NEW YORK : At the Spencer Educational Foundation reception, Spencer’s Executive Director Megan Miller announced Appalachian State University student team as the winners of the 2022 Spencer-RIMS Risk Management Challenge. The team, comprising four risk management students, competed against 18 other universities and delivered the award-winning risk management presentation in front industry leaders at RISKWORLD™ in San Francisco.

Members of Appalachian State University’s winning team included:

·       Madison Browne         

·       Benjamin Kolodny

·       Addisyn Sharkey

·       Omar Gonzalez

·       Academic Advisor: Lorilee Medders 

“Beyond the outstanding presentations delivered by our participating students, we saw undeniable passion and the desire to become, not just members but, leaders in the risk management and insurance profession,” said Megan Miller.  “Spencer is so proud to provide students with opportunities to learn, grow and succeed and we sincerely congratulate Appalachian State and all of our competing teams.”

“Our Challenge competitors are inspiring and, year-after-year, skillfully articulate complex risk management solutions to address a world of evolving risks,” said RIMS CEO Mary Roth. “Appalachian State and our other competing teams continued to instill confidence that the global risk community’s future is bright. RIMS is proud to collaborate with Spencer to strengthen the pipeline of future business leaders.”

The challenge began with 18 universities, eight months ago, who were each presented with a risk management case-study, provided by the executive risk management team at Starbucks Corporation. During the conference, the field was narrowed to three and those finalists presented one last time in front of risk professionals at RISKWORLD.

Second place in this year’s Challenge was St. Mary’s University (Texas) and the third-place team was Peking University (China).  The first-place university received $4000, second $3,000 and third $2,000.

For more information about opportunities and resources developed for risk management students, visit RIMS Student Resource Center at www.rims.org/community/students.  For more information about Spencer, visit www.Spencered.org.

The Spencer Educational Foundation

The Spencer Educational Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization funding the education of tomorrow’s risk management and insurance leaders through scholarships, grants, internship opportunities, on and off campus experiential learning, and support of risk management/insurance curricula. Since Spencer was founded in 1979, we have awarded nearly $9 million in scholarships and over $7 million in grants to universities and professional institutions impacting an estimated 70,000 students through our programming. For more information, please visit us at www.spencered.org.