The Challenge
The NRF Foundation collaborated with Akola and KPMG for the 2020 Student Challenge Competition. 27 teams from 19 NRF University Member schools competed in this year's Challenge for a chance to receive tuition scholarships and travel to the 2020 NRF Foundation Student Program. For the Challenge, teams acted as members of Akola’s product development team and had to select a retailer, develop a jewelry line and create a 30-page pitch deck and 90-second pitch video to present to buyers at their selected retailer.
Each team was assigned a KPMG mentor to guide and advise them throughout the duration of the competition. Teams' pitches were evaluated by a group of retail executive judges on their research and understanding, creativity and feasibility, visual effectiveness and structure and quality. Seven teams advanced to the semi-finalist, which included Q&A calls with a panel of new retail executive judges.
Three teams advanced to the final round, where they presented live to a third panel of judges at the KPMG offices in New York as part of the NRF Foundation Student Program, January 9-12, 2020.
The Scholarships
Each student on the top team received $5,000 scholarship; students on the runner-up team each received a $2,500 scholarship, and third place team members each received a $1,500 scholarship. The top team will be named during the NRF Foundation Honors on Sunday, January 12, in New York.
Top Team
Cayley Creekmore, Shannon Foote, Anna Tiller, Woodley White
Selected retailer: Free People
KPMG Mentor: Renee Howard
Finalists
Rina Alshaer, Kayla Fox, Kaitlyn Sifford
Selected retailer: Anthropologie
KPMG Mentor: Elisa Holland
Annie Brennan, Leah Levy, Danielle Talatian, Diana Xiong
Selected Retailer: Tory Burch
KPMG Mentor: Kelly Combs
Semi-finalists
