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Wildcat Ventures and ACU CEO will attend the CEO Global Conference and Pitch Competition in Kansas City, Missouri, from Nov. 1 to Nov. 3.

The Wildcat Ventures and CEO executive teams plan to visit an entrepreneur conference where they will attend various sessions and learn from well known entrepreneurs, before leading a presentation for a chance to win a fourth consecutive national title.

Wildcat Ventures and CEO took the initiative to apply for the national CEO awards about a month ago, when the applications were posted. Wildcat Ventures applied for the Outstanding Chapter Revenue Generating Initiative Award, and CEO applied for Global Chapter of the Year, which they have won for the past three years.

The application to the competition required the prior submission of an essay from Wildcat Ventures and a 5-minute video from CEO explaining each part of the organization. The top three submissions are asked to present at the competition.

The conference begins on Thursday, where the executive teams will give a 5-8 minute presentation for each award. The executives for Wildcat Ventures are President Courtney Eubank, Vice President Evan Beck and CFO Shelby Watson. The executive team attending the conference to represent CEO consists of Meredith Orr, Cammie Seaman, Caroline Fairly and Greg Johnston.

Courtney Eubank, president of Wildcat Ventures and senior accounting and music major from Phoenix, Ariz., said organizing the presentation took only about two weeks of planning because the revenue data was already well known to them. 

“The interesting part about this is that we are actually presenting last year’s information,” Eubank said. “Last year we came up with $109,000 in revenue and redistributed it into how much we pay back to our employees. This isn’t as much about how much money you make. It’s more about how are you inspiring entrepreneurship and just sharing with them what our company has to offer.”

Eubank said she remembers attending the CEO Global Conference last year and watching as conference members approached Jack Oduro, 2017 President of Wildcat Ventures, with praise over ACU’s student-led business structure.

“It just is so cool because you get there and are competing against nationwide schools,” Eubank said. “For me, it’s been this idea that we are this tiny school in Abilene, Texas, and we’re competing against schools that are much larger. But somehow we have put the work in, we’ve developed enough, we’ve gained enough ground that we’re beating these schools. Not to sound cliché, but if you put the work in, you can do anything.”

The teams will find out at the presentation ceremony if they placed in Friday afternoon’s competition and will attend conferences for the remainder of the time. The group will return to campus on Saturday after the conclusion of the conference.

“I am excited for an opportunity to represent ACU in a public forum,” said Evan Beck, vice president of Wildcat Ventures and senior financial management major from Celina. “The exposure it creates should encourage more students to come to ACU to explore a career in entrepreneurship.”