The GW Investment Institute (GWII), the classroom experience through which GW students manage real-life financial investments, launched a new stock pitch competition this year, opened an intensive non-credit program to build investment knowledge, and advanced its signature programs through which GW students manage over $10.3 million of the university’s endowment.
The institute also hosted the GW Ramsey Scholars Investment Summit, now in its second year, to showcase the achievements of its Ramsey Scholars over the past seven years. Oscar Pulido, managing director at BlackRock and a GW alumnus, and GWII Governing board Chairman Russ Ramsey spoke at the event. Ten new Ramsey Scholars received $5,000 in cash apiece for their outstanding work in GWII courses, bringing the total amount of cash presented to students since the program’s launch in 2019 to $350,000.
Separately, the institute also gave out GW Investment Institute Leadership Awards of $2,000 to three students.
“With five classes and over 120 students across the fall and spring semesters, the GW Investment Institute continued to deliver a rigorous, hands-on investment education grounded in real-world portfolio management,” said GW Investment Institute Director Rodney Lake. “This year, we expanded beyond the classroom with new experiential learning opportunities that allowed students to sharpen their analytical skills, engage with professionals, and apply investment concepts in real-world settings.
“The outstanding performance of our student-managed investment funds is a testament to the dedication of our students, alumni, governing and advisory board members, and our team,” he added.
The inaugural GW Stock Pitch Competition in October provided students with a platform to hone their business acumen and financial research skills. The program culminated with students pitching the names of publicly traded U.S. companies with a market cap of at least $250 million that they believed had strong long-term investment potential.
“The competition was open to all GW students, so we had participants from the Business School as well as students from the School of Engineering, the Elliott School, and the Columbian College,” said GWII Associate Program Director Bojana Jankovic. “We wanted to open this competition to everyone to give them a real sense of how our classes operate and provide hands-on experience in analyzing and pitching stocks.”
Throughout the competition students used the GWII Investment Framework—a template for how a stock pitch presentation should look—and the institute’s subscription to the FactSet database. Alumni served as competition judges.
The institute also unveiled a new non-credit program, the GWII Portfolio Group, through which 30 students built their investment skills and earned FactSet and Bloomberg certifications. The intensive seven-week program was swamped with applications when it launched and it is expected to be offered annually going forward.
Learning also took place off campus. The GW Investment Institute sent a delegation to the Cornell Women in Investing Conference in New York City. The team—Laura Null, ’25; Madison Bachmayer, ‘26; and Victoria Irizarry and Sophia Volvovsky, both in the Class of 2027—competed against students from prestigious colleges as they showcased their stock-picking savvy and networked with top investment professionals.
A GWII team also took part in the McGill International Portfolio Competition. GW Business student Esha Peer, an incoming investment analyst at PGIM Private Capital, won the best speaker award at the prestigious competition.
The GWII 2025 Annual Conference focused on tech investing, with a keynote address from Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities. Ives is the firm’s senior equity research analyst covering the technology sector. He also took part in Market News with Rodney Lake, the institute’s weekly podcast, which recently completed its second season. Other episodes offer in-depth analysis of companies within GWII’s endowment portfolio, feature alumni guest speakers, and include discussions on current market news.
Students took part in a number of other experiential learning opportunities, including stock pitch presentations for the GW Phillips Student Investment Fund, a 17-year-old fund that manages more than $3.5 million in assets; the GW Quant Student Investment Fund with assets in excess of $120,000, and the Venture Capital Pitch Day, in which students employ skills used in the institute’s Foundations of Venture Capital Course.
“On behalf of the GW Investment Institute, I extend my appreciation for the ongoing support and participation of students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Together, we remain committed to empowering the next generation of investment leaders through hands-on investment education at GW,” said Lake, who also serves as vice dean for undergraduate programs.