
The Value Investing Panel (VIP) is an annual event organized and run by the students in the Portfolio Practicum course and is designed for individuals interested in value investing.
The event is open to members of the community who would like to hear panelists’ thoughts on various investment strategies, and the current state of the stock market. Picking the brain of just one of the panelists would be illuminating; hearing their combined thoughts in a panel discussion atmosphere offers a rare opportunity.
For more than a decade, Creighton students have planned this event each year to fall on the Friday of the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, so investors from all over the world can attend this event.
The 2026 Value Investing Panel will be held on Friday, May 1 from 3-4:45 pm, with a reception to follow. Register for the event below:
Jack Holmes, CFA, is Chief Investment Officer at Bridges Trust. He has over two decades of investment experience and joined Bridges Trust in 2021. In his capacity as CIO, Jack leads the investment team, shaping the firm’s capital market expectations, leading the research team, and collaborating with relationship managers on client portfolios. Prior to joining Bridges, he served as the Chief Investment Officer for WealthPlan Partners.
Jack holds a BS in Business Administration and Finance from Colorado State University and a Master of Security Analysis & Portfolio Management from Creighton University. He earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 2012 and the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy designation in 2023. He serves on the boards of Saving Grace Perishable Foods Rescue and the Elkhorn Public Schools Foundation. He is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Nebraska and spends his free time reading and coaching his children in a variety of sports.
Vitaliy N. Katsenelson, CFA is the CEO of Investment Management Associates (IMA), a Denver-based value investments firm. Born in Murmansk, Russia, he immigrated to the United States with his family in 1991, joined IMA in 1997, became Chief Investment Officer in 2007, and was named CEO in 2012.
He is the author of three books: Active Value Investing, The Little Book of Sideways Markets, and Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life. The first two volumes lay out his framework for investing in range-bound markets, while Soul in the Game, published in 2022, draws on Stoic philosophy, classical music, and personal experience to explore how to live a meaningful life.
Katsenelson began writing for financial publications in 2004 and has contributed to outlets including the Financial Times, Barron's, the Christian Science Monitor, and Institutional Investor. He also taught investing courses at the University of Colorado for several years. His blog and newsletter, The Intellectual Investor, has grown to over 100,000 subscribers and covers topics ranging from markets and valuation to Stoic philosophy, classical music, and chess.
Katsenelson lives in Denver with his wife and three children.
Robert Robotti is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Robotti & Company. Bob holds a BS from Bucknell University and an MBA in Accounting from Pace University. Prior to forming Robotti & Company, Incorporated in 1983, Bob worked as vice president and CFO at Gabelli & Company, Inc., and is currently an inactive CPA.
Bob serves on the Board of Directors of several publicly listed portfolio companies. NYSE-listed real estate company, AMREP Corporation, located in Germantown, PA, NYSE-listed Tidewater, Inc. which owns and operates one of the largest fleets of Offshore Support Vessels (OSVs) in the industry, and chairs the board of TSX-listed licenser of seismic data to the Oil and Gas Industry, Pulse Seismic. He was previously a board member of BMC Building Materials Holding Corporation, prior to its merger with Builders Firstsource and served on the board of Calgary based Mineral and Oil and Natural Gas royalty company PrarieSky Royalty Ltd.
In addition, he serves on the Boards of many non-profit organizations where he generously donates his time and expertise. Previously, Bob was a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies, established to examine the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other aspects of the federal securities law.
Mark is the president of Tributary Capital Management and is a portfolio manager for the firm's Small Cap, Small/Mid Cap and All Cap Equity strategies. Mark has over 25 years of industry experience and joined Tributary Capital Management's predecessor, First Investment Group, in 1999. Prior to joining Tributary, he worked for five years at Westchester Capital Management as a senior securities analyst and two years at Union Pacific Railroad as a financial analyst, both in Omaha, Nebraska. Mark received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He earned his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1997. Mark is a member of the CFA Society of Nebraska and the CFA Institute. He served on the Board of Directors of the CFA Society of Nebraska from 2002 to 2009, serving as president during 2007 and 2008.
Sarah is the Vice President of Investments at Bridges Trust and an adjunct professor at Creighton University. Sarah has 15 years of industry experience and has worked at Bridges Trust since 2018. Prior to joining Bridges Sarah worked for Westwood Trust-Omaha, was a Senior Risk Analyst at Gavilon and started her career at McCarthy Group Advisors in 2009. Sarah earned her BBA degree with an emphasis in finance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, an MBA and a Master of Security Analysis and Portfolio Management (MSAPM) from Creighton University. She became a CFA® charterholder in 2017 and earned her CIPM® in 2021. Sarah also serves as the CFA Society of Nebraska’s Board Treasurer and is an active member of the CFA Society of Nebraska and the CFA Institute.
Tirimba Obonyo, PhD, CFA, is an Associate Professor of Finance at Creighton University’s Heider College of Business, where he joined the faculty in 2017. He is an award-winning teacher, delivering classes including financial statement analysis and financial risk management at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Dr. Obonyo is an active researcher whose work spans corporate finance, financial markets, and behavioral finance, with publications in outlets including the Review of Financial Economics, Finance Research Letters, and Managerial Finance. He holds a BA from Lafayette College and a PhD from Drexel University.
The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation puts Heider in the top 2% of business schools in the world.
