About
An association. Not a course.
Parity isn't a learning platform or a video library you work through on your own. It's an organisation with members, roles and responsibility.
How it works
Real work, judged.
Members join as Junior Analysts and work in teams. They research companies, write investment proposals, and defend them in front of an internal committee that decides. Take a role and you fill it — there are no seats at the back.
Not every role is an analyst role. Members run the education programme, the research output, the website and the association's own operations — a good part of the work has nothing to do with markets.
The work is demanding. It assumes nothing beforehand except a willingness to get into it.
What membership gives you
Community
Most of our members don't know a single person at their school who cares about this. At Parity they sit in a team with people asking the same questions. We meet weekly, online, and work through analyses together — the same faces, the same team, every week. Being online is what makes it possible to find each other at all: your team is drawn from across Europe, not from whoever happens to share your building.
Access
There's no entrance exam and no prior knowledge you need to bring. We select on motivation, not on background, school or contacts. Membership is free — there is no fee, no waiver to apply for, and nothing to explain to anyone.
Network
What our members lack isn't content — that's in books. It's people. We put members in the same room as professionals from banks, funds and advisory firms, in small groups rather than webinars. And we put them in the same room as each other, which matters more over time.
Why Parity exists
Access decided early.
Access to finance is unevenly distributed across Europe, and the distribution is settled early. If it gets discussed at home, if your school arranges the internship, if someone you know knows someone — you arrive at eighteen with a head start that's very hard to close later.
We're not trying to move more people into the industry. We're trying to make sure the decision to go into it, or not, rests on knowing something rather than on chance.
That's why Parity is an association and not a programme. What students lack isn't material — material is free and everywhere. A team asking the same questions, a committee you have to defend your work in front of, someone three years ahead who answers when you write to them: that isn't.
Who runs it
The founders.
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Laurenz Hegemann
Co-founder · Board
LinkedIn → -
Bennet Viertel
Co-founder · Board
LinkedIn →
The board decides on the association's investments and is accountable for its educational work. Questions for the board go to info@parityinitiative.org.
Funding
Where the money comes from.
Parity invests its own assets in public markets. The returns fund the association's educational work.
Members pay nothing in and receive nothing out. They don't manage anyone else's money. What they produce is research and recommendations; the decisions are made by the board.
We do it this way because educational work needs funding, and because working through real decisions is something no simulation replaces.
Applications
Applications are open.
Rolling, all year. Ten minutes, and prior knowledge isn't one of the questions.