As women manage money and make money, they need acquire the skills necessary for their own financial success in a male-dominated field.

Step forward: Smart Woman Securities (SWS),an organization focused on investment education for undergraduate women. 

It will provide resources upon which women can build greater knowledge of the financial markets through instructive seminars, mentoring initiatives, and meetings with successful investors.

Undergraduate in the US are asked to join a chapter or start one: The organization currently includes chapters at Boston College, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Fordham, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Princeton, University of Virginia, and Yale.

A new organization has been launched on the campus of Duke University (pictured) that will change the way female undergraduates prepare to enter the real world.

One of the newest chapters, Duke SWS, is set to begin operations in the autumn of 2011.

Stephanie Downey began the application process to operate a new chapter after locating a team of motivated and talented co-founders, including Lena Jia, Liz Jones, Nicole Leung, Luxi Wei, and Flannery Zhou to collaborate on the endeavor.

The SWS Mission

Smart Woman Securities is unique in that it focuses on the fact that, while women want to manage money and make money, there are few ways in which they can acquire the skills necessary for financial success in a male-dominated field.

By creating an accepting environment for women of all financial skill levels, this barrier is broken.

Smart Woman Securities Co-founder, Teresa Hsiao states, “There really isn’t anything else at colleges like this that is woman-to-woman. And a lot of these sites are more high level than what we try to provide, which is the basics.”

Downey, who led the Founding Team of Duke’s SWS chapter, explained that the SWS curriculum is accessible to non-economics majors. Plus, the seminars engage the students on a much more personal level than anything they are taught in their markets and management classes.

“I firmly believe that the most important concept for a young person to fully comprehend is finance,” Downey said.

“SWS is vital to our campus in that it provides a positive environment allowing women to gain real-world investment experience. This allows our members to feel comfortable asking questions, discussing difficult concepts with their peers, and practicing practical applications of their newfound knowledge.”

The Smart Woman Securities Method

The main educational piece of the SWS program is a 10-week seminar series that explains the basics of investing. Students then complete an investment project and work in teams to review stocks from different sectors. The second, vital component of the program is individual mentoring at the chapter level and also at the national level where interested students are paired with investors at J.P. Morgan, the National Partner of SWS for 2011-2012. The third component at the Duke chapter is the investment fund, in which the undergraduate women invest in the stock market and later donate all profits to charity.

There is one more perk to SWS: meeting Warren Buffett. When the program first started in 2006, Tracy Britt ambitiously reached out to “the Oracle of Omaha,” Warren Buffett, in a letter. Today, SWS has an annual trip to meet with Buffett. In addition to spending time with Buffett during the 2011 trip, SWS members visited ConAgra Foods, Nebraska Food Mart, TD Ameritrade, and Union Pacific. The students also interacted with dynamic business leaders from various industries at the Business Executives Dinner, before wrapping up the trip with an SWS Interactive Event.

Duke SWS
The Duke SWS Founding Team has already built a strong presence on their campus. Jones points out, “We are certain that we will be able to hold successful, educational events in the future to help make Duke undergraduate women confident in handling their financial needs.”

Get Involved
Any women who wish to aid our cause can do any of the following:

1. Volunteer to become a professional mentor via e-mail: Professional Mentors are professionals who have been successful in various areas of business, and can serve as resources for our members in a variety of ways. Professional Mentors offer insight into questions about investing and finance or even career opportunities, and are available to answer questions about personal decisions related to these fields.

2. Volunteer as an Industry Mentor via e-mail: Industry Mentors are professionals that are knowledgeable in the industry that the students are studying. Industry Mentors help out in the Investment Project, and also serve as resources for Research Teams that are making stock recommendations within anThey share their expertise through conference calls, workshops, and a variety of other realms.

3. Become a Corporate Partner: Your company can partner with Duke SWS. In exchange for a donation, your company can receive several exclusive benefits.

For more information, please visit Smart Woman Securities's website or follow Duke Smart Woman Securities on Twitter.