when measured against public pensions, corporate pensions and university pensions.

In mid-February, five of our KWPMP fund managers represented Concordia University in the provincial round of the CFA Institute Research Challenge. Once again, the company they were required to analyze was a difficult one as there was a very limited amount of publicly available information on this extremely small cap company and therefore, they had to conduct independent research.

They worked diligently and bonded as a team to produce a research paper and presentation that was top-notch. The team won the Quebec division of the competition, but unfortunately, they did not win the next round of the competition to represent Canada.

During the first week of April, the class of 2025 attended the Quinnipiac GAME Forum in New York City and were treated to tours at Jefferies, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Bloomberg.

I want to thank our alumni Simon Beaudry and Michael Knight and Alan Oraka who hosted our students at their respective firms.

We are excited to have Alexandre Bilodeau as our keynote speaker for the upcoming anniversary dinner and graduation ceremony in May. It should be a fantastic evening as we celebrate the program’s twenty-fifth anniversary year.

I want to thank you for the support of the program over the past year. As well, I wish you a warm welcome to spring and a safe and enjoyable summer.

Kind regards,
Sukyong Yang
Director, KWPMP