Our Impact
Inspiring and empowering young people
JA Central Ontario student business named JA Americas Company of the Year
Student-led business MarketAngelo – a JA Central Ontario Company sponsored by Deloitte – has been named JA Americas Company of the Year 2021! The team competed against 21 companies from Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
The JA Company of the Year competition (COY) is an annual celebration that showcases the best JA student-run companies from nine countries in the Americas. This three-day event is the final stage of JA’s 2021 Company Program – a 18-week entrepreneurial experience that sees high school students work together with industry experts to design, build and run their own company. The highest scoring companies from countries across the Americas came together on December 7th - 9th to compete to be named JA Americas' Company of the Year.
This year, a JA Central Ontario team sponsored by Deloitte, MarketAngelo, was awarded the title of Company of the Year. MarketAngelo offers a unique learning platform that helps users learn all about environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) stocks.
"To be named JA America's Company of the Year is a dream and success come true for myself, and the team," says MarketAngelo President, Shania Muthu. "Amid the pandemic, along with the other challenges we were presented with throughout the year, we were able to come up with a product we all were so passionate about, and making sure everyone heard about this, which no doubt being JA America's winner proves how many people we are able to go through to about our vision as a team."
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the event was run entirely virtually, with students, judges and visitors creating an avatar to join the competition.
During the three-day event, MarketAngelo's team members presented the company and shared what they learned from their Company Program experience. A panel of independent judges compared company performance against strict competition criteria. The judges were looking for evidence of business know-how, personal development innovation and application of new ideas in all aspects of company operations.
"It is definitely no secret how much collective effort we needed in order for this to work," explains Shania. "Having the sales team led by Stephen Iacono secure amazing partnerships with amazing companies we would dream of having, marketing team led by Selena Zhou focus on how we can really put ourselves out there, product along with technology led by Jacob Koloyakov and Samuel Lo finding creative ways for our platform, finance led by Ben Nakagawa configuring ways to have us be fiscally comfortable with our vision, and HR led by Jin Schofield planning and running the event we held. Of course, none of these departments, and myself would not know what direction to firstly take the company without our advisors, as they were able to bring in various industry leaders to help us improve our pitches and feedback for the product."
Growing a sustainable world through investments
MarketAngelo’s mission is for users to discover their ESG values and make investment decisions accordingly through an interactive learning platform. The team has created an ESG learning platform to grow a sustainable world and the future of investing.
About JA Central Ontario
JA Central Ontario envisions a world in which young people have the skillset and mindset to build thriving communities. They want to make sure all young people are economically empowered with the skills, confidence and networks to shape the future.
As a youth-centred charity, JA Central Ontario works together with a dedicated network of volunteers, partners and educators to deliver immersive learning in work readiness, financial health, entrepreneurship and more. JA students benefit from mentorship and real-world experiences, transforming their knowledge, skills, attitudes, and aspirations as they build their futures.
JA Central Ontario impacts students in Halton, Peel, Toronto, York, Durham and Simcoe regions. They are part of one of the world’s most-impactful youth-serving social good organizations – JA Worldwide – and they work closely with our national network, JA Canada.
