Majors, Minors & Internships
Financial Planning Minor
Department Information & Opportunities
Advisory Boards
Awards & Scholarships for Students
Center for Insurance and Financial Services (Katie School)
Co-curricular Student Organizations
Associate
Duff & Phelps, LLC , Downtown Chicago
David holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation (completed 2003), which he began working toward through the CFA ® Level I preparation course offered at ISU.
He is pictured at the Ibbotson offices in Chicago.
Area of Finance specialization: Investments and Portfolio Management
Hometown: Oak Forest, Illinois
FIL 370 Educational Investment Fund, because it was so relevant to the real world. The class applied many investment and analytical ideas from other finance and business classes in analyzing stocks for the portfolio. Presenting final recommendations to the EIF Board provided realistic preparation for the investment profession within an academic setting.
Finding out, as a freshman, that sometimes the weekends can actually start on Thursdays. I learned how to go out and have fun on Thursday night and still manage to never – well, almost never – miss my 8 AM microeconomics class on Friday. This experience was also real world preparation, in a way.
I consult with financial institutions to develop the asset allocation plans they use in making portfolio recommendations for individual investors. The plans include risk tolerance questionnaires and asset class models. I develop capital market assumptions (expected return, risk, and correlation) with Ibbotson's proprietary methodology, use mean-variance analysis to create asset allocation targets, and select optimal investment choices to implement the plans. I use statistical and other quantitative tools learned at ISU, and obviously a lot of what I learned in the investments area, particularly portfolio management material. I also make use of general knowledge of financial markets and asset behavior learned at ISU, and of communication skills, which are very important in presenting complicated ideas to clients.
It provides tremendous opportunities. Employers are very impressed with the EIF class and the experience it gives students. One the best opportunities offered is the CFA ® scholarship class, which lets senior finance students prepare to take Leve1 I of the Chartered Financial Analyst exam series shortly after graduation. Those who take advantage of all that Illinois State 's Finance program has to offer will be a step ahead of many students graduating from other schools.