I’ve been working as the advisor/mentor with our NRF Student Challenge team of Kaitlyn Sifford, Kayla Fox and Rina Alshaer since May, where they successfully achieved narrowing from 44 teams to one of 3 finalists! The case study project challenge was to design a jewelry line for Akola, then researching and determining a retailer to ‘pitch’ the line to. My estimate is that together we invested 350 hours in the project work.

We flew in to New York early on Wednesday ahead of the NRF conference, hustling over to the YouTube studios for video interviews and a photo session. Next was a good night’s sleep and up early Thursday, heading over to the KPMG headquarters for the final live judging round. Sunday evening was the big gala dinner where all teams were awarded on stage.  The students did an excellent job and were each awarded a $1500 scholarship for their efforts!