The all Asian team members of the Burnaby North Secondary dominated the prestigious Tomorrow’s Business Leaders competition besting 200 other high school students from across the province. 

Winners Tony Jin, Wayne Chen and Tommy Leung shared a $2,000 team scholarship presented and sponsored by the Certified Management Accountants Society of B.C. held last Saturday at the downtown campus of Simon Fraser University. 

The Burnaby North Secondary team proved to be too strong for the competition as it also grabbed the second place slot composed of Ian Weng, Amy Tsai and Steven Chen who competed against 30 other tough high school teams.

“Learning about the real world applications of strategy, management, and accounting was very interesting,” says excited Leung. “Before this competition, I’ve always thought that accounting was just all numbers.”

The competition provided participating students with an understanding of management challenges and issues. 

“We are very proud to be able to offer high schools students throughout B.C. the opportunity to participate in a business case competition, and help these young leaders develop their strategic leadership skills early in their careers” says Colin Bennett, CMA, FCMA — president and CEO of CMA B.C.

 “We received a number of outstanding cases and CMA British Columbia would like to recognize the following schools that made it to round two of the case competition,” Bennett said.

The round two finishers include Sir Winston Churchill Secondary, Dr. Charles Best Secondary, Seaquam Secondary, Richmond Secondary and Houston Secondary and of course, the Burnaby North Secondary.

 During the competition, students put their strategic management skills to the test by analyzing a business case about Facebook, and the social network’s business decision to remain privately owned or become a publicly traded company.

Each team had to put together a strategic plan advising the company’s fictional senior

management on the business opportunities and threats this decision meant for the company.

“The CMA B.C. High School Case Competition allows students to gain an understanding of what strategic management is,” said Mehb Jessa, CMA and chair of the 2007-2008 Board of Directors for CMA B.C. “It also gives students an opportunity to work as a team in a demanding and creative situation where they are able to gain an appreciation of a business leader’s role.

“The leadership and innovation demonstrated by these teams exemplifies the strategic thinking that is the cornerstone of the CMA designation,” Jessa added.

With more than 38,000 certified members and 10,000 candidates and students around the world, CMA is the only organization in North America that grants a strategic management accounting professional designation.

It is responsible for standards-setting, accreditation and the continuing professional development of CMAs. For more information visit www.managementaccounting.ca or www.cmabc.com.