Announcing new Aurum bursaries

As part of Aurum’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, Aurum Fund Management Ltd. (“AFML”) has awarded two university bursaries to promising Ark Schools students who have chosen to follow one of two career streams; one in finance and one in environmental conservation.

The Aurum bursaries combine financial support, to cover both tuition fees and living expenses, with practical support in the form of a comprehensive internship programme and ongoing mentoring. This combined approach will remove the financial burden of higher education and provide excellent opportunities for the students in two competitive fields. From this ongoing relationship, we aim to build an enduring association with these students.

The internships will be at both Aurum Research Limited (“ARL”) and at Synchronicity Earth.  ARL is the Aurum group’s London-based investment research arm; and Synchronicity Earth is a UK based conservation charity and has been one of AFML’s charity recipients for many years. As part of the internship programme, the students will work on collaborative projects. This will expand their experiences by providing insight into another industry. And, by collaborating with Synchronicity Earth, we will continue our work to enhance the links between finance and conservation.

ARK Schools, one of the country’s academy networks that runs 38 schools in Birmingham, Hastings, London, and Portsmouth, provided a shortlist of candidates. A combined bursary committee of Aurum Group and Synchronicity Earth employees conducted a tailored interview process. The feedback from the bursary committee was overwhelmingly positive and deciding on the two bursary recipients was particularly challenging given the strength of all candidates.

Synchronicity Earth’s Victoria Steele added “Participating in the Aurum bursary committee has been a wonderful experience, the candidates put forward by Ark were all incredibly talented. Seeing their drive, enthusiasm and ambition, especially while also overcoming extremely challenging circumstances, has been awe-inspiring”.

After significant deliberation and discussion, the committee unanimously agreed on the candidates to award the bursaries to, and we are delighted to congratulate these individuals on their success in a very competitive process.

Aurum Research Limited’s CEO Kevin Gundle said “This was a humbling and inspiring undertaking, though also difficult given the candidates were all very deserving. The final decision came down to two individuals that have the greatest financial need and who also demonstrated a clear interest in one of the two career streams that Aurum’s bursaries specified. I would like to thank my colleagues at Aurum as well as the Ark team who made the bursary selection such an enriching experience.  All of us are committed to making the Aurum bursaries a success.”

At Aurum we believe in creating a better society, as well as protecting the environment through our philanthropic activities. For over 20 years, AFML has embedded positive environmental and social impact into its business activities by supporting the Synchronicity Foundation and Synchronicity Earth, and more recently The Seneca Trust through grants to humanitarian and social programmes.

UPDATE: Fantastic to see the success of one of our bursary candidates given the challenges of the last 18 months. Congratulations Amera.