Modern Lion Investment

By: J. P. Fernandes

       This year Modern Lion Investments entered the Knowledge at Wharton High School (KWHS) investment competition and won through to the Brazilian national finals. We were invited to pitch our design of an investment portfolio for an entrepreneur who had sold out his web based business for a huge sum of money and was looking to fulill certain personal goals. 
        The presentation we gave was on the 17th of April, a Tuesday evening, and was to a panel of high-powered investors from the Brazilian financial community in front of an invited audience. The venue was at the auditorium of BTG Pactual and in total ten teams were competing against each other. 
      The Modern Lion Investment, team comprised: Joao Pedro Fernandes, Martina Weber, Luca Yunes, Freddy Rabbat and Henrique Lorente. We were all extremely nervous as the competition progressed and our turn to present drew close. Each member of the team was required to contribute to the presentation on stage so there was no hiding place for anyone and we could see from the other presentations that standards were high. In the end we did not win the competition but we felt that we gave our best shot. 
     The main point of the KWHS is to learn about investing and financial markets and without question we learned a great deal both from participating in the competition process and from our mentors. Above all this, we are able to take away, into university and our future lives, a tremendous range of skills from public speaking to leadership and working as a team. We would like to thank Deborah Pontual and the Wharton Alumni for organising this event.