April 4, 2022

Mona, Jace from Vanderbilt Win 2022 SEC Student Pitch Competition

Top three finishing teams in 2022 SEC Student Pitch Competition.

By: SEC Staff
SECU (Twitter: @TheSECU)

COLUMBIA, SC – Vanderbilt University graduate students Max Mona and Adam Jace, founders of ESG Impact, won first place in the 2022 SEC Student Pitch Competition, hosted by the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.

ESG Impact is a business-to-business web application that assesses, educates, and integrates environmental, social, and governance best practices in private markets – both generally and in the industry. Mainly, ESG Impact works with private equity and venture capital funds to track their ESG portfolios’ performance.

“We have been building this project in stealth mode for eight months in combination with our master’s program, so to see all of these startups, and be a part of this ecosystem to share our progress is just amazing,” said Mona, a finance student at Vanderbilt. “The fact that we aligned with what the judges were looking for is a win in our book too. We are just so happy to be here.”

The 6th SEC competition was held April 3-4 and included an opening afternoon tour of the business school building and a welcome reception. A competition day, there were two rounds of pitches from all participating teams plus one additional pitch from the three finalists.

Stephan Voelk, Max Wile and Parth Vashi from the University of South Carolina finished second with Spuradix, and Spencer Parker from the University of Georgia finished third with Micro Hydro.

Established in 2015, the SEC Student Pitch Competition provides teams of SEC students at the undergraduate or graduate level a platform to showcase their ideas for ground-breaking products and services to a panel of judges – including SEC alumni – who work primarily in the business sector.

The judges for this year’s competition were Peter Brown, President, Colite; Georgianna May, Club and Concierge Supervisor, Hotel Bennett; Andrew Miles, Head of Partnerships, Joyride; Katherine O’Connor, Chief Financial Officer, Gateway Supply Company; Jonathan Peterson, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Tux on Trux; Dianne Rushing, Chief Executive Officer, AOS Specialty Contractors; Neil Salvage, Former President, Lending Tree; John Welsh, Senior Vice President, First Citizens Bank; and Lorraine Wiseman, President and CEO, Leading the Wise Way.

“Every business could have won this competition, but we are all at different stages,” said Jace, also a finance student at Vanderbilt. “I have matched with so many people today, and I cannot wait to follow everyone on LinkedIn. It has been a fantastic experience.”

The complete list of winners in the 2022 SEC Student Pitch Competition is below.

First Place Team: ESG Impact, Max Mona and Adam Jace, Vanderbilt University

Second Place Team: Spuradix, Stephan Voelk, Max Wile and Parth Vashi, University of South Carolina

Third Place Team: Micro Hydro, Spencer Parker, University of Georgia

The SEC Student Pitch Competition was first held in conjunction with the SEC Symposium in 2015 and Texas A&M University took home first place. Other competition winners include the University of Arkansas in 2017 and 2018 and Mississippi State University in 2019. The 2020 competition was conducted virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Auburn University won first place.