Nigerian qualify for Procter Gamble competition

From Suleiman Idris, Lagos

Five Nigerian teams out of twenty have qualified for the Chief Finance Officer (CFO)’s Phase in the on-going Procter & Gamble (P&G)’s CEO Challenge as the teams scored the highest points in the Country Manager’s Phase of the competition.

The successful teams include HHR and The Technopreneurs, both from the University of Ibadan; Midas, Incredible and Nudocs from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, and Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, respectively.

The Corporate Communications Officer, P&G, Ridwan Sorunke said the successful teams distinguished themselves in the tasks that were given to them in the Country Manager’s Phase to qualify for the next phase of the competition.

“The qualification of these teams did not come as a surprise as they excelled in the various tasks that were given to them at the Country Manager’s Phase. As they delivered on the demands of the Country Manager, the five contestants will now take on the tasks that face Chief Finance Officer of multinational corporations like the P&G.”

He said further that only one of these five teams will move to the Regional Chief Operating Officer (COO) Phase in the competition where they would compete with their regional counterparts from across Africa.

The P&G CEO Challenge is an online case study competition among students of universities and business schools across the world and is aimed at identifying, developing and grooming leaders for tomorrow. They will get hands-on experience on how to solve P&G challenges on a more professional level.

The competition is designed to run in five stages viz: Brand Manager Challenge; Country Manager Challenge and the Chief Finance Officer Challenge. Others are Chief Operating Officer Challenge and the Chief Executive Officer Challenge.

It will be recalled that over 449 teams from various Universities and Business schools across Nigeria applied for the challenge from which 129 emerged victorious in the qualifier challenge to participate in the Brand Manager’s Challenge.