The MSF At Gies: A Program Built For ‘The Real World’

In Urbana, Illinois, the University of Illinois’ Gies College of Business has built a reputation for doing something that many business schools talk about, but don’t necessarily deliver. They truly prepare students for the real world of finance as it is today.

The Master of Science in Finance (MSF) program at Gies Business is three‑semesters long, and what really draws students in and keeps alumni so deeply connected is the program’s core belief that finance is something you practice, test, question, and experience.

Gies Business professor Rich Excell has spent around 30 years managing portfolios and riding out market cycles across the globe, and he brings that philosophy to life for his MSF students.

Before joining Gies full‑time seven years ago, Excell partnered with the MSF program as a client working for Wolverine Asset Management.

He’s lived and worked through some of the world’s largest financial crises over the years. Excell was living in Asia at the time of the Asian Financial Crisis, and later in the United States during the tech bubble. “For better or for worse, I’ve earned my grey hair,” he jokes.

At Gies Business, Excell focuses on teaching students to embody and think like the practitioners that they’ll soon become. Their MSF students look closely at past scenarios and trends. They discuss the healthy way to anticipate shifts, communicate clearly, and stay humble in the face of uncertainty.

Looking more closely at how the MSF program prepares students for today’s markets, and what it takes to thrive in finance, P&Q spoke with Professor Excell.

A CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR RICHARD EXCELL

P&Q: You’ve managed portfolios through financial crises in multiple regions. What moments from those experiences most shaped your philosophy as a practitioner and educator, and how do you translate those lessons for students preparing to enter today’s markets?

Excell: At Gies Business, we blend academics with real‑world experience. I teach my students that we need to consider all the things that can happen in the market. Even the ones that seem very unlikely. I have the benefit of having lived through many markets and witnessing shifts that nobody thought could happen, and I probably have a different perspective because of this.

In my classes, I really help students think through scenario analysis. For example, people thought AI spending would go up marginally, but it went up exponentially. I teach that you have to really think through scenarios from both the optimistic and pessimistic views of what can happen in the market. Both are very important.

P&Q: When you think about adaptability in finance, especially during periods of volatility, what habits or mindsets should young professionals start building now to stay resilient throughout their careers?

Excell: Finance is both an art and a science. People think finance is only science and formulas but it is art too. I also teach students adaptability. The MSF students look at how different scenarios have played out, and we analyze companies and look at how they’re perceiving the world. Experiential learning here is so important, and I think that Gies really embraces that.

I like to focus on teaching students to stay disciplined in their process. You don’t want to ‘chase the shiny object,’ as we say. I want students to be thinking, ‘What if something is changing that I didn’t anticipate?’ This change could be a structural shift like what we see happening with AI, or it might be the idea that the market is more active and passive.

In my portfolio management class, I teach that you have to be both a poet and a quant, and learn how to think about each perspective. I want students to understand that at different points in time, they’ll need each of these perspectives.

P&Q: Can you tell me about your podcast, Stay Vigilant? For someone just beginning their finance journey, what does ‘staying vigilant’ look like in practice?

Excell: The podcast stemmed from the idea that I wanted students to have a positive social media presence. The first thing I did was post a chart each day on LinkedIn, and students and colleagues would come to me and discuss what I posted with me. This really started to take on a life of its own.

Now I have the blog/podcast on Substack called Stay Vigilant, which is how I signed off every LinkedIn post.

The whole point of this is to demystify finance. A lot of people think the markets are rigged against them and think they have no chance of understanding it. What I do on this platform is try to explain that things aren’t rigged against you, but rather they are happening for reasons that you might not appreciate.

The students have really embraced this. Some students have even come from overseas to take a class with me because they follow my podcast. ‘Staying vigilant’ isn’t just about risks but also about opportunities. I tell students to always try to keep your mind open to the possibilities of good or bad things happening, and to stay open to the idea that the opposite might happen. The market is always changing.

Staying vigilant is also about humility. I think humility is a very important characteristic to have when it comes to investing.

P&Q: The MSF program at Gies business is all about hands-on learning. How do these experiences prepare students for the realities of modern finance roles, especially among uncertainty and rapid change?

Excell: In the MSF program, we focus on bringing up students’ quantitative skills. We also adjust each student’s experience based on what experiences and backgrounds they’re entering with.

The biggest differentiator for Gies in the MSF program is that we do a lot of experiential learning. I commend our past directors for adding this in. They saw a gap – many of our students didn’t have much internship experience, which meant there weren’t a ton of opportunities to apply what they were learning. The director started fostering partnerships with companies that could offer students real world projects. These essentially became consulting projects, overseen and guided by faculty mentors.

What they saw was that the students loved this, and the companies loved this. These partnerships became wildly successful and is still what we offer for students today.

Each week, students work on sorting out their partner companies’ real problems and discuss them in weekly meetings. The return rate for the companies is incredibly high. Once they have their first experience with our students, they keep returning. They just absolutely love it. I can speak to this, because I was a client in this partnership here at Gies for three semesters before coming here to teach.

In my portfolio management class, students partake in a project where they manage real funds on behalf of a client. They give that client a presentation recommending how they would adjust the portfolio once a semester. We adapt because every semester we often have a change of plans based on the clients’ needs, which reflects real‑world situations they’ll face after graduation.

When we change course, they have to communicate this to the client. Being able to communicate the bad news and the good news is a very learned experience, and it’s only going to help students in their future careers. This is a low‑stakes environment for them to push the envelope. Whether they’re successful or not, they’ll have something to point to on your résumé and tell potential employers what worked and what didn’t.

Communication skills are somewhat of a lost art. That’s what we really focus on in this program. We’re giving students more and more of these experiences.

I give a lot of credit to our deans, who see where education is headed. We’re adding in a lot more experiences that foster critical thinking, adaptability, and giving students a place to show what they can do instead of just learning and taking a test.

Our world is changing rapidly, and it’s important that we’re adaptable to prepare for the current environment and the next three to five years.

P&Q: Students often assume they need a specific undergraduate major to pursue graduate study in finance. From your perspective, who thrives in the MSF program, and what should prospective students look for when choosing a master’s degree that will truly accelerate their career?

Excell: For anyone who sees the program’s STEM designation and is concerned that they might not have the right background, I would encourage them to still apply to the program anyway. This program is open to people of all different backgrounds. Finance is really for anybody!

I taught a course called Finance for Non‑Finance majors, and I have theater majors, art majors, engineers – people who come from all different backgrounds. Regardless of your major, you can absolutely succeed here in the MSF program.

DON’T MISS FIVE KEY QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE INVESTING IN A MASTER’S IN MANAGEMENT DEGREE

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.