Team Leader of the Matadors-0F1, Jonathan Su, takes a screenshot of their team while recording their virtual presentation for the semi-finals round in their Wharton Global High School Investment Competition. The team is currently part of the final 50 teams from around the world. Grand prize winner will be announced April 23.
Miramonte High School junior, Jonathan Su, and his teammates have anxiously awaited word of the Wharton School’s Global High School Investment Competition results since their submission late December.
“It arrived as I checked my daily emails on an especially chilly Thursday morning,” Su said.
There it was – a new email appeared at the top, a blue dot hovering on the left and the bold letters of “Congratulations.”
“I had a skip of a heartbeat when I got the news of a lifetime: ‘MATADORS-0F1 is a semi-finalist in the 2021-2022 Wharton Global High School Investment Competition. You are now part of the final 50 teams from around the world!’” Su is the MATADORS-0F1’s team leader.
The grand prize winner will be announced April 23, at which point, team MATADORS-0F1 hopes to travel to Philadelphia to claim the prize.
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania announced the semi-finalists for the Wharton Global High School Investment Competition Jan. 20. Close to 1,300 teams competed, making it a highly driven atmosphere. Teams create their own unique strategy that best fits a real-person, case study.
Su said this year the 7,000 students who signed up, took on the case of Nichole Jordan, a client who has several goals she hopes to achieve. Winners are selected based on the strength and creativity of their investment strategy, rather than their return.
Six members make up team MATADORS-0F1, five from Orinda. They include Su, Andrew Sezto, Charlie Algert, Alex Fordyce and Aidan Dial. The sixth teammate is Tuhin Ghosh from Jersey City, New Jersey. Local team members attend Miramonte High School and College Preparatory School. Ghosh attends Horace Mann School in New York City.
Judges from Aberdeen Standard Investments, an asset management firm in Philadelphia, selected Matadors-OF1 as one of the 50 global semi-finalists in this competition sponsored by CitiBank.
Miramonte Club Advisor for the last two years, Scott Biezad, said he had very little to do with these kids’ success.
“To say I’m advising is way overstating my role!” said Biezad, who has taught at Miramonte for the last six years, currently AP macroeconomics and government. “I fill out the paperwork, periodically give them a space to meet and forward emails. That’s about it. Jonathan approached me during summer before the 20-21 school year to be the team’s official advisor.”
Although the competition didn’t start until September last year, the team worked for several months, beginning last summer, to develop their unique strategy.
“We wanted to start early for a chance to win the title,” said Sezto. “We spent countless hours just scrutinizing every single detail of the case study given to us so that we could develop the optimal strategy to meet her every need.”
Team member Fordyce said they were honored to be a semi-finalist in such a prestigious international competition: “We will put in our best effort to become an international champion.”
Biezad said he is extremely proud of the team. “Jonathan approached me because they needed an advisor to enter the tournament. They have literally done all the work themselves,” he said. “I wish I could claim some responsibility, but this was a great example of a student taking the initiative, figuring out what needed to be done and doing it. I’m really excited for them!”
Charleen Earley can be reached at editor@theorindanews.com.
