Santa Clara, California– From Friday, January 10th, 2025, to Sunday, January 12th, 2025, over 130 members of the Harker DECA chapter attended the Silicon Valley Career Development Conference (SVCDC), the first competitive conference of the year. During the course of the conference, students showcased business skills they have been developing throughout the year through participation in competitive events, while also attending supplemental workshops to polish their professionalism.

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“I’d say SVCDC is one of the more important conferences members should attend during the DECA season. The feedback you receive prepares you for states in the spring and gives you a reflection of the different skills you need to improve on. Overall, I loved seeing the freshmen improve since WRLC and even more so from Launch. Their success can definitely be attributed to hard work and dedication throughout the year,” said Chief Executive Officer, Sanaa Bhorkar. 

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On Friday, January 10th, students arrived at the Santa Clara Marriott Hotel at 12:30 PM. Members were treated with Jamba Juice provided by Harker DECA while studying for their upcoming tests in the afternoon. 

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Testing sessions began at 3:00 PM and lasted till 7:30 PM. Each student took exams in their respective cluster: Marketing, Business Management and Administration, Finance, Hospitality and Tourism, Personal Financial Literacy, or Business Administration Core. After testing concluded, students settled into their rooms before kicking off the conference with the Opening Session in the Grand Ballroom. 

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California DECA State Officers, VP of Silicon Valley, Aum Patel and VP of Leadership, Aaditya Jain introduced the conference schedule for the weekend and familiarized all attendees with key logistics. Next, attendees were able to hear from keynote speaker, Scott Mathie, as he gave an empowering speech about the importance of first impressions, no matter how big or small, and how they can open up endless possibilities and numerous opportunities in the future. 

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Afterwards, attendees listened to speeches from the candidates for this year’s VP of Silicon Valley, including Harker DECA competitor, Abigail-Rose Sachse (10).  The opening session closed with a DECA-themed bingo game designed to act as an ice breaker for all participating chapters at the conference. 

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Saturday, marked the start of the competitive events of the conference. Roleplays competed included Team Decision Making, Individual Series, Principles, and Personal Financial Literacy Events. As for Written Events, students participated in a wide range of competitions such as Integrated Marketing Campaigns, Operations Research, Professional Selling, Entrepreneurship, and more. After the competitions concluded for the day, students attended supplementary workshops to further develop their professional skills. 

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“This conference was definitely more serious than WRLC. I’m glad I attended and got a chance to experience real competition before going to SCDC. I was also very excited to meet people from other chapters in Silicon Valley, and I made many new friends at the different workshops,” said Austin Zhao (9). 

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Sunday marked the end of the Silicon Valley Career Development Conference. Award ceremonies were held in the Grand Ballroom, where many Harker DECA competitors were recognized for their test and presentation scores throughout the conference. 

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With a substantial number of top-three finalists at the end of the awards ceremony, Harker DECA proved to be one of the most competitively successful chapters in attendance at SVCDC 2025. 

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Members placing in the Top 3 are as follows:

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1st Place:

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Sophia Ou (11); Integrated Marketing Campaign Service

Chelsea Xie (10); Start-Up Business Plan 

Amishi Gupta (11), Tanvi Sivakumar (11); Franchise Business Plan

Shridhar Chaware (9); Principles of Entrepreneurship

Abigail-Rose Sachse (10); Apparel and Accessories Marketing Series 

Leana Zhou (11); Business Finance Series

Saahithi Koneru (10); Hotel and Lodging Management Series 

Andrew Shin (10); Personal Financial Literacy 

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2nd Place:

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Amy Tong (10); Integrated Marketing Campaign Product 

Claire Yu (11); Business Services Operations Research 

Stellan Lindh (10); Apparel and Accessories Marketing Series 

Aanya Shah (11); Business Services Marketing

Elaine Xia (10): Human Resources Management Series 

Aanya Mukherjee (10); Marketing Communications Series 

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3rd Place:

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Kai Nishimura (10), Colin Li (10); Integrated Marketing Campaign Event 

Ishani Vadali (10); Integrated Marketing Campaign Product 

Nathan Mao Hospitality and Tourism Professional Selling 

Nathaniel Idicula (10), Pratulya Rangavazzala (10), Tanay Agrawal (10); International Business Plan 

Anusha Saha (9), Arushi Mallick (9); Franchise Business Plan 

Hannah Jiang (10), Joyce Zhang (10); Business Services Operations Research

Leo Zhang (10); Finance Operations Research 

Grace Yao (9); Principles of Hospitality and Tourism 

Chelsea Xie (10); Hotel and Lodging Management Series 

David Kelly (10), Nathaniel Idicula (10); Buying and Merchandising Team Decision Making 

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About The Harker School DECA

Harker DECA is an International Competitive Business Organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in four fields of business: marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. Our DECA chapter integrates classroom instruction, applies learning, connects to business, and promotes competition in order to prepare the next generation to be academically prepared, community oriented, professionally responsible, and experienced leaders.

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Contact Information

To learn more about this story, please contact:

Kai Nishimura, Director of Communications

27KaiN@students.harker.org

deca.harker.org

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