Good News – Students from No. 2 High School of ECNU Achieve Excellent Results in Harvard Business Pioneer Case Challenge

From January 29th to February 1st, three teams of Chinese students from No. 2 High School of ECNU and the SAGE society won the 18th, 31st, and 69th places in the 2023-2024 BPC (Harvard Business Pioneer Case Challenge) competition out of over 400 participating teams nationwide. Four students won the individual award of 20 Under 20 Outstanding, and four students won the Outstanding Nomination award. Nine students entered the global finals held at Harvard University.

This competition features over 400 teams from over 30 cities and 100 key high schools across the country, creating a historic record.

From the regional competition to the national competition, students of the three teams successfully completed multiple comprehensive commercial tasks in about 70 days, including commercial sandbox simulation, market scale estimation, business case analysis, rapid financing roadshows, and board resolutions.

On January 19, 2024, students began to participate in a four-day final in the China region.

The four-day competition followed the production process of real commercial products, and team members participated in activities as representatives of company executives, collaborating with the company to produce their own brand new ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) product solutions. Finally, the investment was obtained through a board resolution, and the operation of the real business world was simulated.

Day 1 Business Expo

At the expo, all companies raced against time, showing their company’s advantageous resources through multiple elevator speeches, and searching for the partner company most beneficial for their unique business model and current challenges.

The students negotiated with over 100 teams representing 30 companies and ultimately reached a business alliance.

DAY 2 Mentor Guidance

The BPC organizing committee arranged for experts from different industries and functional backgrounds to provide personalized one-to-one Q&A sessions for the alliance team. Each Expert Call was limited to 25 minutes, during which students could consult and discuss any questions about their product or business proposal with their responsible mentor.

Day 3 Rapid Financing Roadshow and Board Resolutions

During the rapid financing roadshow, the team received feedback by introducing their ESG proposal to other teams present, so as to further refine and improve their proposal. At the same time, each team on site also became an “investor” and expressed their approval for other team proposals through providing a “Letter of Intent”.

The peak showdown session of the national ultimate roadshow: All teams presented their ESG innovative business plan for their own company and accept the open reply challenge from the board! The ultimate challenge would highly reproduce the board or investment committee’s consideration process for promoting innovation and change within well-known companies in the real business world. In this session, the students worked hard to present the final product through alliance team cooperation in the past three days. They presented the complete product proposal to the “investors” in the audience, attracting the favor of judges and obtaining a higher investment amount. In the final session, the students from No. 2 High School of ECNU performed excellently, ranking the 18th, 31st, and 69th on the enterprise list. Four students won the individual single award of “20 under 20 outstanding”, and four were nominated for Best Executive award.

Day 4 Sandbox Simulation and Award Ceremony

Students from No. 2 High School of ECNU demonstrated their glamourous style in the competition.

Award list

Li Jianhao’s team ranked 18th on the Pioneer Top 20 list.

Team member Li Jianhao won the award of “20 Under 20 Outstanding CEO” (Best 20 CEOs).

Ji Ruini won the award of “20 Under 20 Outstanding CMO” (Best 20 CMOs).

Huang Yanmei was nominated for Best CFO.

Wu Zitong’s team ranked 31st on the Pioneer Top 50 list.

Team member Zhang Liangliang won the award of “20 Under 20 Outstanding CMO” (Best 20 CMOs).

Cao Jiarong won the award of “20 Under 20 Outstanding CSO” (Best 20 CSOs).

Zhao yuxiang was nominated for Best CFO, and Wu Zitong for Best CEO.

Zhu Zipei’s team ranked 69th on the Pioneer Top 100 list.

Team member Wu Zhengyan was nominated for Outstanding CMO.

In this stage of competition, 9 students from our school, No. 2 High School of ECNU were qualified for the global competition and will travel to Boston, USA in April to compete in the final competition at Harvard University.

▲ (From the left) Li Jianhao, Wu Jiarong, Ji Ruini, Huang Yanmei

▲ (From the left) Wu Zhengyan, Zhu Zipei, Zhou Zixi

▲ (From the left) Cao Jiarong, Zhang Liangliang, Wu Zitong, Zhao yuxiang