UW-Whitewater’s Stephanie Hensel excels at international business competition

Stephanie Hensel, a Accounting major from Whitewater, at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, was one of two students from the university who participated in the X-Culture Global Business Week 2024, which was held July 7-13 at Mae Fah Luang University in Chiang Rai, Thailand.

Stephanie Hensel, an accounting and international business major from Oconto Falls, Wisconsin, and Itzuri Contreras, an international business major from Manzanillo, Mexico, represented UW-Whitewater at the competition, where participants are provided opportunities to complete and compete in a client consulting project challenge, attend professional development and academic sessions, and experience cultural visits and events, all while collaborating with other X-Culture students and faculty.

Hensel and Contreras each started their journey to the X-Culture competition as students in UW-Whitewater’s introduction to international business class with Andy Ciganek, professor of information technology and supply chain management in the university’s College of Business and Economics (CoBE).

They were among 150 students selected from around the world from a pool of thousands of students who participated in the competition throughout the year after earning high scores in peer reviews.

Contreras’s team included students from India, Morocco, Myanmar and the U.S. The group worked to complete a comprehensive business plan, which included a five-year marketing strategy, for Sooknirund Hotel in Chiang Rai.

“It was awesome to network with people around the world – you never know when you’ll do business with them in the future,” said Contreras, an international student who founded UW-Whitewater’s Omega Pi Lambda chapter. “It was cool for me to learn about other cultures and how people from other countries like to work. I would absolutely do it again.”

Hensel, a first-generation college student, worked with students from Myanmar, the Ivory Coast and the U.S. to win the competition after building a global expansion plan for Suwirun, an organic Thai tea company. She and her team suggested that the company enter the tourism sector.

“The best part was all of the people I met,” said Hensel, who works in UW-Whitewater’s Center for Global Education. “They were all great and so outgoing.”

UW-Whitewater’s College of Business and Economics is the largest AACSB-accredited business school in Wisconsin. To learn more about the college, visit uww.edu/cobe.