As a way to explore potential career directions, the sisters Karen Z (Gr. 10) and Norah Z (Gr. 8) decided to look for a student competition where they could combine their interests. Karen is interested in healthcare, and Norah is interested in entrepreneurship. After much research, they identified the UCLA BSN Healthcare Consulting Competition, which invites students to tackle some of today’s most pressing challenges in global health, biotech and healthcare strategy.

During the sign-up process, they realized that, because Karen is in Gr. 10, they would have to compete in the senior category. Selecting from three possible real-world challenges, they chose: L’Oréal and “Skin Health, Not Just Beauty.”

The prompt referenced the World Health Organization’s declaration of skin diseases as a global health priority, and challenged students to create a business plan for L’Oréal to launch a new skin-health-focused division, balancing medical credibility with consumer appeal through products that treat or prevent common skin conditions.

The competition gave them just two weeks to develop their strategic plan and put together a presentation.

“The opportunity we identified for L’Oréal was to reposition itself from a beauty-led company to a science-first leader in skin health by creating a unified dermatology-focused division,” said Norah.

“We saw this as an opportunity because skin conditions affect 1.8 billion people globally. Trust in traditional cosmetic marketing is declining, and there is growing demand for clinically validated, dermatologist-backed products. L’Oréal already owns trusted dermatology brands and has global scale, but lacks a cohesive health-driven strategy, making this a strong growth opportunity.”

The preliminary round of the competition required teams to submit a presentation of fifteen slides. They were selected among the eight finalists and presented live over video conference to a panel of entrepreneurs and UCLA professors.

Ultimately, they came in second place behind a team from South Korea.

“Participating in this competition pushed us to think like real founders. We learned how to validate ideas, defend our decisions under pressure, and communicate a vision with clarity. More than anything, we realized how powerful it is when science, entrepreneurship, creativity, and purpose come together to solve a real problem for real people. We’re really grateful for our teacher’s support. Ms. Lau’s feedback really helped us.”

- Karen Z.

This article is featured in the Spring 2026 edition of Bridge.