The Asian Business Club, co-founded by President Anthony Do and Vice President of Membership Suhani Koka, both sophomore finance majors, is a fresh new club dedicated to educating students with an interest in Asian business, culture and commerce.

“The club is open to all majors and all races,” Do said. “We have resume workshops … more technical things like case studies. We are collating with the entrepreneurship club soon on a project.”

The Asian Business Club provides students with a platform to learn, network and share experiences related to Asian business practices and markets. They have different activities such as workshops, guest lectures, cultural celebrations, networking events, case competitions, study tours and internships.

This club was started very recently by Do and Koka, who wanted to create a community for people like them who were interested in Asian markets.

“We are all very in touch with our culture and also passionate about educating others,” Koka said.

She added how they saw the club as something that could add to campus life.

“We thought, ‘Oh, that would be nice to have on campus,’ and got it started,” Koka said.

Do and Koka are both Asian themselves, and part of the reason they wanted to start the club was to connect with an Asian community. Do still keeps in touch with his Vietnamese culture, while Koka often travels to India to visit family.

“My parents did their bachelors’ in India, so I guess I’m kinda first gen,” Koka said. “It’s awesome to have both sides of my culture and community and to share that with people.”

The club studies a variety of diverse markets from around Asia, including but not limited to Japan, China, India and Korea. They also work with more general markets such as international trade, finance and entrepreneurship.

“Every week, we’ve been trying to focus on a specific country,” Koka said. “Last week, we talked about Japan. We talked about common business things, common food and traditions within their culture.”

According to Do, there are about 144 people in the club’s GroupMe, and they’re always looking for more members.

“This isn’t a club where you go and people are just talking at you the whole time,” Koka said. “We try to make it as collaborative and friendly as possible. We really want people to get involved and care about what they are doing.”

“Something unique about the ABC is we are trying to come up with a family structure similar to Hogwarts Houses from Harry Potter,” Do said.

Do explained that they divide members up into “families” and have them compete in friendly competition. It’s a good way to build camaraderie among the members of the club.

Both Do and Koka hope to use the club’s opportunities to further their own career exploration.

“My main goal is to do something in wealth management,” Koka said. “Personal finance has always been something important to me.”

The club is planning on providing a plethora of networking opportunities for its members. They also plan on going to a conference held by the University of Michigan.

“There’s a lot of companies coming to speak,” Koka said. “It’s going to be like two days. It’ll be insane. It’ll be fun to go on a trip with everyone and really cool to meet all these other clubs in the country and meet all these companies and put our names out there.”

The club currently has not tackled studying abroad, but they are considering it.

“I’m planning on studying abroad. That’s something I’ve always been interested in, but that would be a really cool thing to incorporate into our club,” Koka said.

The two club leaders themselves have learned surprising things about foreign markets from their activities.

“Different practices vary country by country, really,” Do said. “For example, in some countries, sometimes it’s rude to leave tips in restaurants.”

The club is also beginning to invite guest speakers who can give some valuable insight. They recently just invited Lillian Qin, a UT alum, to speak to the club.

“She is barely older, so she can give students advice on college,” Do said.

Both leaders are very grateful to the people who have helped the club to get this far. Other executive members of the club include Jayen Patel, Kush Patel, Nica Gumban, Jackey Zheng, Kim Le, Suhani Koka and Logan Leatherwood. 

“This idea would not have been possible without our strong exec team,” Do said. “Everyone carries more than their weight and goes above and beyond.”

More information on the Asian Business Club can be found on their Volink page.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect more accurate information about the current club members.