Our team (from right to left; Tony, Amisha, Aki, Puneet, and Rachel) recently had the opportunity to compete in the local finals of the CFA Society Toronto Ethics Challenge on February 9, 2023. It was a great experience where we got to implement and learn about ethics, teamwork, and presentation skills.
The competition focused on identifying CFA Code of Ethics violations in a real-life based scenario. This gave us a real-life application, which prepares us for the ethical dilemmas we could face in our careers. Prior to the event itself, we all completed a course about ethical decision-making from CFA. This helped familiarize us with the code and give us a chance to think about and discuss some of the ethical issues that arise every day in the field of finance.
This challenge helped us identify the major types of violations and how they occur. We learned that there are a lot of considerations that go into making an ethical decision; no two cases are exactly alike. Little differences can make a large change in the outcome, and it is very situationally based and requires a great deal of consideration and care.
One key takeaway from this challenge was how to compete and prepare for a challenge like this. The way teams were evaluated was by three main components: their analysis, recommendations, and overall presentation. However, the rubric was heavily weighted towards the issues we identified with around 60% of points allocated to it, whereas the presentation was only worth 10%. The judges gave us excellent feedback on our performance, and we are very grateful for it. We learned that going forward we should focus on exactly what the rubric is asking for to have the best chance of success.
Although we did not move on to the national finals, we had a great experience at the CFA Society Toronto Ethics Challenge, and we look forward to continuing to deepen our understanding of business ethics at the School of Accounting and Finance!