Felix Turrell

Discover Economics’ Young Economist of the Year award, which is sponsored by KPMG, took place on 12 October at KPMG’s offices in Canary Wharf. Felix, who was one of five students across the UK to reach the final, would showcase his work at this event to compete to be published in the Financial Times!

The finalists were given 10 minutes to present their work, which will be followed by a five-minute discussion with a panel of judges. Alongside this presentation, students are asked to submit an 800-word blog, which if a finalist is successful, will be the piece that will be published in the Financial Times.

As one of only five finalists from over 2000 entries across the UK, Felix was invited to His Majesty’s Treasury for a discussion with Sam Beckett, the Chief Economic Advisor to the Treasury. Here, he was delighted to learn about the plethora of opportunities that are available when working as an economist in the Civil Service!

Afterward, Felix had a tour of Number 10 and 11 Downing Street, which he said was a “‘truly unforgettable and surreal experience”.

In preparation for the final, Felix had to prepare his work that would be shown in two different formats: an 800-word summary of his extended essay and a PowerPoint presentation to show in front of a crowd and judges.

The final was held at the KPMG headquarters in Canary Wharf, where the five finalists presented their work in a 10-minute presentation in front of an esteemed panel of judges and an audience.

This included, Sarah Smith OBE, Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol and Co-Chair of Discover Economics; Heather Sharp, a Partner at KPMG; Lizzy Burden, a UK Correspondent at Bloomberg; Arun Advani, an Associate Professor at the University of Warwick and Co-chair, Discover Economics; and Chris Giles, who is an Economics Commentator at the Financial Times.

Felix informed us that he was very pleased with his performance on the day, receiving excellent feedback on both the “depth of his economic analysis” and his presentation skills, in which he had “control over the whole room”.

This year, for the first time, the competition was open to teams, which ranged between one and five people. In the final, there were three groups of two, one group of five, and Felix. Despite not winning the overall competition, Felix felt ‘extremely proud’ to have been the only solo student in the final!

Congratulations Felix, your experience at the Royal Economic Society’s Young Economist of the Year Award 2023 sounds fantastic. Getting so far in this competition is something you should truly be proud of!