KKR Competition

Note: Students from all backgrounds are encouraged to participate. PE Backgrounds are not required.

All current Columbia Business School students are eligible to participate in the CBS/KKR Diversity, Inclusion and Innovation Case Competition

As part of the competition, teams will identify and pitch a company as a Leveraged Buyout ("LBO") candidate and have the opportunity to present to an ‘Investment Committee’ comprised of Executives at KKR.

The competition is held annually in the Fall with a kick-off event and series of instructional events held by the PE Program prior to the competition submission deadline. The sessions cover finding a company, developing the thesis, valuation, modeling, value creation, exit considerations and more.

The competition is designed to expose students to the world of private equity, work in diverse teams. Each team must include students without traditional PE backgrounds and are partly judged on the diversity of their team.

Benefits of Participating:

  • Learn about private equity 
  • Understand the value of diverse teams
  • Learn to pitch an investment in a real-life context
  • Learn about KKR and the many roles it offers

For more information, please contact the PE Program at [email protected].

Deadlines and Announcement Dates (2023)

Important dates:

Monday, October 2nd at 12:30pm – Virtual Kick-off Webinar
RSVP required on CampusGroups – (RSVP HERE)

(Optional training sessions will be held October 3, October 6,October 10 and October 11. Each session will have a slightly diffferent agenda. Open hours for advising will be announced at kick off)

Monday, October 16 – Deadline to submit team names ([email protected])
Wednesday, October 25 – Deadline to submit pitches ([email protected])
Monday, November 13 – Announcement of finalists *updated
Wednesday, November 15 – Final presentations (hosted in-person at KKR’s NY offices) *updated
 

Past Winners

2022 Winners

2022 Winners

Columbia Sportswear

  • Danielle Kanter '24
  • Federica Tosi '24
  • Paulo Mattos '24
  • Aaron Mbakwe '24
  • Runj Viring '24

2022 Finalists

  • Dropbox 
    • Ian Arena '23, Matt Cowen '23, Ricardo De Serdio Domecq '23, Amanda Fritz '23, Ryan Kang '23
  • Torrid
    • Nikita Lavrentiev '23, Ashutosh Poddar '23, David Reinthal '23, Raquel Safdie '23, Adam Shelepak '23
  • Sprouts Farmers Market
    • William Alfonso '24, Ella McAlister '24, Thomas Mclnerney '24, Arthur Siddharta '23, Chenzuo Suo '23

2021 Winners

Ingles Market

  • Matias Carrillo '23
  • Can Celenlioglu '23
  • Andres Lucioni '23
  • Michael La Mendola '22
  • Veronica Urquijo Barreiros '23

2021 Finalists

  • e.l.f Cosmetics
    • Marina Machin Alvarez '22, Edoardo Frau '22, Francesco Lualdi '22, Saba Rawjani '22, Elise Hu '23
  • Sally Beauty
    • Ehsan Ehsani '22, Rio Lu '22, Clemens Herrmann '22, Neimy Escobar '22, Shiya Wen '22
  • Xperi
    • Hugo Yen '23, Javier Villen '23, Kristen Henkels '22, Annie Wang '23, Aakash Budhiraja '23

2020 Winners

1-800-FLOWERS

  • Anna Constantino '22
  • Armin Hadavi '22
  • Levente Merczel '22
  • Dana Ng '22
  • Melody Zhang '22

2020 Finalists

  • 2020 Finalists
    • NextGen Healthcare
      • Daniela Boechat '22, Lacie Pierre '22, Pedro Pinto Coelho Neto '22, Franklin Shieh '22, Aya Shimura '22
    • Sleep Number
      • Tushar Benyani '22, Athena Cao '22, Bridie Gahan '22, Ignacio Juelle '22, Andrea Sordia Zanella '22
    • ACI Worldwide
      • Andreas Helland '21, Asli Pelit '22, Anna Silvestri '21, Amortya Sinha '21, Xiaobin Xu '21

2019 Winners

Vitusa

  • Todd Adams '21
  • Gonzalo Alvarez de Toledo '21
  • Pritika Gupta '21
  • Amitaabh Sahai '21
  • Eric Shu '21

2019 Finalists

  • Qualys
    • Madina Akhmetova '21, Alex Cheung '21, Ignacio Goulu '21, Satsheel Redkar '21, Logan Vos '21
  • Itron 
    • Hyungi Jang '21, Ayush Rustagi '21, Aaron Shaiman '20, Kasey Lin '20, Jay Ng '21
  • Central Garden & Pet Co
    • Manas Bajaj '21, Douglas Dutton '21, Nikita Garg '21, Gabriele Martegiani '21, Ameya Sapre '21

2018 Winners

Outfront Media

  • Catherine Clark '20
  • Stephen Dennis '20
  • Benjamin Seeto '20
  • Jasmine Wang '20

2018 Finalists

  • 2018 Finalists
    • Sprouts
      • Christopher Bass '20, Alexander Chouraqui '20, Akshay Golechha '20, Julie Joseph '19, Izabel Kunstetter Frauche '20
    • Williams Sonoma
      • Alan Canarslan '19, Prateek Handa '20, Charlotte He '19, Eleanor Thadani '19, Ege Turkeri '19
    • H&R Block
      • Ivana Gjorgeva '19, Kathleen Jasnic '20, Johannes Moller '19, Khoa Nguyen '19, Harish Venkataperumal '19