Senior Evan Harford, the leader of the Investing Club, organized the Investing Conference that took place on Friday, March 22.
The investment conference saw more than 20 students meet in the ULab. Speaker Henry Ehrenberg, Chief Technology Officer at the startup Snorkel AI, met with the conferencegoers over Zoom.
Harford joined Investing Club as a ninth-grader, and after getting his first job at 15, he started investing his newly earned money as soon as possible.
“I got a job as soon as I was eligible,” Harford said. “I started trying to be thoughtful about what I did with money.”
Harford stepped into club leadership at the end of his sophomore year.
“My goal with getting more involved with Investing Club and taking a leadership role my sophomore year [was] bringing more information about finance and financial literacy to the UPrep community,” Harford said.
This mindset is apparent in his work. Investing Club has grown into an open resource for students to learn from each other. The club focuses on collaboration and conversation.
“It was always good to do that, especially because it empowers you later on to make better financial decisions,” Harford said.
Harford encourages students to start investing as young as possible.
“You can be riskier when you’re young,” Harford said. “You might have more stability…you probably have a house to live in.”
Despite this, Harford encourages young investors to play it safe – invest money for the long term, rather than trying to get rich quick.
“What a lot of high schoolers first think about investing [is] ‘How am I going to triple my money or something like that?’” Harford said.
Rather, Harford wants young investors to ask themselves this question: “How am I going to consistently get a good return every single year so that I can have more money later on?”
Harford’s latest contribution to Investing Club on March 22, was the recent conference hosted in the ULab. He first got the idea for the event during his LaunchPad,
“I was interested in finances, and I was interested in business,” said Harford.
He reached out to Development Engagement and Alumni Manager, Claire Fallat, who connected him with some UPrep alums in the finance world.
“It’s one of those cascading things. I reached out to one alumni, and they connected me to another,” Harford said.
Harford explains the importance of the Investment Conference.
“Getting the opportunity to talk with these people gives you a better look into what’s going on,” Harford said. “You can also get a lot of tacit knowledge, which is stuff that people may know because they work in an industry but may not be [something] you can just find in general.”
Reflecting on his goals for the club, Harford wants to keep it on its current trajectory.
“I wanted to build a better group,” Harford said. “That’s sort of what we’ve been able to do these past couple of years…Getting people more interested in this and building a foundation for future club leadership.”