For the past four years, Deloitte Luxembourg has been the proud organiser of the Young Women Challenge, asking young female students currently enrolled at either a business school or University to help answer the following question: “By 2020, women will represent 48 percent of the active population, yet fewer and fewer women are choosing careers in audit and consulting; how can organisations ensure a healthy gender balance and thus a high performing management team?”

This year more than 90 teams (270 applicants) from various schools and universities applied, and throughout the process, the finalists were boiled down to 12 teams from many different schools: SKEMA Paris, Sciences-Po Bordeaux, NEOMA Rouen, HEC-ULg, HEC Paris, Rhein - Waal University of Applied Science, IESEG Lille, Wilfrid Laurier University, Politecnico di Milano, NEOMA Reims and Tilburg University.

It was the first time we have opened up the challenge to all students at universities and business schools regardless of their location, and the input was extraordinary,” stipulated Valerie Gouin, Director at Deloitte Luxembourg, “we will certainly keep this in mind for next year”.

On Friday 2 December, the 36 finalists were invited to Deloitte Luxembourg to present their projects and at the same time get a thorough introduction to the inner workings of the firm, a networking session with professionals and a CV and interview training session. The jury consisted of both male and female partners representing the different service lines at Deloitte Luxembourg complemented by Valérie Debouché, Advisor at the Ministère de l'Egalite des chances.

At 17:30, the winners were announced by Christiane Chadoeuf and Valerie Gouin, the main sponsors of the project. Charlotte Cayrel, Rosalie Druelle and Maya Prager, from IESEG Lille and Camille Desson, Clémence Soignies and Lara Kollikowski, from Sciences-Po Bordeaux each won an internship at Deloitte Luxembourg. Two teams ranked 3rd: Victoria Barbosa, Maria Caucci and Giulia Valsecchi (exchange students at Audencia Business School from Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada and Politecnico di Milano in Italy) and Aude Lacoste, Mathilde Gauthier and Marie Zammit from IESEG Lille. These students won a recruitment training session at Deloitte Luxembourg.

It’s always very inspiring to meet these young women and hear their great ideas on how they want to shape their future work place,” explained Christiane Chadoeuf, Partner at Deloitte Luxembourg, “and we are already looking into how we can implement these ideas.”