A three-member team comprising Aritro and Arko Datta, and Hardik Goyal, from IIM Shillong won the hard-fought grand finale of the fifth edition of the BLoC Boardroom Challenge. They took home the BusinessLine CXO of the Year title and ₹1 lakh in prize money.
There were nine B-school teams that slugged it out to win the contest held virtually this year because of the ongoing pandemic. For the finals case, participants had to present strategies for a wealth management company to attract retail investors to invest in non-traditional asset classes and improve awareness. The jury extended a special invitation to the IIM Shillong team which finished a close second in the Kolkata leg of the challenge, to be part of the grand finale. The jury members were Vishwadeep Kuila of Brand Vectors and KS Rao, Senior Vice President & Head, Investor Education & Distribution Development, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd. On being the jury's choice, Arko Datta from IIM Shillong said, "We worked equally hard for the semi-finals and finals. But when the jury extended a special invite to us, we decided to leave no stone unturned, and the win became quite dramatic." Hardik Goyal believes what set them apart from the other competing teams was presenting cohesive solutions. "Giving ten different ideas does not make a good solution. It is not just ideas on a platter but it is about how one idea interacts with another and works in tandem to form a part of the full-fledged solution." As advice to the future participants, Arirtro Datta, said: "Understand the standpoint from which you are approaching the case. For semi-finals, we were CXOs of a fictitious company, but for the finals case, we had donned the hats of consultants to the wealth management company. This makes all the difference." Watch the grand finale of the BLoC Boardroom Challenge 2021 here.