Later this month, Brown Investment Group will host an investment competition sponsored by New York-based investment manager Silver Beech.
The firm’s co-founders and co-managing partners, James Hollier ’18 and James Kovacs ’16, will be returning to a campus which started their friendship years ago.
After graduating, Hollier and Kovacs remained friends and started working together in finance. In January 2023, they launched investment management group Silver Beech. Neither alums were involved with BIG during their time at Brown, but they both emphasized the importance of the club on campus.
This is the second time this competition has taken place — and Kovacs and Hollier’s shared alma mater was a key factor in choosing Brown as its host. Applicants have already sent written pitches, and finalists have been notified.
Now, teams of finalists will each deliver a stock pitch, a “presentation or written summary you make to invest or not invest in a company, and, specifically, the kinds of companies that we're asking students to pitch are publicly traded, which means they're on the stock market,” Hollier explained. “The purpose of the competition is to, obviously, teach students how to present a company for investment.”
“From our perspective, the purpose is education,” said Jeremy Benjamin ’26, co-president of BIG, adding that the cash reward incentivizes students to pursue substantive research about a unique industry. “What I love about these competitions is you learn these broadly applicable finance skills, even if you're not going into finance.”
Scottie Cho ’26, the other co-president of BIG, expressed excitement for bringing this competition to Brown, mirroring offerings at other universities. “It kind of brings us in line with other schools,” he said.
He also said that learning opportunities about investment and finance are harder to come by at Brown, but that a liberal arts education can be valuable to investing.
Larry Heller ’25, former president of BIG during the 2023-24 academic year, has made it to the final round of the competition for the second time this year. “I was excited to make a model and a presentation, and I guess there was a level of nerve on the day,” Heller said. “Still, the people I was presenting to were really cool, and being able to pitch to people you admire and respect was a great experience.”
This year, Heller has teamed up with Ari Rosenstein ’25. Both expressed excitement for the competition. “It is very cool to get a chance to analyze and pitch undervalued companies,” Rosenstein said.
