Youth About Business Announces its National Summer Business Camp Champion

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Youth About Business (YAB), a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation that provides leadership training for youth in underserved communities, today announced that three high school teams from Texas, Illinois and New York will convene at the New York Stock Exchange to find out who will be the national champion of the 2009 YAB National Summer Business Camp competition. Carl W. Turnispeed, Executive Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will announce the winner today at the New York Stock Exchange at 6:45 p.m.

The three teams were the finalists out of 70 teams representing 120 high schools that competed this summer in a national, weeklong competition where students assume the role of an executive management team of a publicly-traded company as they negotiate and finalize the terms of simulated business acquisitions. Executive judges review and vote on the students’ shareholder reports at the end of the mock acquisition to determine the winners.

Youth About Business is a leadership-training organization for youth in underserved communities that exposes students to a variety of business-related material and experiences that they do not receive in a normal school setting. The organization’s flagship program is the YAB Summer Business Camp Program where students learn about the world of high level corporate finance through merger and acquisition simulation camps Multiple teams of students compete against one another in structuring and negotiating a simulated merger or acquisition while being advised by attorneys, accountants, investment bankers and marketing professionals to understand the mechanics of these business transactions.

“Youth About Business is an organization that is teaching students about the world of business and industry one merger and acquisition at a time,” said Sam Kirk, executive director of Youth About Business. “Many high school students from underserved communities are never given the opportunity to learn about and pursue a career in business while financial companies struggle to build healthy pipelines with a deep understanding of business and finance. Youth About Business is working to bridge this gap by providing a leadership-training program that aims to spark the interest and curiosity of high school students in the world of business and finance.”

Kirk added, “Rather than just teach the material from a text book, we use an experiential model in which students simulate the research, strategy and negotiation tactics of a real merger or acquisition. For many high school students that go through the program, it opens a door to all the excitement and opportunities that exist in the world of business that many never knew existed.”

About Youth About Business

Youth About Business is a leadership-training program for youth in underserved communities that aims to introduce high school students to the world of business and finance. Founded in 1992 as a project of Creating an Environment of Success (CES), a Tennessee based 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation, YAB offers multiple programs that provide entrepreneurial and leadership training to high school students in Chicago, Houston, Memphis, Nashville, and New York. Additional information about YAB can be found at http://www.youthaboutbusiness.org/.