TIF Club — The Investment Framework at Colegio Interamericano

Where TIF Came From

Built from a system.
Not a textbook.

The Investment Framework started when its founder began building her own investment portfolio and developed a method for understanding markets that went far beyond anything taught in a classroom. The foundation wasn't collecting vocabulary. It was a pattern: learn something, understand it well enough to rebuild it from scratch, then find a way to explain it to someone else.

That method covered portfolio construction, market microstructure, factor investing, behavioral finance, and how the most exceptional financial vehicles approach risk. Topics most people don't encounter until they're deep into a finance degree — if ever.

TIF Club brings that same system to Colegio Interamericano. The curriculum is the same. The standard is the same. The only difference is that you're here first.

A Regular Session

Leader opens

Frames the topic, connects it to the broader curriculum, sets the discussion in motion.

Group discusses

Using the Harkness method — collaborative, discussion-led, every member engaged. The TIF team guides, not lectures.

Closes with takeaways

Each session ends with clear, concrete things you now understand that you didn't before.

Once a Month — Speaker Series

A working professional comes in to lead the session directly — someone who has done exactly what the curriculum is about, in the real world.

The Harkness Table

Watch: Harkness Method in Action

Teaching Philosophy

The Harkness Method

The Harkness method is a discussion-based format where students sit together at a shared table and build understanding collaboratively — not by listening to someone talk at them. Harvard Business School built its entire MBA program around this model. Yale Law, Columbia, and virtually every top-tier institution use discussion-led seminars as the primary format for their most demanding coursework.

The reason is documented: research from the National Training Laboratories shows people retain roughly 5% of what they hear in a lecture — and up to 50% of what they learn through discussion. Add the act of teaching or explaining it to someone else, and retention climbs above 90%.

Lecture retention

50%

Discussion retention

90%+

Teaching others

Used at Harvard, Yale, Columbia & more

The same format top institutions use for their most rigorous coursework — brought to Colegio Interamericano.

Once a month, a professional takes the table

The speaker series brings in someone who has done exactly what's being studied — and leads the session themselves.

No passive attendance

Every member is expected to engage. The group's understanding is built together, not handed down.

What You'll Learn

Six modules. One
coherent system.

The curriculum moves from how markets work to how professionals build, protect, and grow capital inside them.

MODULE 01

Market Microstructure

Why prices move, how orders execute, what market makers actually do, and what's really happening beneath every trade.

MODULE 02

Portfolio Construction & Risk

How institutional investors build portfolios, think about diversification, measure risk, and decide what belongs together.

MODULE 03

Factor Investing

Momentum, value, low volatility — the systematic drivers of return that quantitative managers have exploited for decades.

MODULE 04

Company Valuation

DCF, comparables, precedent transactions — the core frameworks for figuring out what a business is actually worth.

MODULE 05

Behavioral Finance

Why markets aren't fully rational, how biases distort prices, and how understanding human behavior creates edges.

MODULE 06

International Capital Markets

How global forces — rates, FX, macro flows, geopolitics — move markets and how professionals navigate cross-border complexity.

Speaker Series

People doing it
in the real world.

Once a month, a working professional leads the session. From private equity and wealth management to startup recruiting, corporate law, and technology — people who don't usually talk to high school students.

Wealth Management

Consuelo Palomo

Financial Advisor & Co-founder, Greytown Advisors · Inter Graduate

Co-founder of Greytown Advisors, a Miami-based multi-family office managing nearly $1 billion in assets for ultra-high-net-worth families and institutions across Central and Latin America — acquired by BTG Pactual, Latin America's largest independent investment bank, in 2024. Prior to that, she co-founded Zima Investments and spent nearly 11 years as Financial Markets Manager at Banco G&T Continental. She also taught Finance as a full professor at Universidad Francisco Marroquín for 8 years and holds a certificate from Wharton's Private Equity Program. A Colegio Interamericano graduate herself.

AI & Enterprise Transformation

Tina Mulqueen

SVP Digital Transformation, Burson

SVP of Digital Transformation at Burson, one of the world's largest communications and PR firms, where she leads enterprise AI adoption, operating model redesign, and workforce transformation at scale. Beyond her corporate role, she is a professor, writer, and connector — with deep relationships across top research universities and academic institutions. Her work sits at the intersection of technology, organizational strategy, and the future of how companies actually operate.

Startups & Recruiting

Matt Giambruno

Recruiter & Startup Builder · 4 Exits

A recruiter and startup builder with four exits and a track record that spans Apple, Tesla, Roku, Impossible Foods, and SpaceX. Matt has spent his career at the intersection of talent and early-stage companies — identifying the people who build the products and teams that define industries. He understands what it actually takes to get hired at, build within, and exit from the most competitive companies in the world.

M&A & Financial Advisory

Ian Bambrick

Authorized Manager, Fourth Ridge LLC

Authorized Manager of Fourth Ridge, a specialized financing advisory firm and collective of industry experts focused on the lower-middle and middle markets. Fourth Ridge advises on corporate transactions, M&A deal execution, and complex capital processes — working alongside mid-sized businesses and independent sponsors through private equity partnerships and corporate restructuring. Ian brings a front-row perspective on how deals actually get structured and closed at the market level where most of the real activity happens.

Leadership & Performance

Alexandra Cabané

Speaker, Leadership Coach & Former Finance Executive

Ale began her career in finance — at Citibank as their youngest-ever Citigold Wealth Manager, managing 150 high-net-worth accounts, then as a Senior Investment Analyst at Losa Group managing an 8-asset-class portfolio where she delivered up to 14.1% returns in private equity. She then transitioned into coaching and leadership development, completing over 9,000 sessions as a Platinum Partner Coach and Business Results Trainer at Robbins Research International (Tony Robbins). Her work sits at the intersection of performance psychology, financial mindset, and unlocking the potential most executives leave on the table.

Entrepreneurship & Philanthropy

Ryan LaFontaine

CEO, LaFontaine Automotive Group

CEO of LaFontaine Automotive Group, one of Michigan's largest automotive empires spanning dozens of locations across major and luxury brands. Ryan started selling cars at 15 and went on to grow their Highland, Michigan location into the #1 Pontiac dealership in the world by 2009. He became the youngest chairman in the history of the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. A Hodgkin's Lymphoma survivor diagnosed in his early 30s, he co-founded the U CAN-CER VIVE Foundation with his sister Kelley, raising millions for local cancer research in Michigan hospitals.

The Investment
Framework Club.

Built from a system.
Not a textbook.

The Harkness Method