Alumni

Testimonials

The true value of education can often be seen only after you experienced it and it may have a very profound and lasting impact on our life. Below are the stories shared by our former students on how their learning experience at MFE program helped shape their future career path and brought them to where they are now.

Ken Chen

Cohort: 2020

Current Job title: Associate, Portfolio Analytics

Current Employer: SLC Management

Travis Knox

Cohort: 2023

Current Job title: Rotational Associate - Global Risk Management

Current Employer: Scotiabank

My name is Travis Knox, an MFE alumni that completed my coursework in December 2023 and graduated in June 2024. I currently work as a risk rotational associate at Scotiabank, having completed terms in Structured Credit and Funds Risk Management, Global Automotive Credit, and currently Financial Institutions, Insurance, and Securitization.

There are a few courses that really advanced my skillset in finance that I have applied during my time at Scotiabank, including Financial Economics, Cashflow Analysis, and Value Investing. These courses did an excellent job at understanding foundational concepts in finance, breaking them down, and then leveraging those lessons in real world applications, whether it is the stock competition in Financial Economics, the comprehensive financial statement analysis of a current public company in Cashflow Analysis, or the series of historic analyses and current public company analysis in Value Investing.

Why is this important in my job? Working with counterparties in both the commercial and corporate space, an understanding of the lending/derivative products they require, along with a strong skillset in breaking down a company's operations and financial statements and pairing that with a strong macro framework of larger financial/economic themes or trends makes me a more competent risk officer, able to better identify potential risks, ask better and more informed questions, all while being able to build a strong understanding of the company and industry I am dealing with.

My internship experience during the program was a great opportunity to take my coursework that I had completed through my undergrad and MFE experiences and leverage it to get a strong understanding of what the key responsibilities of a risk officer are. Being able to absorb a lot of information about companies across a broad range of industries, ask important questions, and develop my own confidence instead of just relying on my managers and directors was fundamentally based on having a strong foundation in economic and financial concepts. Having that knowledge allowed me to put aside the more shy, timid side of myself and have a greater confidence in my opinions and decision-making, take advantage of networking opportunities, and stand out as one of the associates that really applied themselves to learn and differentiate themselves by taking on as many opportunities that came my way. The feedback I am most proud about receiving that I have continued to get across the different teams I have worked on is that I ask great questions, and that's important in risk (and learning), and is built upon a lot of the knowledge and experiences afforded to me in courses like the ones listed above.

The professional development aspect of the program (kudos to MFE Career Services Officer, Mark Hamilton) really set me up for success. Having been a shy person, Mark really allowed me to put my best foot forward both on and off paper, prepare for interviews, and go in confident that I would not only be a good fit for the role, but that I would succeed and bring value to the team I stepped onto. The flexibility in choosing between a Winter or Summer term, or both, allowed me to spend the Winter term practicing my interview skills applying to as many jobs as I could, even though I knew I was only going to take a Summer role. Most of all, professional development taught me that if you don't shoot your shot and ask for the things you want, great opportunities will pass you by and you may not get a second chance at it. These learnings go beyond just my professional experience, really helping me to develop into a more well-rounded person in my personal life as well.

I started out not really knowing if the MFE program was right for me. My best friend (and to be frank, personal mentor) encouraged me to apply having completed the first year of the program. I did, and was accepted, and only after completing the first term did I realize how transformational it had been for me. Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing - MFE gave me a skillset that has really allowed me to grow as a person, while entering into the finance industry through the "back door" at a manager level. I always knew I loved the macro lens, connecting the dots and building the bigger picture is what really fascinates me, and that's what I most enjoy about my day-to-day at Scotiabank as a risk manager. Though I didn't know beforehand how much risk was a great fit for me, the MFE program has been instrumental in setting me up for success now that I found the role that really makes me tick. On top of that, it gave me a network, and to be more specific, a lot of friends with whom I share a deep passion for politics, economic, and finance, and stay in close contact with to this day. At the end of the day, a big factor in personal success and happiness is who you get to spend your time with, and MFE has given me a group of friends and colleagues that continue to push me to new levels of success.

Fun anecdote - I really enjoyed the applied elements of the dreaded derivatives course. It was hard when it was very centred around theory and this is the part a lot of new students are told horror stories of, but pricing out the derivatives by hand in the second half of the course was something I found really interesting and quite fun. Me and a few friends spent hours and hours practicing (and I was even teaching them how to price some of the options trading strategies!). I felt really confident, woke up and walked across campus to the exam, and failed. It was really crushing, but a great lesson in failure and how even though you may not always be able to put your best work down on paper on a given day, your success is a marathon and not a sprint, and this along with a few other bad marks are all great lessons I try to share with the ~1/2 dozen mentees I meet with that are currently in MFE, from my other alma mater UWaterloo, and within Scotiabank.