Baruch College Student Wins International Business Competition

March 15, 2019

Juana Alejandro Soriano (BBA ’19), an undergraduate student in the Zicklin School of Business is the College’s first student to place in the “best teams” category in the 2018-2 X-Culture Competition, an international business contest.

The competition consisted of 1,113 international teams, 44 of which were selected, placing Soriano and her teammates in the top four percent. The selection was based on the project reports the teams submitted, which were evaluated by up to seven experts in international business. The winners “received nearly perfect evaluations,” the X-Culture website noted. “It was impossible to objectively select one best team.”

Soriano, a Marketing Management major, got the chance to enter the contest while taking MKT 3400 with Clifford Wymbs, associate professor of International Business. “I was hesitant to sign up, but I remember thinking about the title of the course—International Business Principles,” she says. “I thought about the opportunity of working with students in different countries and time zones and being able to work on a real-life business problem.”

Soriano and her teammates, who hail from Indonesia, Mexico, and Great Britain, created an international market entry strategy for Welever, a company in Madrid, Spain, that provides a platform for tracking organizations’ contributions to sustainable development goals.

“It’s always exciting to see Zicklin students getting recognized in international competitions,” says Professor Wymbs, Soriano’s instructor. “I believe that the best way to learn international business is to experience it, and the X-Culture project is an excellent way to accomplish this goal.”

The Weissman Center for International Business sponsored the fee that allowed Soriano and 11 of her Zicklin classmates to participate in the contest. “My experience is that, given a chance to participate in competitions, Baruch students do very well,” says Terrence Martell, director of the Center. “However, the real thanks goes to Professor Wymbs for providing this opportunity for his students.”

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