Baris Guzel, Presidio

Letter from Baris to future VCIC organizers:

When you were planning your business school education, what did you dream of doing?

• Traveling overseas?
• Visiting Silicon Valley?
• Learning about the hottest innovations?
• Meeting top MBA students from all around the world? Even better managing them?
• Making friends from all around the world?
• Interacting with venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs?
• Observing high profile VCs evaluating up-and-coming startups?
• Having a multicultural leadership experience that will prepare you for your post MBA career?

I was able to do all of the above and more, thanks to the VCIC (Venture Capital Investment Competition). VCIC is a global venture capital competition among 70+ top business school students from three continents, where the students act as venture capitalists and evaluate real startups, while being assessed by real venture capitalists. I worked as “VCIC Global Coordinator”, a title that didn’t even exist before I started working for VCIC. In a nutshell, I managed regional competitions around the world along with the global finals in our UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. As a part of my job, I’ve managed relationships with venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, sponsors, partner schools and MBA students. Also, being an eager MBA, I stepped up and took more responsibility than what was given. I got involved in the recruitment of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, re-design of the competition format and the web sites, standardization of the regional competitions, centralization of the registration process and creation of more social media presence.

During my time, I traveled to the regional competitions in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Paris and Barcelona, among others. Moreover, I built the necessary relationships and led the expansion of the competition in Asia. As a result, we managed to organize our first VCIC regional competition in Shanghai, China, with the help of CEIBS, our partner university, in 2015! Throughout my time at VCIC, I have made friends from all around the world.

All in all, VCIC has been by far my favorite experience at business school, and I can’t think of another experience that could prepare me better for my post MBA career in San Francisco Bay Area. Thanks to my position, I also had the unique opportunity to work closely with our Strategy & Entrepreneurship professor Patrick Vernon, helped found the VCIC Fellows program and recruit a group of talented MBAs. Every second, I felt that it was a privilege to work in the position and interact with such an amazing group of people. I enjoyed every bit of it. Am I going to miss VCIC? Absolutely. Yet, I don’t think I’ll ever give up being involved in it!