Brian Allen (MBA '11), left, and Daniel Sadik (BSM '10) discuss results during the inaugural Tulane Energy Trading Competition.

The Tulane Energy Trading Competition was the first university trading competition to reward participants for using strategies to minimize risk. While other competitions award prizes based solely on profits, the Tulane Energy Trading Competition used a method for measuring risk—the so-called Ulcer Index—to penalize students who took on too much risk. Serving as judges were executives from top energy and trading firms, who quizzed students on their strategies and watched closely as they executed their trades.

“The idea was to create a trading competition that is more aligned with what employers want in the marketplace,” says Joe LeBlanc, assistant director of the Tulane Energy Institute and organizer of the competition. “We think that by adjusting for risk, combining several different performance measures and using the best trading software from Trading Technologies and Thomson Reuters, we’re creating a competition that rewards responsible trading and more accurately reflects the way trading is truly practiced in today’s energy firms.”

Aneal Tenjarla of the University of Texas at Austin won first place in the competition, Stephen Cacioppo of the Freeman School came in second, and Matt Gitelis of the University of Illinois took third place. The Freeman School’s Kellen Hayes and Carnegie Mellon’s Alexander Kirov placed fourth and fifth respectively. Top winners could choose between a cash prize and internships with trading firms such as Webster Capital, Mirant Corp. and TXU/Luminant.

Tenjarla said the contest was a great opportunity to learn trading strategy from industry insiders in a realistic environment that felt like an energy trading firm.

“This is probably the closest thing you can get to actually trading besides committing actual value and risking actual money,” says Tenjarla, who plans to work as a financial analyst after graduation. “Before this competition, I really didn’t know much about different trading strategies, different patterns of trading or how to use this technology. By the end of this, I felt like I got a good education.”

Stephen Cacioppo (MFIN '10) earned an internship with Chicago-based Webster Capital for his second-place finish in the competition.

The event’s judges gave the competition high marks for helping to teach students the importance of managing risk.

“They are trying to show people how to take risks properly and that there actually are downsides to how you approach trading,” says Parker Drew, managing director of RBS Sempra Energy and a competition judge. “They are trying to make people have to make cogent risk decisions or what I call ‘skin in the game.’”

In addition to Drew, the competition featured judges from Mirant Corp., TXU/Luminant, Geneva Trading, Sequent Energy, Webster Capital, Aardvark Energy, ConocoPhillips, CitiGroup, Entergy Corp., Shell Trading, LIM, Johnson Rice and Goldman Sachs.

The competition took place in the Trading Center, the Freeman School’s state-of-the-art electronic trading classroom. Participants used Trading Technologies’ X_TRADER platform and Thomson Reuters’ 3000xtra software, the same tools used by professional traders at leading energy firms.

“The bulk of energy trading activity has moved from the trading pits in New York and Chicago to computer screens,” says Leo Murphy, university program manager with Trading Technologies, one of the event’s sponsors. “For this reason, we felt it imperative to arm students with the same software that is used everyday by professional traders.”

The 28 students who competed  earned the right by participating in a team-based remote competition in October. Twenty-one teams from 13 business schools competed online over two weeks, using a mock $100,000 account to execute at least five trades per day. The top seven teams based on risk-adjusted return qualified to participate as individuals in New Orleans.

The Tulane Energy Trading Competition was presented by the Tulane Energy Institute and the Tulane Energy Club and sponsored by CME Group, Trading Technologies, Thomson Reuters and LIM. For more information about the competition, visit http://trading.tulane.edu.

Salvatore Cantale directs Freeman's new Master of Risk Management program.

The Freeman School’s new Master of Risk Management program, which begins in December, is the only master’s program in risk management that incorporates preparation for the FRM examinations into the curriculum. Developed in collaboration with GARP, the leading worldwide professional association for risk managers and administer of the FRM certification, the intensive one-year program is designed to provide students with the analytical and practical tools necessary to manage financial risk in a modern, global environment. Graduates of the program will be qualified to compete for research-oriented finance positions, such as financial and research analyst and financial engineer, and for positions in risk management and quantitative asset management.

“Risk management is something we know how to do at Tulane, but we had not previously leveraged that knowledge in a comprehensive program,” says Salvatore Cantale, clinical professor of finance and director of the program. “With the recent financial crisis, we really started to think about what we could do. Given the renewed interest in and emphasis on risk management, we think this is the right program at the right moment.”

The program requires 34-credit-hours in 13 months, with courses including financial modeling, fixed income, econometrics, options and a course dedicated specifically to preparing students for the FRM examination, which students are required to take in order to graduate. By completing the courses required for the program, students will also earn an energy specialization certificate from the Tulane Energy Institute.

According to Cantale, what distinguishes this program from other master’s programs is the extraordinary involvement of GARP, which played a major role in shaping and refining the curriculum.

“This is really the first time GARP has been involved with a graduate program curriculum from day one,” Cantale says. “They were very happy to participate, and their input was essential.”

In addition to incorporating GARP’s FRM material into the curriculum, Freeman will establish a GARP university chapter and become a testing site for the FRM exam. Cantale says that members of GARP will also visit Freeman to lead classes and information sessions.

At a time when many firms are putting greater emphasis on risk management, Cantale believes that an academically rigorous master’s program together with FRM certification is a powerful professional combination.

“It’s a great addition to your resume.”

Financial Times ranked Freeman's Executive MBA program 22nd among U.S. programs.

Financial Times bases its ranking of executive MBA programs on measures of alumni success, program diversity and quality of faculty. Graduates of Freeman’s executive MBA program reported an average salary of $163,859 three years after completing the program, and graduates experienced a 50 percent increase in average salary compared with their levels prior to entering the program.

“We bring great students into our program and pair them with great professors,” says Russ Robins, associate dean for executive education. “Students integrate new insights into their decision-making and as the curriculum progresses, application to work projects becomes more sophisticated and more meaningful. In one to three years, we can clearly see and quantify the value added.”

To see the full ranking, visit http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/emba-rankings.

The Tulane Energy Trading Competition will take place on Nov. 13 and 14 in the Freeman School’s trading center. Twenty-eight students from five top business schools will travel to New Orleans to put their skills to the test in a unique competition with highly coveted internships at top trading firms on the line.

Twenty-eight students from five top business schools will visit the Freeman School's trading floor in November to participate in the first Tulane Energy Trading Competition.

What makes the Tulane competition unique is that participants will be judged not solely on profit but on risk-adjusted returns and the ability to articulate and execute a logical trading strategy, a crucial distinction according to Joe LeBlanc, assistant director of the Tulane Energy Institute and organizer of the event.

“The idea was to create a trading competition that is more aligned with what employers want in the marketplace,” says LeBlanc. “We think that by adjusting for risk, combining several different performance measures and using the best trading software from Trading Technologies and Thomson Reuters, we’re creating a competition that rewards responsible trading and more accurately reflects the way trading is truly practiced in today’s energy firms.”

The competition began on Oct. 12 with a two-week remote phase for 21 teams from 13 business schools. Each team was given a mock $100,000 to trade and was required to execute at least five trades per day. While most trading competitions reward the team or individuals who generate the highest profit, the Tulane Energy Trading Competition uses a method for measuring investment risk known as the Ulcer Performance Index to penalize teams that take on too much risk.

At the end of the two weeks, the members of the top seven teams qualified to participate as individuals in the final round in New Orleans.

Another innovation of the competition is the prize structure. Rather than cash prizes, the Tulane Energy Trading Competition will offer internships with Webster Capital on the CME/NYMEX, Luminant Energy and Mirant Energy to the top three participants. While most trading competitions award cash prizes to students, LeBlanc says that sends the wrong message to the public at a time when many people blame high energy prices on speculation.

“We think awarding internships is the right thing to do because students want jobs and internships more than anything,” says LeBlanc. “It also supports the mission of the Freeman School by providing an opportunity for students to further their education through an opportunity with a top energy trading firm.”

The Tulane Energy Trading Competition is presented by the Tulane Energy Institute and the Tulane Energy Club and sponsored by CME Group, Trading Technologies and Thomson Reuters. For more information about the competition, visit http://trading.tulane.edu or contact Joe LeBlanc at 504-314-2662 or jleblan@tulane.edu.

Whole Foods Market CEO and co-founder John Mackey will deliver the luncheon keynote presentation at this year's Tulane Business Forum.

On Friday, Oct. 16, Mackey will be in New Orleans to deliver the luncheon keynote presentation at the 2009 Tulane Business Forum, which this year focuses on the theme of corporate consciousness.

“The whole idea of corporate consciousness goes back to the basic business fundamentals of doing things in an ethical manner and being responsible and purposeful in how you gear your business,” says Tom Spiers (MBA ‘01), board member of the Tulane Association of Business Alumni (TABA), which organizes the annual event. “We thought this would be a good way to focus on how to return to core values and how certain large organizations are doing it and succeeding at it.”

In addition to Mackey, other speakers addressing corporate consciousness, ethics and social responsibility include Mark Quartermain, president of Shell Energy North America; Alan R. Yuspeh, senior vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer of HCA; and Gary Jay Saulson, director of corporate real estate with PNC Financial Services Group.

The forum will also feature a panel discussion on alternative energy and financing featuring Jon Guidroz, director of project development with Free Flow Power Corp.; D’Juan Hernandez, president and CEO of Sun Energy Group; and Eldon Klaassen, CEO of Allegro. The discussion will be moderated by Michael L. LeBourgeois, principal of NGP Energy Technology Partners in New Orleans.

The 2009 Tulane Business Forum will take place at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. Registration and continental breakfast will begin at 8 a.m. and the forum will begin at 8:30 a.m. For more information about this year’s program, visit tulanebusinessforum.com.

“A Candid Conversation About Women and Ambition” will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 12 noon in Room 131 of Goldring/Woldenberg Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public, and a reception with food and refreshments will follow.

Jennifer Allyn, managing director, Office of Diversity, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Allyn’s presentation will cover topics including leadership, retaining and advancing women, differences between men and women regarding ambition, and factors that can promote–or undermine–ambition in executives. The lecture is designed to make women think about ambition and institutions think about opportunities and roadblocks.

As an executive and thought leader promoting diversity initiatives, Allyn is responsible for designing programs to retain, develop and advance women and GLBT professionals. Allyn has been recognized as a subject matter expert on gender and work/life challenges. She is a frequent public speaker and has been quoted in over 30 publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CFO, and U.S. News & World Report. Among her many accomplishments, Allyn spearheaded the effort to enhance PwC’s parental leave policy and launched Full Circle, a program designed to assist parents who want to “on-ramp” after taking an extended period of time off from work. PricewaterhouseCoopers has been recognized as a best-in-class employer by Catalyst, Working Mother, Diversity Inc., Out & Equal and Fortune.

Prior to joining PwC, Allyn was a senior consultant at Catalyst, where she advised a diverse group of Fortune 500 clients, among them PricewaterhouseCoopers. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Women’s Leadership Board at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Corporate Council of The White House Project, and the Advisory Board of the National Council for Research on Women. In 2008, she received the Crossing Borders Award from the Feminist Press. Allyn is a graduate of Brown University and earned her master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

“A Candid Conversation About Women & Ambition” is presented by the Louisiana Chapter of the International Women’s Forum and is co-sponsored by the A. B. Freeman School of Business, the Newcomb College Institute, the Tulane Chapter of the National Association of Women MBAs, and the Tulane Office of Institutional Equity.

For more information about the presentation, please contact Peggy Babin, associate dean of the Freeman School, at 504-865-5412 or pbabin@tulane.edu.

“We are grateful for this ranking that recognizes the quality and uniqueness of our entrepreneurship programs,” said John Elstrott, executive director of the Freeman School’s Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship. “This ranking reflects the commitment of our students, faculty and staff to engage in the reinvention and rebuilding of  New Orleans through entrepreneurship. The programs and courses at the A. B. Freeman School of Business are dedicated to teaching and implementing the principles of conscious capitalism and social entrepreneurship that are redefining how free market economies function around the world.”

John Elstrott, executive director of the Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship

The Freeman School has built a strong reputation in recent years for social entrepreneurship, which refers to the use entrepreneurial principles to address social problems. More recently, under Elstrott’s guidance, the Freeman School has become a leader in promoting conscious capitalism, which calls for organizations to consider what is best for all stakeholders–employees, shareholders, the community and the environment–rather than solely focusing on shareholder returns. The 2010 Tulane Business Plan Competition, which will take place April 16, will be the first in the country to incorporate principles of conscious capitalism into its requirements.

Entrepreneur and the Princeton Review surveyed more than 2,300 schools to come up with this year’s ranking. Entrepreneurship programs were evaluated based on key criteria in the areas of academics and requirements, students and faculty, and outside-the-classroom experiences. “Each school that made the list demonstrates excellence in one or more areas–whether in regards to course offerings, the success of students post-graduation, sponsored mentorship programs or other important factors,” said Amy Cosper, VP/editor in chief at Entrepreneur. “While each program is unique, their inclusion in this ranking solidifies their place in an elite category of institutions offering a superlative level of education and preparedness that will play a key role in ensuring the success of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.”

In March 2008, the Wall Street Journal’s Peter Lattman wrote, “Everyone knows about the anticipation leading up to Warren Buffett’s annual shareholder letters. But for a certain Wall Street set, there are equally high expectations for the writings of Howard Marks.”

Marks co-founded Oaktree Capital Management in Los Angeles in 1995 and built the firm into an elite alternative and non-traditional investment company with over $60 billion in assets under management, but Marks has gained even greater notoriety in recent years for his eloquent, insightful writings on the economy.

Marks first began writing memos to investors in 1990, but his reputation grew dramatically in the wake of a January 2000 missive in which he accurately predicted the burst of the tech bubble. Since then his wit and wisdom on the economy and investing have earned him a cult following among investors.

Today, Marks no longer actively manages portfolios, instead devoting his time to running the firm and writing memos to clients. “The nicest comments I get on the memos are that I make complex things clear,” Marks told the Los Angeles Business Journal earlier this year. “So I want to keep doing that.”

Marks had almost 20 years experience in high-yield bonds and distressed debt when he and five associates established Oaktree in 1995 to specialize in those areas as well as convertible bonds, specialized private equity, real estate, emerging market and Japanese securities, and mezzanine finance. Today, the firm has over 550 employees and offices in 14 cities worldwide.

Prior to co-founding Oaktree, Marks led the groups at the TCW Group that were responsible for investments in distressed debt, high-yield bonds and convertible securities from 1985 to 1995. He was also chief investment officer for Domestic Fixed Income at TCW and president of TCW Asset Management Co., the largest of the TCW companies. Before that, Marks spent 16 years with Citicorp Investment Management, where from 1978 to 1985 he was vice president and senior portfolio manager in charge of convertible and high yield securities. Between 1969 and 1978, he was an equity research analyst and, subsequently, Citicorp’s director of research.

Marks graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School with a major in finance and earned an MBA in accounting and marketing from the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, where he received the George Hay Brown Prize. He is a CFA charterholder and a Chartered Investment Counselor. Marks serves as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and he chairs the university’s investment board.

The R. W. Freeman Distinguished Lecture series is the premier annual speaking event at the Freeman School of Business.  The lecture series is named in honor of Richard W. Freeman (BBA ‘34), former vice chairman of the Louisiana Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Ltd. and a major benefactor of Tulane University. Mr. Freeman served on the Board of Tulane for 13 years. He received the business school’s Outstanding Alumnus Award in 1959 and Tulane University’s Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award in 1975. Mr. Freeman was instrumental in naming the business school in memory of his father, Alfred Bird Freeman.

Education Pioneers

The presentation will take place in Goldring/Woldenberg Hall II, Room 1111, from 5-6 p.m.

The Freeman Speaker Series was established to showcase a broad cross-section of business professionals who can speak about their industries, companies and professional activities in a meaningful and intellectual challenging manner. Each lecture is co-sponsored by the Career Management Center and a student organization, and each is followed by a brief reception. Interested faculty, staff and alumni are invited to attend each Freeman Speaker Series event. Business attire is requested.

For more information about this and other Freeman Speaker Series events, e-mail careers@tulane.edu or call 504-865-5417.

While there is no cash prize for the winners, the competition is a great way for entrants to promote their ideas, hone their elevator pitches and network with similarly motivated entrepreneurs and business people. Coaches for the workshop part of the program will include Ralph Maurer, visiting assistant professor of management at the Freeman School, and Chris Schultz, founder of LaunchPad.

PitchNOLA is co-sponsored by SENO (Social Entrepreneurs of New Orleans), the Tulane Entrepreneurs Association, Tulane University Social Entrepreneurship Initiatives and LaunchPad. Deadline for entry is Aug. 21. For more info, visit SENO’s website.