Kent State’s MSFE Program Reaches an Internship Agreement with Hangzhou Xingli Investment Co.

July 19, 2010 - PRLog -- When executives at Hangzhou Xingli Investment Co., Ltd. agreed for the first time to employ six student interns from Kent State University’s Master of Science in Financial Engineering (MSFE) Program for 10 weeks this summer, they were not sure what to expect. Now, only halfway through the student appointments, Hangzhou Xingli Investment has decided to make the summer internship experience an annual event.

“From the beginning, we were very excited to host the MSFE students, but we were unsure if we had the time and resources needed to make such a commitment successful,” said Hangzhou Xingli Investment CEO Kerry Yang. “But we were happily surprised and thoroughly impressed by the students’ financial engineering knowledge. We have been able to assign projects with minimal direction, and the students handled the work with expertise and skill. At that point, we realized we had something very valuable and wanted to make sure it would continue.”    

A call was made to Kent State’s MSFE Program Director Dr. Mark Holder, and an agreement was struck.  “I was really taken aback,” Holder said. “I was ecstatic when we placed our interns at Xingli, but I wasn’t expecting this.”

The agreement between Kent State and Hangzhou Xingli Investment aims to enhance Kent State’s MSFE students’ practical ability and enrich their work and life experiences while improving Hangzhou Xingli Investment’s talent structure and supplying China with future financial engineers.  

“I knew as China’s global presence in the markets increased, the demand for skilled financial engineers would rise as well,” Holder said. “Our students interning in China are in the right place at the right time.”

Kent State’s MSFE Program has a total of 41 interns, and 17 of them are in China. Other Chinese intern partners are E-Broker, Great Wall Futures, New Edge, Pine Bridge Investments and the Shanghai Futures Exchange.  “China is one of the best places today to seek a career in financial markets,” Holder added. “You can literally be on the ground floor of something very exciting and equally profitable.”

Kent State’s MSFE Program is ranked in the top 25 of financial engineering/mathematical finance MS programs in North America by QuantNet.  Kent State’s program is designed for students with strong quantitative backgrounds who have career goals of becoming risk management officers, derivatives analysts or traders. The program is rigorous, combining a curriculum based on risk management and dynamic valuation skills from finance to address problems such as derivative securities valuation, portfolio structuring and scenario simulation. The Class of 2010 is the program’s seventh graduating class.

Holder is no stranger to Asian markets. He has been doing research and consulting work in China for 15 years and has paid much attention to China’s futures industry and the development of its financial derivatives market. Last summer, Holder published “The Impact of Monetary Policy Change on Carry Trade and Liquidity Markets” during his Visiting Research Fellowship at the esteemed Hong Kong Institute of Monetary Research (HKIMR). Holder also serves as director of the Asia-Pacific Futures Research Symposium, one of the most respected derivatives research conferences in the world that is held annually in Asia.

Hangzhou Xingli Investment Co. is a commodity futures firm, dedicated to financial derivatives investment and financial management. It is located in Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province.

For more information about Kent State and its Master of Financial Engineering Program, visit www.business.kent.edu/msfe or e-mail msfe@kent.edu.

# # #

Kent State University’s Master of Science in Financial Engineering (MSFE) program is designed for students with strong quantitative backgrounds who have career goals of becoming risk management officers, derivatives analysts or traders. The program is rigorous and requires the completion of 36 credit hours of coursework, including an industry-based project. The curriculum combines strong quantitative skills from mathematics with risk management and dynamic valuation skills from finance to address problems such as derivative securities valuation, portfolio structuring, risk management, and scenario simulation. The Kent State Master of Science in Financial Engineering Curriculum meets the guidelines established by the International Association of Financial Engineers. The MSFE program is internationally ranked