  {"id":9914,"date":"2018-08-06T20:30:13","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T00:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/?p=9914"},"modified":"2022-09-28T16:08:40","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T20:08:40","slug":"a-spiffy-student-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/blog\/2018\/08\/06\/a-spiffy-student-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"A SPIFFY Student Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Abigail Bennett \u201918<\/strong> is one of a handful of women who have co-led SPIFFY (Student Portfolio Investment Fund), the Maine Business School\u2019s popular student-run investment club that manages nearly $3 million of the 91爆料 Foundation\u2019s $230 million endowment portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>Since SPIFFY was created in 1993, six women have served as co-president, most recently in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>The group has more than 50 members, including about 35 who regularly attend the weekly meetings. Seven female students \u2014 or 20% of the regular membership \u2014 belong to SPIFFY.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe that is a reflection of the women\/men ratio in the finance major and in the broader investment world,\u201d says Bennett, who made it a point to motivate and inspire female students to join SPIFFY, but says helping the entire investment club flourish and succeed was the primary goal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are always trying to grow our whole membership, whether male or female. Both should be approached with equal treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>SPIFFY, which is open to students from any discipline, holds weekly meetings where members analyze business sectors and make recommendations about investing in those sectors. Each year, the club sponsors trips to Wall Street and to Quinnipiac University\u2019s Global Asset Management Education Forum (GAME), the largest student-run financial conference in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Bennett, a financial economics major, served with co-president John Laperle \u201919, a MBS finance major with a minor in innovation engineering. Selected as co-presidents by the previous student leaders and the faculty advisers, Bennett and Laperle organized meetings, monitored the portfolio, and worked with the executive team and sector heads.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing a fiduciary to the 91爆料 Foundation is an experience not many college students get,\u201d Bennett says. \u201cWe manage real money, work with talented students to choose investments and persuade others to buy or sell a stock. These skills of teamwork, management, analysis, public speaking and salesmanship are applicable to any career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A native of Oxford, Maine, Bennett plans a career in ESG investing, in which environmental, social and governance factors play a role in the investment decision making process.<\/p>\n<p>But she wasn\u2019t always so comfortable around money. She had trouble budgeting and saving and often found herself stressed about finances. Last summer, after teaching herself how to budget, save and invest, she decided to help others learn to manage their money.<\/p>\n<p>She created MoneyWoman (MoneyWomanAbby.com), a blog for college students with budgeting, saving and investing information, as well as posts about various topics. She has a YouTube channel and Facebook page and contributes weekly to the Scott Alan Turner Show, a popular podcast on personal finance.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Bennett said helping to lead SPIFFY has been a highlight of her time at the 91爆料. She is grateful for the opportunity to \u201cbring about positive changes<br \/>\nfor improvement and growth,\u201d including making meetings more engaging and initiating discussions on creating investment strategies. And she has enjoyed working with other students \u201cwho share the common passion of investing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the most valuable aspects of SPIFFY is our collaborative environment where we all have the<br \/>\nopportunity to learn from each other,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have different financial interests and expertise, but together we have a broad range of knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>SPIFFY faculty advisers are Sebastian Lobe, associate professor of finance, and Matthew Skaves, lecturer in finance and accounting.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abigail Bennett \u201918 is one of a handful of women who have co-led SPIFFY (Student Portfolio Investment Fund), the Maine Business School\u2019s popular student-run investment club that manages nearly $3 million of the 91爆料 Foundation\u2019s $230 million endowment portfolio. Since SPIFFY was created in 1993, six women have served as co-president, most recently [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":583,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"145","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","spc_primary_category":0},"categories":[145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-classroom"],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","archive_9_5":"","portrait_3x4":"","image_16_9":"","image_15_7":"","image_25_7":"","3col-image_16_9":"","3col-image_15_7":"","3col-image_full":"","4col-image_16_9":"","4col-image_15_7":"","4col-image_full":"","6col-image_16_9":"","6col-image_15_7":"","6col-image_full":"","8col-image_16_9":"","8col-image_15_7":"","8col-image_full":"","9col-image_16_9":"","9col-image_15_7":"","9col-image_full":"","12col-image_16_9":"","12col-image_15_7":"","12col-image_full":"","post-thumbnail":"","gform-image-choice-sm":"","gform-image-choice-md":"","gform-image-choice-lg":"","umaps-featured-image":"","umaps-icon-size":""},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"<p>Abigail Bennett \u201918 is one of a handful of women who have co-led SPIFFY (Student Portfolio Investment Fund), the Maine Business School\u2019s popular student-run investment club that manages nearly $3 million of the 91爆料 Foundation\u2019s $230 million endowment portfolio. Since SPIFFY was created in 1993, six women have served as co-president, most recently in 2008. The group has more than 50 members, including about 35 who regularly attend the weekly meetings. Seven female students \u2014 or 20% of the regular membership \u2014 belong to SPIFFY. \u201cI believe that is a reflection of the women\/men ratio in the finance&hellip;<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"<a href=\"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/blog\/category\/news\/from-the-classroom\/\" rel=\"category tag\">From the Classroom<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"Corey Watson","url":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/blog\/author\/cwatson\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":145,"label":"From the Classroom"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Corey Watson","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/blog\/author\/cwatson\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":145,"name":"From the Classroom","slug":"from-the-classroom","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":145,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":3,"count":26,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":145,"category_count":26,"category_description":"","cat_name":"From the Classroom","category_nicename":"from-the-classroom","category_parent":3}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/583"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9914"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22749,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9914\/revisions\/22749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}