News Releases

Monday, May 16, 2011

Four University of Kansas MBA students sold School officials on the idea to start a graduate-level investment banking club in fall 2010. The club has proven to be a good buy with lots of growth potential – like any good investment.

Two semesters later, business students Chris Miller from Gardner, Fur Finley from Colby, Jared Nuss from Russell and Adam Buck from Houston, Texas, the club’s founders, are running KU InvestWise and growing the club’s stock at a steady rate.

“Our idea [to create the club] was met with a lot of support from the School,” said Miller, one of the club’s vice-presidents.

Running with that support, KU InvestWise has integrated itself in the local investment banking community by taking trips to financial firms and exchanges in the Kansas City metro area, such as Tradebot Systems, BATS Global Markets and KC Board of Trade.

“These trips were informative in nature and gave us real world, first-hand insight into investing and trading,” Miller said.

The students’ aptitude to combine real-world experience with in-class learning has been recognized around the School of Business.

Felix Meschke, a finance professor who has been involved with the club’s activities, said the founders of KU InvestWise exemplify what it takes to be great students.

“Learning is not consumption, it arises out of interaction and requires students to be the driving force of their learning experiences,” Meschke said.

Although that driving force isn’t required of students at the School of Business, it’s something many of them come into the School with and reap the rewards of using it during their academic careers.

Opportunities to learn in and out of the classroom are a few of the many reasons the KU School of Business is not business as usual.