Emerging Leaders Competition 16^th January – 19^th February 2012

Sponsored by Credit Suisse, the Emerging Leaders essay competition was the introductory initiative from Project Firefly. It was open to all levels of university students and recent graduates and the winners were able to attend the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference (AIC) held in Hong Kong. The AIC is the premier thought leadership conference in the Asian Pacific Region.

During the 5 week competition Project Firefly received 413 submissions from 187 different schools and 43 different countries. The quality of submissions was excellent and Samuel Chao, a 23 year old Business Management undergraduate from Singapore Management University, won the competition. Samuel’s winning essay was written on the likelihood of the Renminbi becoming the next reserve currency.

The top three placed authors attended the 5 day AIC in March2012. All of them were given unprecedented access to interact with top level Credit Suisse management as well as global thought leaders.  You can view photos of the event on our Facebook fanpage.

Samuel said of the experience “As someone deeply passionate about exploring investment themes, it has been a tremendous privilege to attend the Asian Investment Conference. The speaker line-up was amazing.”

Participants could submit an essay from 4 topics. If they chose participants could submit up to one essay per topic.

The topics were:

1. Is monetary policy alone enough to stimulate economic recovery?

2. Is it inevitable that the Renminbi will become the next reserve currency?

3. How will the outcome of the 2012 US presidential election affect priorities in US foreign policy?

4. Is local municipal government debt a serious threat to the Chinese state?