Teams from NUS Biz came out tops at the Kroll One Team Challenge 2022, held between November and December 2021. The winners were announced late January 2022. Organised by corporate investigations and risk consulting firm Kroll, the competition saw more than 30 teams from across the region compete for a top prize of HK$65,000 and a chance to compete in the Global Finals in early May this year.
A Clean Sweep
From left: Koh Heer Ee (BBA Year 3), Norman Lee (BAC Year 3) and Yu Minjie (NTU). Not pictured: Teo Jun Li (BBA Year 3) who stepped in for Minjie during the latter stages of the competition.
From left: Calvin Chur (BAC Year 4), Robinson Liokubuwono (BBA Year 3) and Randy Kam (BBA Year 4)
From left: Ryan Lim, Artitaya Srisukri and Zhang Jiwen (all MSc Finance Year 2). And special thanks to Senior Lecturer Lee Yen Teik (Dept of Finance) for guiding the team.
Case competitions challenge students to move out of their comfort zones and test their abilities beyond the classroom. BIZBeat spoke to the leaders of the three teams — Heer Ee, Calvin and Ryan — to find out about their competition experience, and the lessons they learned along the way.
Pick up new skills
For this year’s Challenge, the students had to compete in a valuation and capital raising case. Two teams found themselves on unfamiliar ground but took the chance to pick up new knowledge.
“None of the plain vanilla equity or debt instruments we were familiar with suited the profile of the case company,” said Heer Ee, co-leader of the winning team. Undaunted, the team researched for financial instruments. “Eventually, we were able to propose the use of convertible bonds to meet the company’s needs. In the process, teammate Norman’s prior exposure to convertible instruments via the ACC2708 module was extremely helpful!” added Heer Ee.
Calvin, whose team reached the runners-up spot, said the Challenge allowed the team to pick up new skills such as valuation theories that they were unfamiliar with. “We had to be resourceful and quick to pick up new theories – something which we attribute the rigorous academic programme at NUS BBA for,” said Calvin.
Test of soft skills
Looking back at his team’s time at the competition, Heer Ee pointed out that the diversity of thought was a crucial element to their success.
“We all have rather different ways of thinking and constantly challenged one another’s proposals during the competition. This creative tension ensured that our final proposal was as watertight against possible counterarguments as it could be,” said Heer Ee.
The team members should also be open to feedback, added Calvin. “Being receptive to criticism in a team so that the report can be continuously refined,” he explained.
And for Ryan and his team, the big lesson is to be resilient, an important trait to have in today’s fast-moving business environment. “There were multiple times in the competition when we were overwhelmed at the amount of work needed, but thankfully we persevered and made the finals,” said Ryan.
“We joined this competition as we wanted to learn more about the industry and how we can apply what we learned in classes in real use cases that a company like Kroll faces. It is great exposure for us and we feel that this is a valuable experience to have,” said Ryan.