'The Next CEO' To Be Crowned Monday

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (April 17, 2008) – Ten Smeal College of Business students will compete Monday in front of an audience of hundreds of their peers, friends, and family members to earn the title of The Next CEO.

The eighth annual academic competition, which is sponsored by PNC, gets underway at 7 p.m. in Presidents Hall at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel.

Weeks of research will pay off for the ten competitors as they each take the stage to play the role of chief executive of a global corporation, leading their company through complex business crises and major international disruptions. To succeed, the contestants must possess a solid understanding not only of the companies they're representing, but also of the world's political and economic climate.

To prepare for the undertaking, Smeal’s office of Career and Corporate Services took 14 semifinalists to Washington, D.C., in February to study alongside experts in international economics and politics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a leading think tank. CSIS scholars engaged the students on topics including global oil economics, the Middle East conflict, and China’s growing economic presence.

The focal point of the CSIS visit was a multimedia presentation by Erik Peterson, senior vice president of CSIS, on the organization's Seven Revolutions project. The Seven Revolutions are major global trends projected by Peterson and his colleagues to drastically alter the world out to the year 2025, and they form the backdrop of the Next CEO competition.

At the conclusion of the Washington trip, each student was assigned a corporation, which they study up until the day of the competition, when they must answer questions posed by Peterson and a panel of executive judges.

Each student will have only a couple of minutes to respond to the questions. The judges will eliminate students in several rounds until there is one student remaining who will be crowned The Next CEO.

This year's contestants are Chafik Abdellaoui, a senior majoring in economics: Gregory Blumenkranz, a senior majoring in finance; Douglas Burke, a senior majoring in supply chain and information systems; Diego Granillo, a junior majoring in finance; Blaine Hauser, a junior majoring in finance; Michael Morgan, a senior majoring in management; Santosh Sankar, a sophomore majoring in finance; Andrew Spicher, a junior majoring in supply chain and information systems; Jack Sun, a junior majoring in finance and economics; and Jessica Walton, a senior majoring in marketing.

The judges for this year's competition are Ame Cameron, new business development manager, Shell Oil Products U.S.; Henry Long Jr., senior vice president, procurement, Altria Group; Julie McHugh, company group chairman, R&D and commercial, worldwide virology business, Johnson & Johnson; Thomas K. Whitford, chief administrative officer, The PNC Financial Services Group; and John Wolfe, vice president and treasurer, Dick's Sporting Goods.

The competition, which opens with Peterson's presentation on the Seven Revolutions, is free and open to the public.

For more information, visit www.smeal.psu.edu/thenextceo.