The students, who are aged between 14 and 18, came out top in the annual competition aiming to inspire Scottish schoolgirls to consider careers in investment management.

Participating teams had to research, analyse, and pitch companies they thought would be a lucrative long-term bet.

Kingussie’s senior (16-18) team — Gabi, Kirsty, Catrin, Zoe, and Sasha — delivered a pitch on TOMRA, the sorting and recycling company. The school’s junior (14-16) team — Lucy, Tia, and Jess — presented on SolarEdge, the renewable energy firm.

The teams’ pitches were made to separate panels of investment management professionals from companies including Baillie Gifford, Walter Scott and Partners, RBC Brewin Dolphin, Rathbones, Martin Currie, and BlackRock.

The Kingussie teams narrowly beat Clackmannanshire’s Alva Academy, whose team pitched John Deere in the senior category, and North Berwick High School, whose team pitched Planet Fitness in the juniors.

On the double win, Helen Bradley, Future Asset CEO, said: “This is an exceptional result for Kingussie High School. The fact that they have won both the junior and senior categories is outstanding.

“The judging panel were incredibly impressed with all of the entries but what really came across undeniably with both the teams from Kingussie High School was their ability to understand the key elements in making an investment decision which is exactly what this competition is all about.”

Recommended

• What does Digital Transformation Mean to Incremental CEO, Mark Skelton?
• NatWest Set to Limit Crypto Payments
• ICO Releases New Data Protection Guidance for Tech Teams

The competition is organised and run by Future Asset — the Scottish financial educators helping to nurture the next generation of female investment talent.

This year’s competition saw a rise in schools registering by 38%, meaning that almost one fifth of the region’s state schools got involved.

Chair of Future Asset, Senior Category judge, and former Partner at Baillie Gifford, Sarah Whitley, said: “This year was the third annual competition, and the standard of the submissions has got higher and higher with each year. Future Asset as an organisation cannot wait for these winners to enter the financial workforce!”

Initiatives like the competition are doing important work in helping to widen the talent pipeline and improve diversity in the male-dominated industry. According to research from the UK Business Angels Association, only 14% of angel investors in the UK are women, and only 7% have made investments in ten companies or more.

Having more women in investment — and especially in senior roles — would also help more women-led businesses to secure the necessary funding they need to establish themselves and then later scale.

The Stewart Report, the Scottish Government-commissioned report on women and entrepreneurialism, found that over the last 12 months and across all sectors, women-led businesses made up 12% of companies receiving investment, while 73% being male-led businesses – a gender gap of 61%.