Supporting future female leaders in the finance industry

NUS BBA Year 4 Sherry Yuan recently received one of the two prizes for the 2018 CAMRI Student Managed Fund Awards. Sherry talks about the award, and how her journey led her to eventually specialising in Finance and Supply Chain Management.

I started out like most clueless freshmen in business school, not sure of what I wanted to do as a career upon graduation. The good thing about business school is from your first year onwards, you are introduced and exposed to a wide variety of industries (e.g. accountancy, FMCG, banking, supply chain) and the importance of internships are heavily stressed to students. Thus, throughout my 4 years in school, I made it a point to attend networking sessions across various fields, and completed three internships in the fields of consulting (Cushman and Wakefield as a workplace strategy intern), financial advisory (Tulchan Communications as a media and markets analyst) and asset management (J.P. Morgan as an analyst).

Since completing my summer internship in 2017 with J.P. Morgan, I’ve been part of their J.P. Morgan Student Ambassador Programme, working closely with career services to address the needs of students who express interest in the company.

I also participated in some interesting case competitions, where I discovered my interest in asset management that motivated me to apply for an internship and finally allowed me to secure a job with J.P. Morgan Asset Management (Singapore) as an Analyst in their graduate programme.

The 2018 CAMRI Student Managed Fund Awards is awarded to the most outstanding female students in the Student Managed Fund track. It comprises six finance modules in portfolio management, financial modelling and equity research.

I took the module FIN4112K Applied Portfolio Management Techniques under Professor Richard Yeh as I had just completed an Asset Management internship and was interested to learn more about portfolio management from an industry professional. The module is extremely rigorous – it requires students to pay careful attention as the class is fast-paced with heavy content. At the end of the module, students need to write an equity research report on a company of your choice, as well as create a country-specific equity portfolio that is able to outperform the corresponding ETF, using concepts such as BARRA, Black-Litterman and Stambaugh that were taught in class.

Honestly, I was very shocked when I was notified that I was going to be receiving the award. I would like to thank Professor Richard Yeh, who taught FIN4112K, for his guidance and faith in me and the CAMRI team for giving me this award. I definitely could not have done it without my very inspiring team – Darren, Xunwei and Sean, with whom I spent late nights in the CAMRI lab running simulations with, for their support and encouragement throughout this process.

I think NUS Business School offers many interesting modules, especially those taught by adjunct professors whose wisdom and wealth of real-world experiences cannot be found in any textbooks or online. Two examples of these modules are FIN3120C China’s Capital Markets and FIN4112K Applied Portfolio Management Techniques, both of which I enjoyed tremendously and highly recommend to other students.

Outside of the classroom, I would definitely say join NUS Bizad Club and participate in orientation activities such as NUS Business Camp (NBC) and Rag. I was a participant in my first year and moved to an organiser role in my second year. That was where I made many close friends and have numerous memorable experiences. Also, as part of the Academia Committee in Bizad Club, my team and I were also given the opportunity to organise a completely student-led study trip – Bizad Abroad, to Istanbul, Turkey in 2015. Perfectly situated between Europe and Asia, it was an amazing experience visiting Turkish companies and universities while learning about their culture.

For all incoming and even current students, it’s definitely going to be a challenging journey ahead of you – trying to balance school, extra-curricular activities and internships, while trying to figure out your career path. However, it’s also going to be the best four years of your life filled with lots of laughter, excitement, friends and wonderful memories. NUS Business School provides a plethora of opportunities such as overseas exchange, case competitions, modules or internships, so do join NUS Business School if you’re up for the challenge!

Top 3 tips on surviving school:

1. Be consistent in your work

Or you will just crash and burn when all your projects are due at the same time in Weeks 12 and 13 (aka hell week).

2. Connect with your seniors

They will provide you very valuable advice on internships, career choices and which modules to take.

3. Carry your own weight

There is heavy weightage on group work in Business School, so give yourself a good reputation by contributing your effort. Nobody likes a leech.

For more information on the NUS BBA programme, please visit bba.nus.edu.sg.