Wharton club hosts annual high school business competition in Korea

The Wharton Korea Business Undergraduate Society hosted its annual business strategy competition for high schoolers earlier this month.

This year’s Business Black Box was held on Aug. 1 and 2 in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, where students analyzed problems faced by a Korean company under the guidance of W-KUBS members. In interviews with The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn students who ran the event discussed their experiences organizing the event and serving as mentors.

Rising Engineering junior and BBB head director Kate Hong described the event — which was first held in 2011 — as “the first and only business case competition in Korea specifically for high school students.”

“For many participants, BBB is therefore one of their first serious exposures to business,” Hong told the DP. “Not just learning about business conceptually, but actually being given an ambiguous real-world problem, working under time pressure, developing a strategy with a team, receiving feedback from professionals, and defending their ideas in front of judges, especially from the sponsors.”

This year, W-KUBS was sponsored by BGF Retail, a Korean company that owns the convenience store chain CU. Participants were asked to “develop a differentiated strategy to acquire and increase engagement among foreign customers,” Hong explained.

Having been involved with BBB throughout her time at Penn, Hong — who served as the event's main director — said her main goal was to “improve the participant experience.”

To do so, the organizers gave participants more time to “digest and apply” feedback, created detailed guidelines for junior mentors, reserved more rehearsal spaces, and introduced a digital portal that centralized competition information, according to Hong.

She said that organizing the event was an “intensive” experience and that she was “incredibly fortunate to have other W-KUBS members who were willing to put so much of their own time and effort into making this happen.”

Rising College sophomore Songeun Lee served as the administrative director for BBB. She told the DP that organizers began preparing for the competition last fall. Lee explained that W-KUBS members recieved support from Penn alumni who were at the competition as senior mentors.

“The Korean Penn alum were extremely open and willing to help us within the preparation period, which was amazing,” Lee said.

Rising Engineering junior Rachel Kim told the DP that teamwork was particularly important under time pressure and that she tried to help high school students navigate how to collaborate effectively.

“Especially in a 24-hour competition, essentially, I think that sometimes pressure is hard to regulate,” she said.

For rising Wharton sophomore Seohyun Kim, one of the most memorable moments was when her team thanked her at the end of the competition.

“That little thank-you note, I would say, was the moment that I felt really proud,” she said.

Jessica Kim, a high school student at Seoul International School who won BBB last year, but did not advance to the finals this year, said the experience remained valuable despite the outcome.

“We worked hard to make something we could be proud of, and even though we didn’t reach finals, I think we grew a lot,” she said.

Hong said she hoped students would learn lessons from BBB that went beyond learning how to solve and present a business problem.

“Those things can be stressful,” Hong said. “But I think a lot of personal growth comes from becoming more comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

For her, the most rewarding part of directing BBB was “seeing most of the participants leave with smiles on their faces, regardless of the result.”