News
Two SKEMA students win Deloitte’s One Day to Be challenge
On 21 January, the accounting firm Deloitte held its “One Day to Be” challenge. The winners were a team consisting of Laura Cangelosi, a PGE and second-year MSc International Strategy & Influence student, and Valeria Ruzhnikova, a second-year PGE and MSc Financial Markets and Investments student.
Five teams of students from the French Grandes Ecoles took part in this event organised by Deloitte, one of the Big Four accounting firms. They had one day to come up with a solution to a complex advisory business case.
A consultant from the firm sat in on their decision-making throughout the day to evaluate them. "It was a model strategy consulting case. We were asked to recommend a strategy to a shoe company to deal with the arrival on the market of a competitor who was grabbing significant market share through aggressive pricing," said Laura Cangelosi.
Two students with complementary profiles
The students had one day to solve this sticky problem. "At the end of the day, we had to be ready to present our solution to a panel. The most difficult thing for us was to complete the exercise within the allotted time," the two students said.
Thanks to their different profiles, Valeria and Laura were able to bring complementary skills to the table to take the prize. "Laura was great at thinking about strategic recommendations whereas I enjoyed working on the market analysis and using Excel to examine the figures. We made a great team," said Valeria.
Laura Cangelosi is aiming for a career in strategic planning, whereas Valeria Ruzhnikova is pursuing a corporate finance advisory role where she will "support businesses involved in deals and restructuring". Following their success in the challenge, Deloitte has promised to take a very close look at these two SKEMA students' CVs.
