Ted Rogers School students take home gold at CFOlympics

Congratulations to Gevorg Chibukhchyan and Tom Nguyen who placed first in the CFOlympics organized by CPA Ontario on February 24, 2023. 

The inaugural CFOlympics Finance Competition (external link)  was a case competition organized by CPA Ontario and sponsored by SunLife Financial. The event was part of CPA Week festivities, and gave students who were members of CPA Ontario’s Post Secondary Ambassador Program (PSAP) (external link)  the opportunity to enjoy skills workshops, vision board workshops, tax software training, network, and meet recruiters and employers. The CFOlympics competition was the final event of the week. 

Winners took home a $1,000 prize and second round CPA Program interviews, which are live video interviews with Sun Life recruitment for co-op, internship or new graduate positions.

Gevorg Chibukhchyan, a third year Ted Rogers student double majoring in finance and accounting and Tom Nguyen, a fourth year accounting student met on a group project in Ted Rogers School’s audit class in 2021. “The class was virtual, but Tom and I were very proactive during the class so it was easy to make the connection with another like-minded fellow student,” Chibukhchyan said. 

Twenty-six teams of two from universities and colleges across Ontario competed in the competition. The case competition was held virtually. The competition was held in four rooms simultaneously and a winner was picked from each of the rooms. Students had one hour to prepare their case and five minutes to present it to the judges, who were from Sun Life Financial.

Students could pick from three case choices: sustainability/impact investing and ethics, financial planning and ethics, and acquisition and ethics.

 “We chose to do the acquisitions case, because we want to go into that field, guiding people through an acquisition decision,” Nguyen said. “We had so much fun doing it.”

The deliverable for the CFOlympics was a slide deck presentation that the students had to pitch in five minutes proposing a company to acquire, justification behind the decision, followed by a short question and answer period, Chibukhchyan said.

Both would highly encourage other Ted Rogers School students to take part in case competitions, or just in group activities in general. 

“It was a great experience which allowed us to apply the knowledge taught at TRSM into a case scenario. I really enjoyed the experience,” Chibukhchyan said. 

“My friends and I compete in many case competitions. We learn more from the case competitions where we fail than the ones where we succeed. I like that mentality. You willingly throw yourself into the deep waters, and learn to swim.” Nguyen said.