Collegiate DECA UW-Madison Chapter

Collegiate DECA at UW-Madison

Founded in 2007, Collegiate DECA at UW-Madison has seen a tremendous amount of growth throughout the past few years. DECA is an “organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management in high schools and colleges around the globe.” Our chapter primarily focuses on professional development, giving back to the community, and business competitions at the state and international level, competing against some of the top college students in the world. Our organization is open to business and non-business undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Our chapter holds a number of professional and community events each year. We invite business professionals from the Madison and Milwaukee area to come in and speak to our members about their career experiences and give industry insight and advice. Previous speakers include companies such as Baker Tilly, TekSystems, American Family Insurance, and Epic. We also volunteer at various food pantries such as Second Harvest and at various high school DECA events including the district competitions.

With a focus on developing the next generation of business leaders, we have been home to two former Wisconsin Collegiate DECA state officers (Zach McGovern and Alexis O’Connell) and two current state officers (Jeremy Erickson and Melissa Okus). Our chapter officer teams create a strategic plan each spring highlighting recruitment, financial decisions, event planning, and competition. Our alumni work all over the country from Wisconsin and Illinois, to Colorado and New York. They have continued to do great things in the business world including working for Target, EY, BMO, Kohl’s, and many other leading industry companies as Product Managers, HR Directors, Account Executives, and a variety of other roles.

Competitively, our chapter is known as one of the premier chapters in the Midwest. Our competitors have brought back over 30 state championships over the course of the past two years along with over 5 international championships throughout our chapter’s history. In 2020 alone, our chapter brought home a record breaking 13 state championships, with a total of 23 top-3 finishes and having all of our competitors qualify for the International Career Development Conference for the second year in a row. Despite the cancellation of the 2020 Collegiate DECA International Career Development Conference, our members continued to show their competitive success by competing in the virtual Collegiate DECA Innovation Challenge, where they presented case-studies by creating videos in one of four events. With nearly 100 competitors, our chapter had 6 overall finalists with 4 of our members placing and 3 of those members winning 1st (Finance, Hospitality, and Operations).

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