2013 Benicia High School graduate and soon-to-be Cal Poly SLO graduate Marshall Zia. (Photo by Marshall Zia)

A Benicia High School graduate was among 20 Cal Poly students honored by state lawmakers on the floors of the Assembly and State Senate recently for taking second place in an international business simulation competition.

“I am humbled to have been recognized by the university and the state for my achievements, and I sincerely appreciate all of the individuals who have helped me get to where I am today,” Marshall Zia said.

Zia graduated from Benicia High in 2013 and initially began taking classes at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the field of quantitative economics, which he said he did not enjoy at all.

“At that time, I was performing extremely poorly in school, and was desperately trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life,” he said.

Zia considered a few other majors— including biology, history and business information systems—, but finally settled on majoring in business administration with a focus on marketing. He became consciously interested in marketing during the summer between his second and third year at Cal Poly when he watched the 2009 documentary “Art and Copy,” which focuses on the lives of the advertising legends behind such famous campaigns as “Got Milk?,” “I Want My MTV,” Nike’s “Just Do it” and Apple’s “Think Different.”

Zia has been involved with marketing opportunities on and off campus, including a stint as marketing and business manager for a student-run startup called AppScrolls, which aimed to build a community to educate, connect and entertain mobile gamers. AppScrolls works with billion dollar gaming companies to help build these communities.

“This in turn helps these large gaming companies increase retention, revenue, and other key metrics,” Zia said.

Zia had a lot of jobs he did under AppScrolls.

“While I was at AppScrolls, I was put in charge of a wide variety of functions ranging from research, accounting, sales support, branding, etc. working 60 to 80 hour work weeks,” he said. “While I’m no longer part of the team, the company is doing quite well, turning a profit, and continuing to grow.”

Zia was also able to use his marketing skills when he went down to New Orleans for the International Collegiate Conference for the American Marketing Association’s Strategic Allocation of Business Resources (SABRE) business simulation, an 8-hour competition where teams from around the world compete to use their marketing abilities to generate as much revenue for their simulated company as possible. The teams are responsible for allocating resources toward strategic decisions, including distribution strategies, product planning, market research, sales force deployment and more. The catch: they had to do all of this within a short amount of time in each segment, usually 30 minutes to an hour.

Zia described it as “an MBA’s version of a timed ‘Zoo Tycoon’ from hell — complete with a lot more pressure, math, statistics, information to consider, etc. — and all without the animals, buildings and save files.”

Suffice to say, it paid off. Zia and this three teammates placed second internationally and performed better than all other teams from the United States. Additionally, the team ranked in the top 25 of the American Marketing Association’s collegiate chapters for their performance in the areas of chapter planning, professional development, membership communications, fundraising and social impact/community service. This is the highest that Cal Poly’s chapter has ever ranked.

For their achievement, Zia’s group was among 20 Cal Poly students honored by state lawmakers in Sacramento on Feb. 13. The group was introduced in the state Senate by Majority Leader Bill Monning (D-Carmel) and in the Assembly by Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham (R-Templeton). Zia said he also got to meet with officials representing Benicia, including Sen. Bill Dodd and Assemblymember Tim Grayson.

“This distinguishment represents the culmination of my experiences and achievements at Cal Poly, and in my mind, there is no greater honor than to be selected to represent the place I’ve called home for the last four years to state lawmakers in Sacramento,” Zia said.

Zia will graduate from Cal Poly in June, but he is currently working part-time at a B2B marketing and advertising agency in San Francisco. Once he graduates, he will work for the company full time.

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