By Andrew Grigolyunovich, CFA, CFM, FMVA
Chairman of the Financial Modeling World Cup
I hope you have really enjoyed the first season of the Financial Modeling World Cup. We have received a lot of positive feedback from the participants. We are especially proud that the learning aspect of FMWC was well regarded. Indeed, FMWC provides an unmatched price-to-value for its participants – some 36 training cases per year, covering all the possible aspects of financial modeling – all for as little as $125 per year.
Last year all the questions were created by myself, Andrew Grigolyunovich, CFA. During my 20 years of financial modeling career, I’ve been working on a large amount of projects from different industries and countries. However, no matter how extensive is one’s experience, there are many modeling fields where others have much more experience than I do.
To get the widest coverage of topics for FMWC, from the very beginning of FMWC we were planning to have a dedicated Case Design Team made of the leading FMWC participants. During the last couple of months we have approached several leading participants and today we are proud to present the first participants of the FMWC Case Design Team (in alphabetical order):
2 other participants have tentatively agreed to be a part of the Case Design Team but could not make it for the first couple of stages in 2021.
The first stage of season 2021 will already contain cases prepared by some of these guys.
Do We Lose Them As Competition Participants?
Sorry, but these strong guys will still be able to compete. We don’t think that having a team of 1-2 people writing cases for all the stages is a long-term solution. Instead, we’d like to have many strong FMWC participants to submit their cases on an occasional basis. So we want them to write cases and to be able to compete simultaneously.
Here is how we plan to do it. If someone’s case is included in the competition (no more than 1 case per stage per author), the author of the case will still be able to solve other cases of the stage. This person will have proportionally less time but will receive proportionally more points for the other cases. We expect that the same author might submit cases a maximum of 3-4 times per year. Most of the stages will be “regular” for each author.
Here is how the point calculations will work. Imagine that you create a case that is worth 250 points (out of a total of 1000 points per stage). Instead of 2 hours per stage, you will be given 1 hour and 30 minutes (90 minutes in total) to solve the other cases that were created by other authors. Then, imagine that you have scored 450 points during these 90 minutes by solving other author cases. This makes 450 : 90 = 5 points per minute. We will compensate you 5 points per minute: 5 pts * 30 minutes = 150 points. Your total score for the stage would then be 450 + 150 = 600 points.
Time bonus points will be increased proportionally as well. In this particular example, 10 points should be awarded for every 45 seconds saved. However, the Time bonus can only be applied if you score 900 regular points for the stage. Scoring 600 points will not be enough to qualify you for the time bonus points.
Invitation Is Still Open
Are you interested in becoming a case author for FMWC? Please write a short e-mail to me and let me know your ideas (andrew@fmworldcup.com).
Maybe you have just worked on some very interesting project at work and you could make a case out of it? Or maybe you have some great idea of a very unusual model that no one has ever encountered? Or maybe you might want to review our long list of possible topics and get inspired by that?
Let us know your ideas and join the FMWC Case Design Team! We plan to make the range of topics covered by FMWC as wide as possible, so we will be welcoming authors working for different sectors and regions of the world economy.
In my opinion, this is a great way to showcase your strengths and to improve your personal brand and international recognition. We will place the case author’s name and company name (optional) on the case materials where applicable.
