P&G’s regional CEO Challenge attracts over 6,600 students

A three member team from Egypt was crowned the winner for this year’s P&G CEO Challenge for India, Middle East and Africa (IMEA) which took place in Dubai. The competition was organized by Procter & Gamble with an aim to equip students from across the region with leadership and business skills, and providing them opportunities to work on real-life business challenges while interacting with P&G executives.

This year, over 6600 students from 140 universities from across India, the Middle East and Africa took part in the Challenge. Each team was given an opportunity to work on business challenge simulations aimed to test and further enhance their marketing, general management, human resource and strategy development and budget planning skills. 

The competition started earlier this year in over a dozen countries where teams competed in the initial round with their counterparts in their countries. Country level winners participated in the P&G Dubai office for the final faceoff. The winners from Egypt won over five rounds in a six month period. 

“Procter & Gamble is committed to developing the next generation of business leaders and supporting talent development,” explained Lana Eltarazi, Gulf training and recruiting manager for Procter & Gamble. “We are recognized globally for our efforts in leadership development. The CEO Challenge takes our concept of leadership to universities across the two continents of Africa and Asia, to give students an opportunity to develop their skills by stepping into the shoes of a P&G business leader.” 

"The CEO challenge truly lived up to its name. It challenged us in every way, and that’s why it was very enriching. We were able to experience the whole process of a business starting by from   production and sourcing up to financials and HR. It was a great learning experience and we really enjoyed the ride," said the members of the winning team, Nadine Zahran, Menatalla Daw and Soumaya Hashad.

“We’ve been impressed by the commitment shown by all of the groups, their dedication to the challenges presented to them, and how they’ve come up with solutions to these problems. We’d like congratulate Team Egypt for their amazing work, as well as thank everyone who took part. The commitment, enthusiasm and quality that we have seen over the past six months is a testament to the amount of talent there is in India, the Middle East and Africa,” added Eltarazi.