Nov. 12, 2014

By Rumasa Noor

Since its inception in 2006, UW-Whitewater’s Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization (CEO) has been participating in the CEO National Conference and almost every year, it brings home several awards, Chief Marketing Officer of CEO Greg Heal said.
The student organization continued the norm with receiving three different awards during the three-day event, which took place between October 30 and November 1 in Orlando, Florida.
It received first place best CEO social media award; CEO president Alec Tranel won best student leader of 2014 and member Derric Francis won 3rd place in Elevator Pitch Contest, Heal said.
“They call it an elevator pitch because it is 90 seconds, so imagine getting into an elevator on the ground floor with Donald Trump and you got 90 seconds so like a full elevator ride up to his penthouse to convince him to invest in your idea,” Heal said.
Francis presented his idea Hunt Butler during the competition, which led him to qualify for the third place. But he was not the only contestant to participate from UW-W’s chapter of CEO. Heal said four other students, Cameron Robinson, Ulysses Smith, Tallia Brooks and Luke Olson, also participated in the contest.
The four didn’t qualify for the finals because CEO allows only one participant from each chapter to participate in the competition, according to Heal.
“Hundred contestants participated in this national competition and five of them came from UW-Whitewater which is a great accomplishment,” Heal said.
Worldwide, CEO has 250 chapters and around 60 schools came to the conference, according to Heal.
Francis, senior and Launch Pad member, said one word to describe the competition is “energy.”
“It was basically like most conferences where you have [a chance to do] a lot of networking, I would say that’s the biggest thing that I got out of it,” Francis said. “I made a lot of connections on there and met a lot of people that are enthusiastic about Hunt Butler and going from there hopefully it can make some strategic partnerships.”
He said the entrepreneurs were some of the most energetic people he has ever met.
“The whole experience was humbling,” Francis said. “Being able to network with the students and professionals that already have been in the industry, had huge amounts of success.”
Francis received mentoring from UW-Whitewater faculty members William Dougan and David Gee before the competition. After learning that he had qualified for the finals, his mentors wanted to give his idea more “credibility,” Francis said.
They upskilled Francis and provided him with an insight on what the investors really look for and what they wanted to hear from him.
“We did some research to make sure that we kind of knew who the judges were. If a question came up, who would be asking what type of a question,” Francis said.
Heal said their whole trip was funded by Malewicki Fund, which allowed them to attend the conference.
CEO is very proud of Francis for winning the third place in CEO finals, he said.
CEO also won second place in best fundraising event, and another second place in best networking, Heal said.