Future of the Business World Podcast · Wharton Global Youth Program

Wharton's Investment Competition Sparks a Passion for Finance

April 16, 2024·23 min·1 clip

Diana Drake opens the show through the Wharton Global Youth Program and sets the timing around Financial Literacy Month. She introduces Moimir Zalashak as a young entrepreneur whose path into finance began with a school competition. Noviporg reached the Wharton Global High School Investment Competition Global Finale in April 2023. The team finished third. That result opened new doors for Moimir and his teammates, including a place for him on the Czech Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Diana returns to a recent Forbes Czech Republic article he wrote about financial literacy in Czechia. Moimir says he wanted to encourage more young people to take investing seriously. He says financial literacy is still not common enough in his country. He adds that the education system has improved, but not enough. He describes the abundance of digital resources as overwhelming at first, but also says they lower the barrier to getting started. For him, that mix makes it easier for beginners to begin. He stresses that starting early matters because of compounding. He also says early habits can support your future self and future well-being. Diana asks what has been most challenging about investing, and the conversation stays centered on the questions that matter to a beginner: what is hard, what helps, and why starting early counts. Near the end, Diana asks about his favorite memory from the Wharton trip. Moimir names time with mentor Otakar and with Czech friends studying at Penn. She then asks who he would invite first to a business-themed talk show of his own. He picks Larry Fink of BlackRock, saying that conversation would be fascinating.

As heard by us

A student investor turns an early competition win into a plainspoken case for starting young.

Wharton's student-finance conversation follows Moimir Zalashak from a high school investment team into a wider case for financial literacy in Czechia.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want a student-led path into investing that treats it as less daunting and worth starting early?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Future of the Business World Podcast