This press release was issued from the Seneca County CEO program on 4/15/2022.
A local youth entrepreneur was recently Honorable Mention in a National Pitch Competition, where she competed alongside over 260+ other high-school-aged entrepreneurs for a share of $4,000 in cash prizes.
Madison Beard from Seneca East and a participant of the Seneca County CEO (Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities) program, made an official submission to the 2022 National Pitch Competition, alongside 5 other local Seneca CEO Students.
The other submissions from the Seneca County Program were made by CEO Participant(s), Shayden Heiser from Seneca East for his beef business Heiser Cattle Company, Ashton Hemminger from Calvert High School for her marketing consulting business AJ & Co., Natalie Johnson for her clothing business All Shapes ’N Sizes, Kaidan Mathias from Mohawk High School for her mental health non-profit Buddy Systems and Lauren Moyer from Mohawk High School for her dog walking business Leashes by Lauren.
Madison Beard has been working alongside her fellow CEO Participants all year to ideate and
create her business, Bars by Mads.
With this award, she receives $50 in cash prizes that can be invested back into her business concept, as well as a collection of resources to support them in their entrepreneurial journey.
The CEO program is an accredited entrepreneurship education course available to Seniors from all local Seneca County Schools. The class is never held in school, rather, participants meet five days a week for 90 minutes in local businesses.
Throughout the school year, the CEO program takes students out of the classroom and into
local businesses, allowing them to meet with community leaders, exposing them to dozens of
guest speakers, and providing them with mentors who coach them through the process of
starting and running a business.
Each student leaves the program having created two businesses - a class business, a
collaborative effort among all current participants which takes place in the first half of the year,
and an individual business, which participants focus on developing during the second semester
of the course.
In the 2022 National Pitch Competition, Madison Beard shared her business through a recorded, 30-second video, which was taken in one continuous shot and then uploaded to a secure platform for judging.
Submissions for the competition were reviewed by a community of over 70 CEO stakeholders from across the country comprised of CEO board members, CEO Alumni, local business owners, and mentors.
The top pitches were announced on a live webinar on April 13th, 2021, during which these highlevel judges awarded the winners and provided comments and expert advice to students on
pursuing their entrepreneurial path forward.
About CEO (Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities)
Midland Institute’s “CEO program” is entrepreneurship education that seeks to prepare people,
especially youth, to be responsible, enterprising individuals who become entrepreneurs or
entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic development and sustainable communities.
The CEO program is much more than a textbook course. Rather, students are immersed in reallife learning experiences with the opportunity to take risks, manage the results, and learn from
the outcomes.
