The CHRO Challenge

Overview

You don't just manage a team. You inherit one — mid-crisis.

Attrition is rising. A competitor just raised salaries. The CEO wants costs cut. Your best people are already looking at the door.

Run HR for a company that's coming apart at the seams. Think you can hold the team together?

Intro

The CHRO Challenge is an immersive HR Strategy & Crisis Simulation where teams take over as the HR leadership of a company already in trouble — and have to keep it, and its people, together.

This isn't a slide-deck case competition. You'll build a real strategy under real constraints, then watch it get tested live as the business world changes around you. Competition rises. Costs get cut. People threaten to walk. Every decision you make carries forward into what you face next.

Your goal is simple: lead the company through 2 days of escalating HR crises — and walk into the Boardroom with a strategy you can actually defend.

No HR background required. No do-overs once a crisis round starts.

Event Flow

Round 1: The Screening — Online

A fast-paced HR & business quiz testing people strategy, workforce economics, business fundamentals, and decision-making — paired with a mini case-deck submission.

• Duration: 20 minutes (quiz) + case deck, submitted same day
• Online via Unstop
• Top 10–12 teams qualify for the on-campus simulation

Round 2: The Simulation — On Campus

The top teams inherit the same company case and navigate a live, 2-day HR journey. Teams make decisions across:

• People Strategy & Workforce Planning
• Budget & Compensation Trade-offs
• Culture, Engagement & Retention
• Crisis Response
• Stakeholder Negotiation

Every decision changes what happens next.

The Journey

DIAGNOSE → Look beyond the symptoms. Understand what's really broken.

STRATEGISE → Turn ideas into action — hire, upskill, retain, engage.

ADAPT → Because plans don't always survive reality. New developments hit every 15–20 minutes.

NEGOTIATE → Different perspectives. One way forward.

THE BOARDROOM (Endgame) → Defend your decisions. Convince the board.

Surviving teams enter the final Boardroom, where they must defend their strategy before a panel role-playing the CEO, CFO, and employee stakeholders.

10–12 minute Strategy Defence + 5–8 minute Hostile Q&A

Explain what you inherited, the calls you made, what blew up along the way, how you responded, and why your strategy gives this company's people — and its business — the best shot at a stronger tomorrow.

Why Participate?

Experience HR leadership rather than just discussing it. You will develop and demonstrate:

• Strategic and diagnostic thinking
• Business and budget reasoning
• Crisis and change management
• Stakeholder negotiation
• Culture and retention strategy
• Decision-making under pressure

Ideal for students interested in HR, People Strategy, General Management, Consulting, Business Analytics, and Organisational Behaviour.

No prior case-competition or HR experience is required.

Guidelines

Who Can Participate?

Students from any academic background can participate — HR, management, analytics, or any other stream. You don't need a background in HR to compete; you need judgment, nerve, and a team that can think on its feet.

• Team Size: 3–4 members
• Inter-college teams: Allowed — build your team across colleges if you want to.
• Inter-specialization teams: Allowed and encouraged — a mix of HR, management, and analytics perspectives is an advantage, not a requirement.
• Format: Round 1 is fully online; Round 2 is in-person and mandatory for both days for shortlisted teams.

Bring together different perspectives and decide whether this company's people — and its business — grow, survive, or come apart.

Rules

• Teams must register together, with 3–4 confirmed members, before the Round 1 deadline.
• The Round 1 quiz must be attempted in a single sitting within the timer; re-attempts are not allowed. Case-deck submissions must be original team work.
• Shortlisting decisions are made by the organising committee and judges and are final.
• Shortlisted teams must be present in person for the full duration of both days of Round 2 — missing a live session means disqualification, barring genuine emergencies.
• All round deliverables must be submitted before the stated deadline; late submissions may be penalised or excluded from judging.
• Once a decision is locked in during a live crisis round, it cannot be revisited — teams must live with the consequences as the simulation continues.
• Boardroom time limits are strict — running over on your Strategy Defence cuts directly into your Q&A time.
• All scoring decisions by the judges and Game Masters are final.
• The organising committee reserves the right to make reasonable changes to format, timing, or case content, with prior notice to all teams.

Think you can keep the team together?