During her training, she notably discovered the potential of using customer data, which motivated her to enroll in a master’s degree in business intelligence once her bachelor’s degree was completed.
Last May, she landed her first job in a company in the sector by joining the Montreal fintech Boursify. As an analyst, his role is to develop the commercial potential of the stock market simulation platform created by the start-up which was launched in 2018, at the initiative of two students at Collège Grasset in Montreal, Patrick Vigeant and François Levesque.
They had the idea of developing a stock market simulation platform inspired by the world of adventure games. Apprentice traders are invited to virtually invest a theoretical amount of one million dollars in about ten fictitious companies that are distinguished by their sector of activity and their business model.
The school project has grown into a business that today counts among its clients a financial institution and university educational institutions. Next year, the start-up aims to break into the college sector market.
GET INTRODUCED TO FINANCE THROUGH GAME
“Our goal is to introduce as many students as possible to investing through a fun, intense and memorable activity,” says Élisabeth Viau.
According to the company’s participant appreciation surveys, a majority (97%) of students would recommend the simulation experience to their next cohort and 92% feel they learned or explore new concepts.
PERSONALIZE THE EXPERIENCE
As part of her master’s thesis, Élisabeth Viau is also working to develop a personalized feedback tool based on analyzing the behavior of platform users in real time.
This tool will eventually make it possible to supplement the experience of “players” by providing investment advice, for example to encourage them to increase the level of diversification of their portfolio.
DATA, A GOLD MINE
The young woman is convinced that customer data represents an under-exploited gold mine by financial institutions. She is particularly convinced that it is possible to help companies make more ecological decisions thanks to business intelligence.
“There is enough in the data to respond to the major environmental issues of the planet, whether to calculate the rate of water consumption by users or GHG emissions,” she believes.
Boursify’s stock market simulation platform offers various scenarios that include environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. Several of them include, for example, the scarcity of certain resources and the onset of climatic disasters in the economic models submitted to users.
ATTRACTING YOUNG WOMEN IN FINANCE
Élisabeth Viau believes that we could even go further with this type of educational tool. “We could, for example, put forward the accessible side of the field of finance for all young Quebec women who wish to evolve in this environment”, illustrates the analyst, who won a scholarship from Scotiabank as part of the Banking for Women initiative, created to attract female students to this field of study.
While women remain underrepresented in decision-making positions and on the boards of directors of institutions, according to a recent study by the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA), Élisabeth Viau believes that to change the situation, “we could high school and CEGEP: hold activities that introduce finance in a very inclusive and interesting way in order to make clear the career possibilities accessible to all”.
She believes that we could also offer more scholarships to women studying finance and organize recruitment events that target women directly.
“The creation of more groups of women in finance and investment in institutions would make it possible to promote the role of women and give young women a taste for getting involved,” she concludes.