Ideas with Impact
UNB Faculty of Management

Twenty-seven years ago, UNB’s faculty of management partnered with Vestcor, Inc. (then the New Brunswick Investment Management Corporation) to launch the Student Investment Fund (SIF), a program that transformed investment education at UNB and set a national benchmark for experiential learning.

What makes the SIF exceptional isn’t just that students manage real money; it’s the depth of professional immersion. Students step into roles as equity analysts and fund managers, conduct rigorous research, master industry-standard tools, and follow the CFA study path to prepare for the Level One exam. Along the way, they build networks with seasoned portfolio managers who coach and mentor them, gaining insights that bridge the classroom and the capital markets.

That rigorous approach has paid off. The fund that started at $1 million has grown to over $15 million, a testament to the program’s success and the caliber of its students and mentors. SIF teams also have a long history of winning investment competitions, demonstrating their agile financial skills. They were the first Canadian team to win first place in the CFA Institute North American Research Challenge, and just last year, a team from the program captured the 2025 CFA Atlantic Ethics Challenge.

“Success is where opportunity meets preparation, and the SIF prepared me for opportunities I wouldn’t have otherwise known existed,” said former SIF student Brian Bagnell (BBA ’08), Vice President of Commodities and Capital Markets with Advantage Energy.

The training ground for all this success? The SIF boardroom, a space alumni remember as the nerve center of their UNB education. Current SIF student Max Jackman reflects: “The SIF room gives us a space that feels bigger than school; it gives a place where you grow into the finance professional you want to become.”

Now, it’s time to take that space to the next level.

The Centre for Financial Studies has launched the SIF Room Reno Campaign with a goal of $100,000, and UNB will match every dollar donated up to $50,000. The renovation will transform the boardroom into a modern, industry-inspired environment equipped with advanced technology and collaborative design.

Dr. Joseph DeCoste, Director of the Centre for Financial Studies and SIF instructor, explains: “Updating the SIF room with new technology will open up so many opportunities for our students to connect with the broader finance world, especially through virtual engagement, and it will also support the expansion of our program as we roll out the new two-year SIF. At the same time, the renovation will celebrate the history of the SIF and recognize all the people who’ve helped build and support it over the past 27 years.”

For more than 25 years, the SIF has given students hands-on investing experience that many alumni credit as a foundation for their professional success. Feiber Omana (BBA ’05 and former SIF student), Chief Corporate Development and Strategy Officer at Corus Orthodontists, noted: “With over 25 years of delivering hands-on investing experience to generations of finance students, the time is right to elevate UNB’s flagship Student Investment Fund to new heights.”

SIF student Holly Tinholt Earl agrees: “I think having a more modernized, renovated space will be rewarding to students who have worked so hard to get into the SIF and are continuing to work hard in their university careers.”

If the campaign reaches its goal, students like Holly will soon step into a space that mirrors the professional environments they aspire to join, giving them the tools, technology, and confidence to compete and lead in global financial markets.

Learn how you can support the SIF Room Reno Campaign.

Photo: The SIF boardroom in action: a dynamic space where students engage with industry experts, bridging classroom theory with real-world investment practice.

Contact

Dr. Joseph DeCoste
Joseph.DeCoste@unb.ca