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Forté Power Pitch Competition
Powering aspiring women entrepreneurs

Forté’s Power Pitch competition offers a high-profile, real-world challenge at the Forté MBA Women’s Leadership Conference where women-led teams present business ideas to a panel of judges. The spirit of the competition is to focus on ideas conceived and developed as part of the business school experience.

Selected finalists will be invited to participate in the Forté Power Pitch competition on Saturday, June 17, 2017.

How to Enter

A designated team member should complete the online contestant registration form. In addition to the online form, you are required to upload an Executive Summary and Elevator Pitch video. Please review the 2017 Forté Power Pitch Guidelines.

March 15, 2017

Competition open and accepting entries.

Friday, April 28, 2017

Deadline to submit online contestant registration form, Executive Summary, and Elevator Video Pitch video.

Friday, May 12, 2017

FPP announces finalists who are invited to compete in final competition at the 2017 MBA Women’s Leadership Conference in Austin, Texas.

Friday, May 19, 2017
by 6:00 p.m. CST

Deadline for invited teams to confirm commitment to compete.

Saturday, June 17, 2017
8:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m.

Finalists compete in the Forté Power Pitch Competition and participate in Awards Ceremony.

 

General Eligibility

The competition is for MBA students enrolling in or currently enrolled in a full- or part-time basis at a Forté sponsor school. This includes students who graduated, or will graduate in 2017 and those who have confirmed their enrollment plans for the school’s next enrollment date. Teams must be women-led and a majority of team members must be women (50% or more). A woman team member must present in the video pitch and in the live Power Pitch Competition.

Forté Power Pitch Presentation on June 18

Following the Round 1 review, 4-6 teams will be invited to participate in the Power Pitch Presentation at the Forté MBA Women’s Leadership Conference in June.

The Power Pitch Presentation should be based on information outlined in the executive summary and must be no longer than 10 minutes followed by 5 minutes of Q&A from the judges. The pitch deck is limited to no more than 12 slides. Contestants should consider the overall presentation including content, delivery, and audience impact. Finalists must be physically present and give the Power Pitch Presentation live. No pre-recorded or virtual pitches will be allowed.

Prizes

  • $10,000 in cash prizes awarded. Additional details coming soon.

Judges & Consultants

2017 Power Pitch Judges
Tiffany-Smith.png

2016 Power Pitch Winner
Tiffany Smith

18%

of startups have a female founder

Preparing your Power Pitch A Two-Part Webinar Series

Your pitch is the one thing that could either get your business off the ground or diminish your idea into a pile of rubble. Are you prepared?

You have a short amount of time to tell your story, sell your idea, answer questions, and overall make an impact that you hope will lead to a major money-making opportunity or at least win you a little seed money in a pitch competition.

Whether you are a seasoned expert or just get started, this two-part webinar series offers tips on building your pitch. Each webinar is approximately 30 minutes.

In part 1 - Pitching ABCS: The Fundamentals you will learn:

  • Some basics of how early stage investment works
  • How investors evaluate your pitch (and what they look for)
  • Introduction to pitch deck construction
  • View Webinar

In part 2 - Pitching: A Deeper Dive you will learn:

  • More detail on pitch decks
  • Some common ways pitches go wrong
  • View Webinar

Webinar presented by:
Lisa Tsou Founder, The Winning Pitch

Lisa Tsou