Melody Meng, JADES Co. leader and sophomore 

What made you decide to enter this competition?

I actually competed in the Washington competition last year before deciding to form my own team at CHS. My team, JADES Co., started this year because I was determined to get past the semifinals and also because I was inspired by my friends from last year’s competition who actually had gotten into the Global Finale the year before.

What does the Wharton Global High School Investment Competition entail?

The (Wharton Global High School Investment) competition provides you with a client case study to work with and the entire competition is focused around forming an investment strategy to fit your client’s goals and their preferences. There will be three phases upon which you will write a final report and then you have to submit a video for the semifinals. For the Global Finale competition, you will be presenting in front of a panel of judges in person along with the client that you have for that year. These three rounds basically determined a competition essentially.

How did your team prepare?

We all needed a schedule for weekly meetings, where we could find time to review so we could work on the script and the presentations together. Our semifinals video was a little bit poorly time-managed, so we did have to pull many all-nighters in order to finish some of our work, but that was mainly just because we revamped a lot of our strategy. Mainly, it’s just working together and doing our separate parts like data analysis, writing reports, scripts and things like that.

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Chenyao Liu

Sophomore Melody Meng (left), the team lead for JADES Co., practices her speech. Meng said she is proud of her team for being able to make it to the Global Finale.

What has this experience taught you?

Definitely how to be a team player. This was a new experience on leading other students and helping them grow and growing myself as well.

What is the Global Finale and who advances to it?

There were the top two teams in our group and one of the (qualifying) teams was us and the other team was actually from India. There’s five separate groups, so there’s 10 teams in total and we’ll be advancing to the Global Finale. (The Global Finale) will be basically just presenting in person in front of all the other competitors, a panel of judges and the client himself. Basically, the client and the judges determine which strategy that the teams came up with that they liked the most and based on this, they’ll select the top three teams.

What happens if your team places within the top three at the Global Finale?

You do get a scholarship to one of their events. You get a free scholarship for one of (The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania’s) online classes. So that’s pretty cool and if you’re first place, you get a pretty cool plaque.

Is there anything I haven’t asked that someone might want to know?

This year, there’s a couple teams from South Korea and I previously mentioned India and Canada and also Zambia. I’m just really happy with my team. Actually, I’m very impressed with them and I think that they did a great job this year.

Ellen Jiang, JADES Co. team member and sophomore

Could you explain what this competition is all about?

We have six weeks to invest and after that six weeks, you need to write a midterm report, the final report. After we submit both of those, we make a 10-minute video and presentation about our strategy, then we submit that video.

How did your team prepare for the Global Finale?

We took our semifinal presentation, the video, and we changed it so that it would be better for representing in-person. We also changed our scripts a little and we’re trying to memorize it really early on. Also, we’re creating pins to pass out there because they recommend passing out something of your teams. We also have matching green ties because our team is JADES Co. and we want a theme.

What does the Global Finale look like?

All 10 teams present and we have a 10-minute timer and after that we get five minutes of Q&As questioning about our strategy. Then after that they might rank us from one to 10 or choose the top one.

Maxwell Gootee, JADES Co. team member and sophomore

What is the goal of this competition?

The competition is an investment competition and it’s hosted by The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. What they do is they choose one of their alumni or just some famous person and we have to create a plan for them. We have to create a set of investments so that set person can reach their goal. For example, this year, it’s one of their alumni named Peter Wong who wants to open a yoga studio and also give financial gifts. So, we’re just trying to create a plan that aligns with his values and his beliefs while also helping him make the money he needs.

Are you prepared by just learning the basics of investment? 

Because this competition is (set up so) a lot of information is given to you, you’ve just got to learn as you go through it. So, you don’t have to do a whole lot of preparation. 

What is the virtual aspect of this competition?

Throughout the entire year until the Global Finale, it’s all virtual. We use a virtual simulator to trade fake money and all the information is online, but it’s a lot of research. However, you do have to go to the same school as your teammates. At the very end the Global Finale is hosted in-person. 

What will your team do after the Global Finale?

We’re probably finally going to have a celebration because we’ve been putting that off. But also, we’re still planning to compete next year because every year is a new experience. 

Is there anything that you want to let the readers know? 

I want the readers to know that they should join and try it out because it’s a very fun competition.

JADES Co. competed in the Wharton Global High School Investment Competition Global Finale on April 22. They did not make it to the top three spots.