Over 100 students, parents and teachers gathered at the annual end-of-year Business and Entrepreneurship (B&E) banquet to celebrate the department’s achievements this school year on May 8 in the Rothschild Performing Arts Center.
Throughout the evening, student leaders and advisers from various B&E initiatives reflected on the accomplishments, events and projects from the past year while also introducing next year’s student leadership teams.
“I started in the B&E department about five years ago, and at that point we had a lot of programs already,” DECA and TEDx adviser Patrick Kelly said. “Everything has grown separately, but also together. Students who like business can see opportunities with investing or economics. It’s great to be able to support students’ curiosity, no matter where it goes and where it comes from.”
Former CareerConnect executive director Aanya Shah (12) and future director Elaine Xia (11) explained the mission of CareerConnect to help students develop professionally through workshops, field trips and other events before playing a summary video of events they have hosted.
Oeconomia president Amishi spoke about this year’s speaker events, Econ Week, teacher quiz bowl, first print publication of their research magazine “Equilibrium” and the past 12 editions of the Oeconomist, the biweekly economics newsletter.
Oeconomia writer Amy Tong (11) commented on the opportunities B&E programs provide for students to build communication tools.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is presentation skills and confidence,” Amy said. “With B&E, I really get to practice my public speaking skills — for example, speaking in front of judges and in front of a lot of people. I also got to practice my networking skills, which is not really practiced in other subjects or events. That is something that’s really helpful to me both now and in the future when I enter the workforce.”
Investing Club presidents Nicole Dean (11) and Ronica Khattri (11) spoke about major achievements, including bringing the club member count from zero to 65 over the past two years as well as sending one team off to the National Personal Finance competition finals this year. The newsletter team also put out eight issues of “The Investing Bull.” Next year, they hope to host an interschool finance competition for schools across the Bay Area.
Startup World Cup executive director for the 2026-27 year Bazigh Tahirzad (11) presented highlights from this year, including a partnership with Pegasus Tech Ventures to host the annual Startup World Cup Harker National Youth Qualifier, with FIKA Matcha, founded by Nicole and Stellan Lindh (11), taking home third place.
Business and Entrepreneurship teacher Michael Acheatel introduced companies founded by Incubator 1 and 2 students this year. Co-founder of Closet Cycle and Incubator 2 student Sophie Pellet (12) noted how the Incubator program allowed her to apply business concepts and gain firsthand experience building a startup.
“After doing this two year process, I finally understand what it means to be an entrepreneur: the work you have to put in, the passion that you have to have,” Sophie said. “Now, I know I want to continue business when I move to college. Without these opportunities, it’s hard because when you get into high school, there are so many things that interest you. Being able to actually create a startup is fantastic.”
This year’s Mehta Scholars Tanvi and Leana Zhou (12) introduced the Mehta Scholars program, where students interview alumni who have founded companies to produce reports regarding which ones they should invest in. Leana talked about the alumni companies they invested in this year: Ephemeral Technologies founded by Drew Goldstein (’13), Collate by Surbhi Sana (’03) and Dolemite founded by Donish Damon (’12). They also announced next year’s scholars: juniors Akash Dubey and David Kelly, Ronica, Bazigh and Amy.
Economics teacher Dean Lizardo introduced the Sheth Scholars program, an opportunity for students to lead their own economics research. Current scholar Amishi presented both her and fellow scholar senior Sophia Ou’s research topics, with Sophia’s research focusing on the impact of maternity leaves on unemployment and Amishi’s research investigating the financial impact on companies of women in top management positions.
“I wanted to investigate the glass ceiling — why there seems to be some imaginary top level women can achieve in upper management positions, such as in the C-suite,” Amishi said. “Based on the type of industry women were in, for example the technology industry, external perception wasn’t great, but they had a positive benefit on net income and internal metrics. But in the primary sector, such as utilities or agriculture, it had the opposite effect. That goes to show female leadership is beneficial, but in certain industries.”
The event also included booths outside and inside the RPAC lobby for Incubator startups and B&E clubs, where students showcased projects and shared information about their organizations throughout the evening.
The banquet concluded with an awards ceremony recognizing students across the B&E department. Advisers presented awards for achievements in finance, economics and entrepreneurship, along with pillar awards honoring leadership and other contributions to the department. Amishi won the economics award, Tanvi won finance and Nicole and Stellan won entrepreneurship. Leana, DECA member and Incubator student Saahithi Koneru (11), DECA members sophomore Riki Kawano and frosh Neva Praun-Petrovic were awarded senior, junior, sophomore and frosh of the year, respectively.
