Two teams from the Department of Financial Management in UP's Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences advanced to the second round of the CFO Case Study Competition.

The CFO (Chief Financial Officer) case study competition is an annual international multi-round business management case study competition organised by the CharterQuest Institute. It challenges young people who aspire to be top CFOs and/or global business leaders to demonstrate their potential by competing to solve a set of complex real-life financial, managerial and strategic problems that beset a hypothetical African company. The objective is to prepare the next generation of CFOs and global business leaders by advocating a deeper incorporation of the integrated case study methodology into the curriculum, highlighting the centrality of  good leadership, teamwork, creativity, presentation skills and business acumen, as well as the value of taking a holistic and strategic approach to enterprise management.

Out of the 320 teams representing 1 278 aspirants from 53 universities in 25 countries across 5 continents, the Project Board of the CFO Case Study Competition announced the top 12 teams on 31 May 2016. Two of these teams are students from UP's Department of Financial Management.

Independent external examiners worked day and night, to rigorously and fairly evaluate all the submitted reports against the key competencies of a modern-day CFO and business leader, to help pick the top 12 participants. These outstanding teams have now been invited to submit a video link to their real 15 minutes PowerPoint stage presentation, from which the six best teams will then be selected and announced on 30 June 2016.

Valentine Nti, the CFO Case Study Competition project executive director, said: 'Besides the overwhelming uptake and response rate, we were blown away by the degree of knowledge and skill the aspirants displayed to tackle the case study.'

Jenevieve Badenhorst, Caitlyn O'Donoghue and Kristin Williams