Winners of Fall 2023 Baruch Data Challenge with Pitney Bowes Discuss Strategies They Used to Give a Successful Presentation

Connor Dooling is pursuing a master’s in Statistics with a concentration in Data Science.
Fun Fact: Connor enjoys spending time outside.

Fengchu Lai is pursuing a master's in Business Analytics with a concentration in Data Analytics.
Fun Fact: Fengchu moved to the United States at the age of 15.

Hrithik Shukla is pursuing a master’s in Business Analytics with a concentration in Data Analytics.
Fun Fact: Hrithik likes to follow various sports, such as boxing.

Giving presentations is not exactly everyone’s forte. Speaking to an audience, trying to keep them engaged, and trying not to look and sound like a fool all at the same time can be stressful. Giving team presentations, especially in a competitive environment, is not any less anxiety-inducing. In addition to the three stressors, team members must coordinate with one another so that they perform as one cohesive unit. In the most recent Baruch Data Challenge with Pitney Bowes, winning team members Connor Dooling, Fengchu Lai, and Hrithik Shukla did just that. Together, they overcame nervousness and successfully delivered a project, winning two awards for Baruch College (represent!).

Just before Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to sit with the winners of the Challenge and learn some of the strategies they used to work and present well as a team. I hope you will find their insights and advice as useful as I did, whether you are preparing for a competition or simply preparing an academic or professional presentation:

Connor, Fengchu, and Hrithik had one particular challenge in the Challenge: develop a model that would accurately forecast revenue over a six-month horizon for Pitney Bowe’s 52 clients. So, within four weeks, they put together their best model and sent a video presentation of their findings to the judges. To their pleasant surprise, the team learned that their model was the most accurate of all models submitted. In fact, their model surpassed the accuracy standards that Pitney Bowes had in place. And so, the team made it to round two and soon thereafter, the team put their heads together again to perfect their work before giving a final presentation at Pitney Bowe’s headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.

When I asked how the team prepared for their presentation, the members stated that they met regularly to discuss, delegate, and work on various parts of the project. They had a mix of scheduled and impromptu calls in which they gave one another feedback and made sure that all members were on the same page. They also had numerous rehearsal sessions, reviewing the contents of their project, preparing for possible questions from the judges, and practicing their public speaking skills.

“How did you handle any presentation nerves prior to the presentation?” I asked.

“I [was] the most nervous person [in the group] because this was the first time I [had to give] a presentation to a company,” Fengchu replied. To overcome these presentation nerves, she suggested taking deep breaths and practicing before presenting.

Hrithik added, “Know your personal style. I don’t memorize the entire content before [presenting]… I know exactly the order of things that I [must] present...” In essence, understand your project well.

Connor agreed to this: “Be confident in knowing your slides and the material. If you’re not confident in what you’re presenting, then you won’t come off as confident when you’re presenting... Take the time to be familiar with what you’re going to say.” He then admitted to being a nervous presenter, even when he knows what he wants to say. But he also kept in mind that audiences do not often pick up on a presenter’s nervousness. “When you’re up presenting, just know that you don’t sound as nervous as you think...”

“We were the most confident and well organized [group],” Hrithik claimed. Being organized throughout the entire competition and practicing really helped them in the end.

“What exactly made you nervous?” I then asked.

For Fengchu, it was the fact that they had to present before judges and that the overall environment was competitive.

“For me,” Connor answered, “It’s just being the center of attention––I don’t like people looking at me.” He also added that, “It’s nerve-wracking...You think [the judges] are going to pick apart your presentation and results. There’s always an allocated time for questions at the end and you think they are going to make you go into the nitty-gritty and explain yourself, but it’s not an interrogation. [They are] just follow-up questions.”

Hrithik was nervous about presenting the business insights of their project: “I wanted to be sure about what I was [saying].”

Yet despite their nervousness, the team’s presentation was perfectly aligned with Pitney Bowe’s expectations.

When asked how they prepared for questions at the end of their presentation, the team said they added an appendix to their presentation slides. Connor also pointed out, “We only had ten minutes to present. We did three weeks' worth of work, so I think expanding upon something you couldn’t get to in the ten minutes is important to add to the questions.”

Later in the interview, Connor added that his biggest struggle during construction of the presentation was trying to find the ‘so what’. “We had the model, we had our predictions, we had our insights. However, I found it a struggle to connect it altogether so that we can confidently give it to the data science team [and some] non-technical data science people we were presenting to...” The team had to connect all their analytical findings to business applications and most importantly, find the overarching ‘why’ to keep their audiences engaged.

I then asked what advice the team could give to students who find themselves nervous before and while presenting. Fengchu advised students to do their work consistently, to persevere and keep going: “Don’t just give up in the middle.”

In the context of a competition, Hrithik stated, “You really don’t know what to expect until you [arrive to a competition]." He also said to “keep an open mind” as well as to be “relentless because there are a lot of solutions that you will come up with that may not actually work.” Further, Hrithik pointed out that “sometimes you [must] put the group first...As a group, you can achieve the results you want to achieve.”

“It’s a competition and you did sign up for it,” Connor said with a slight smile. “So have fun. Move fast. You’re going to do things that you don’t use in the end, things are going to break, it might get frustrating. [But] if you just look at it as a learning experience, to grow and to have fun, you don’t know what can come of it. We wound up winning! I didn’t expect it.”

Connor, Fengchu, and Hrithik have shown that it takes much organization, coordination, and practice to develop and deliver a successful presentation, especially before judges in a competitive environment. But after interviewing the winners of the Baruch Data Challenge with Pitney Bowes, I observed that it also takes determination, resilience, and open-mindedness. And by putting into practice some of the strategies that the team shared with us, I have no doubt that we will also end up being winners––competing or not.

Elizabeth Moy is a graduate student in the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College, pursuing an MA in Corporate Communications. She is also a College Assistant with the Zicklin Graduate Career Management Center.