The University of William & Mary holds a Women’s Stock Pitch competition annually with students from top universities around the world such as the University of Oxford and Cornell. This year, Marquette’s Accelerated Ingenuity in Markets program is sending four senior women to compete.
Although AIM sends teams to stock pitch competitions each year, this is the first time an all-women team is competing. The team hopes that younger women in AIM will see what they’re doing and how it’s something they themselves can achieve.
AIM, established in 2004, gives Marquette students an opportunity to gain hands-on experience that simulates Wall Street jobs. They regularly value and pitch stocks as assignments, but at this competition, they’re presenting their findings to not just their Marquette peers.
Catherine Taphorn, Kelsey Koch, Ella Coulter and Melissa McMahon, all seniors in the College of Business Administration, based their stock pitch on a company called Hologic, which manufactures medical materials, and more specifically, materials for women’s health.
“They’re kind of champions of getting women tested for things that they’re not really tested for enough, like breast cancer and cervical cancer,” McMahon said.
Hologic does global work to promote women health. They manufacture screening devices and testing kits. A Hologic news article shared how the company leads the way on these kind of endeavors:
“Hologic is a leading innovator in women’s health with a commitment to advancing cervical and breast cancer screening technologies, from the first liquid-based cytology test to the first 3D mammography system and now the first FDA-cleared digital cytology platform,” said Jennifer Schneiders, Ph.D., Division President, Diagnostic Solutions at Hologic. “Our technologies have had a tremendous impact on decreasing cancer rates in women, and we are incredibly excited by the promise of Genius Digital Diagnostics. The system delivers more actionable and accurate insights for laboratories and healthcare professionals to enhance patient care.”
Taphorn said she found the competition through someone she knew at William & Mary and brought it to the AIM director Dr. John Wall. Each AIM member interested in going to the competition applied, and after the four women were selected, they got to work creating their stock pitch.
“We looked into the company and found a few drivers as to why their stock price is going to be higher in the future. So, we picked two things that are happening right now as to why people should be investing in them,” Koch said.
McMahon said they started by performing proprietary research, then moved into interviewing professionals from the company they chose. Then they applied these findings to their analysis of the organization and at the stock pitch competition, they presented their findings on April 5 and 6.
“We’re taking an educated guess based on what we learn in class and what we’ve learned from our research,” Taphorn said. “We’re essentially predicting what’s going to happen to this company over the next five to 10 years and then formulating an argument as to why someone would choose to invest in this stock today.”
Coulter said in AIM they have to follow strict rubrics and pressure for deadlines and grades, but she’s found that this project is something so much different.
“We have like a rubric for this, but it’s a lot looser and we have a lot more freedom to bring something together that we want and that we’re proud of versus just for our AIM class,” Coulter said. “I think that’s another aspect of it that is really cool. It’s not a grade driving us to do it, It’s just like our own work and creativity.”
Koch said she hopes being an all–women team can have a positive impact on the future of women in business.
“Watching other people do something like that would give me the confidence to kind of be like ‘oh, okay, maybe I can do this.’ There’s been so many men’s teams and that’s not necessarily weird because that’s the industry. I just like the idea of seeing a team like this, and then eventually being like ‘this isn’t anything special,'” Koch said.
Currently, only 26% of finance professionals in the U.S. are women. Koch said she hopes having women in business becomes normalized, and stories won’t need to be written about them anymore.
“I’ve seen this both with this competition and the other competition’s I did. Just seeing younger students in the program getting really excited about these opportunities now and we’re bringing them to light,” Coulter said. “We’re going to be able to share our experience and set that precedent for new opportunities for our program.”
Taphorn said aside from the fact that it’s an all-women’s competition group, being in these spaces is bringing AIM in a good direction.
“I also think it’s really important for Marquette to be seen like in these spaces with the typical target schools. We’re already doing a really great job getting on the map with these top companies and top investment firms,” Taphorn said.
The demand for women in business is high and diversity is sought after.
“Diversity—from gender diversity to culture, age, and race—has been shown to foster creativity and innovation. From PricewaterhouseCooper, to Disney and L’Oreal, organizations across industries are seeking to prioritize and benefit from a diverse and inclusive work environment,” Katie Reynolds wrote for the Hult International Business School.
“Men and women will inevitably have different experiences and backgrounds, which shape their approach to business. Challenging each other and collaborating with people who think differently can breed creativity and promote the innovative ideas that push organizations forward.”
Koch said her favorite part of this process has been making breakthroughs in their research. She said these moments make the hard parts worth it.
“One of my favorite parts is when we’re in the AIM room and it’s three of us huddled around a computer and we finally figure something out and we’re so excited,” Koch said.
Taphorn said this year’s Sophomore class has significantly more women than past years, and she hopes that if this competition goes well, it will gain popularity among the younger classes.
“We want to do well because we care and we want to represent Marquette,” Taphorn said.
This story was written by Sophia Tiedge. She can be reached at [email protected].
